Source: Al-Qaeda-Trained Terrorists Sent to Syria from Waziristan

FarsNews

Al-Qaeda, backed by Turkey, the US and its regional Arab allies, has set up a new camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Salafi and Jihadi terrorists and dispatches them to Syria via Turkish borders, sources said.

"A new Al-Qaeda has been created in the region through the financial and logistical backup of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and a number of western states, specially the US," the source told FNA.

Ali Mahdian told FNA that the US and the British governments have been playing with the al-Qaeda through their Arab proxy regimes in the region in a bid to materialize their goals, specially in Syria.

He said the Saudi and Qatari regimes serve as interlocutors to facilitate the CIA and MI6 plans in Syria through instigating terrorist operations by Salafi and Arab Jihadi groups, adding that the terrorists do not know that they actually exercise the US plans.

"Turkey has also been misusing extremist Salafis and Al-Qaeda terrorists to intensify the crisis in Syria and it has recently augmented its efforts in this regard by helping the new Al-Qaeda branch set up a camp in Northern Waziristan in Pakistan to train Al-Qaeda and Taliban members as well as Turkish Salafis and Arab Jihadis who are later sent to Syria for terrorist operations," said the source.

He said the camp in Waziristan is not just a training center, but a command center for terrorist operations against Syria.

Yet, the source said the US and Britain are looking at the new Al-Qaeda force as an instrument to attain their goals and do not intend to support them to ascend to power, "because if Salafi elements in Syria ascend to power, they will create many problems for the US, the Western states and Turkey in future".

"Thus, the US, Britain and Turkey are looking at the Al-Qaeda as a tactical instrument," he said, and warned of the regional and global repercussions of the US and Turkish aid to the Al-Qaeda and Salafi groups.

"Unfortunately, these group of countries have just focused on the short-term benefits that the Salafis and the Al-Qaeda can provide for them and ignore the perils of this support in the long run," he said.

"At present, the western countries, specially Britain which hosts and controls the Jihadi Salafi groups throughout the world are paving the ground for these extremists to leave their homes - mostly in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Untied Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as those who live in Europe and the US - for Waziristan," the source added.

In relevant remarks, Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi last week blamed certain states, the Salafis and the Al-Qaeda for terrorist operations which have claimed the lives of thousands of people in his country, and said terrorist groups supported by certain foreign actors are misusing differences in his country to bring Syria into turmoil.

Addressing the 16th heads-of-state summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) here in Tehran on Thursday, the Syrian premier noted terrorist attacks on his nation, and said the "terrorists are backed up by certain foreign states".

"Many countries allege to be supporting peaceful solutions in Syria, but they oppose Annan's plan in practice," he said, and cautioned, "The responsibility for the failure of this plan lies on their shoulder as they strove to keep the Syrian crisis going and falsified events."

"The world should know that the Syrian crisis, in fact, rises from foreign meddling. Certain well-known countries from inside and outside the region are seeking instability of Syria," the Syrian prime minister complained.

Elaborating on the recent developments in Syria, al-Halqi said, "It has been proved that foreign-backed terrorist groups have been misusing events and killing the innocent people."

"These terrorists include Salafis and Al-Qaeda Takfiri groups," he reiterated, and added, "Those states that support terrorism and oppose talks should be given moral and economic punishments as they are part of the problem in Syria."

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

In October, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of stirring unrests in Syria once again.

The US and its western and regional allies have long sought to topple Bashar al-Assad and his ruling system. Media reports said that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups battling the President Bashar al-Assad's government have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

Opposition activists who several months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons - most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military in the past - has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.

TrapWire tied to White House, Scotland Yard, MI5 and others, claims hacked Stratfor email

Russia Today

An email hacked from Stratfor that discusses the use of the TrapWire surveillance system has been decrypted, revealing insider claims that the widespread spy program was adopted by the White House, Scotland Yard, Canadian authorities and others.

When WikiLeaks published a trove of correspondence last week reported to be from the servers of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, included in the data dump was at least one email that initially appeared as pure gibberish. The communiqué, sent from Stratfor Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton to seven other staffers within the private firm, has now been decoded, however, and its content suggests that the TrapWire surveillance program was put into the hands of the most elite and powerful governments and law enforcement agencies in the entire world.

The email, dated September 23, 2010, includes a string of correspondence between Burton and more than half-a-dozen colleagues exchanging information for a full day about how Stratfor is distributing feeds from its TrapWire system and with whom. Although encoded, the emails are encrypted in Base64 format, which can easily be decodedonline. A decoded copy has also been uploaded to the Web by hacktivists aligned with Anonymous.

“Chatted with Mike M, the TW [TrapWire] operator and former CIA crony,” Burton writes in the first email included in the encrypted chain. “He said our feed was taking up 25% of the TW screens inside the client command posts and that the feedback they are getting is that the info being pushed in is more geo-pol centered vice tactical-security.”

“How can we fix?  Who is auditing what is going in the pipe?” Burton asks his cohorts.

Stratfor is reported to have had a contract directly with the developers of TrapWire that allowed them a substantial cut of their profits in exchange for their assistance in promoting their product to high-ranked customers, other emails published by Wikileaks as part of the Global Intelligence Files suggest. One file included in the trove, a partnering agreement between Stratfor and TrapWire’s parent group, Abraxas, provides Burton and company with an 8 percent referral fee for any businesses they help sign on to the surveillance system [pdf].

The first reply to the encrypted Burton email is from Beth Bronder, whose public LinkedIn profile documents her as serving as the senior vice president of government & corporate solutions at Stratfor until November of that year. She was only at the agency for ten months before moving to Bloomberg Government and then the CQ – Roll Call Group, where she is listed as an employee today.

According to the decrypted emails, Bronder says that Stratfor is on top of trying to fix the feed being streamed to TrapWire clients in order to make it more “security focused” per his superior’s suggestion, but when Burton responds with the names of customers involved in the surveillance program, it is no wonder why Stratfor was so eager to entice their buyers with the best material available.

“This audience is the who's who of the CT world,” the email from Burton reads, referring to counterterrorism. “TW has RCMP, MI5, Scotland Yard SO15, USSS White House and PPD, LAPD, NYPD, Las Vegas PD and Fusion, Seattle PD, SEA-TAC…etc.”

Since breaking the news of TrapWire last week, the science-fiction-like surveillance system has slowly but surely penetrated the mainstream media, although few agencies have responded to the attention by addressing their connection with TrapWire. Earlier this week, though, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne flatlyrefuted on behalf of the NYPD to the New York Times, “We don’t use TrapWire.” According to Burton’s claim, however, the NYPD was indeed a customer as of September 2010, as were the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, British intelligence and the US Secret Service and White House.

Other information collected in the last week have also suggested that the NYPD was in cahoots with TrapWire, but no correspondence is believed to have been published linking the surveillance system with the Executive Branch of the United States or any agencies in Canada. Although an unencrypted email from Burton that was circulated by hacktivists last week includes the claim that TrapWire was installed on the site of every major high-value target in the continental US, UK and Canada, no other correspondence is thought to have put these specific agencies in direct connection to TrapWire.

In the next line, Burton explains that intelligence caught by TrapWire was being fed directly to these high-profile customers, bypassing any complication that could arise by a more bureaucratic distribution. He even acknowledges that problems could be put in play if they relied on sending their surveillance to the US Department of Homeland Security or lesser government agencies.

“Our materials are on their screens INSIDE the walls,” Burton writes. “We circumvent the dysfunctional DHS/DC by having our info already on their 24x7 screen.”

“We need to laser focus pieces to capture their attn.  Maybe even a video,” Burton adds. “Trust me, the agents and cops watching the TW feed WANT something interesting to see.”

In a 2005 interview with The Entrepreneur Center, Richard “Hollis” Helms, co-founder of TrapWire developers Abraxas, says the system “can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition, draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas that may be under observation from terrorists.” He calls it “a proprietary technology designed to protect critical national infrastructure from a terrorist attack by detecting the pre-attack activities of the terrorist and enabling law enforcement to investigate and engage the terrorist long before an attack is executed,” and that, “The beauty of it is that we can protect an infinite number of facilities just as efficiently as we can one and we push information out to local law authorities automatically.”

In a unencrypted email from September 26, Burton writes that the “NYPD has done what no US Govt Agency has been able to do” in the counterterrorism arena because of TrapWire.”

Since the TrapWire scandal broke, Stratfor has kept mum on the allegations that they were directly affiliated with a widespread, international surveillance program, and are probably inclined to follow the tactic proposed by the head of the security firm earlier this year. In February, Stratfor CEO and founder George Friedman addressed the hack credited to Anonymous, saying, “Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies,” but, also, “Some may be authentic.”

“We will not validate either, nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questions about them,” Friedman said.

Towards A "Soft Invasion"? The Launching of a "Humanitarian War" against Syria

Global Research
Michel Chossoduvsky

The Obama administration, in liaison with London, Paris, Tel Aviv and NATO headquarters in Brussels, is mulling over various military "intervention options" directed against Syria, including the conduct of both naval and air operations in support of "opposition" rebel forces on the ground.

The US and its impervious British ally are on a "humanitarian war footing".

Allied forces including intelligence operatives and special forces have reinforced their presence on the ground in support of the opposition's "Free Syrian Army" (FSA).  The British Ministry of Defense is reported to be "drawing up contingency plans in case the UK decides to deploy troops to the volatile region".

Naval and air force deployments have already been announced by the British Ministry of Defense.  According to London's news tabloids, quoting "authoritative" military sources; "...The escalating civil war [in Syria] made it increasingly likely that the West would be forced to step in. " ( Daily Mail, July 24, 2012)

An Iraq-style "shock and awe" bombing campaign is, for practical reasons, not being contemplated: "defence analysts warned that a force of at least 300,000 troops would be needed to carry out a full-scale intervention [in Syria]. Even then, this would face fierce resistance. ..." (Ibid)

Rather than carrying out an all out Blitzkrieg,  the US-NATO-Israel military alliance has chosen to intervene under the diabolical R2P frame of "humanitarian warfare". Modelled on Libya, the follow broad stages are envisaged:

A US-NATO backed insurgency integrated by death squads is launched under the disguise of a "protest movement" (mid-March 2011 in Daraa) British, French, Qatari and Turkish  Special Forces are on the ground in Syria, advising and training the rebels as well as overseeing special operations. Mercenaries hired by private security companies are also involved in supporting rebels forces .

The killings of innocent civilians by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are deliberately carried out as part of a covert intelligence operation. (See SYRIA: Killing Innocent Civilians as part of a US Covert Op. Mobilizing Public Support for a R2P War against Syria, global Rsearch, May 2012).

The Syrian government is then blamed for the resulting atrocities. Media disinformation is geared towards demonizing the Syrian government. Public opinion is led into endorsing a military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Responding to public outrage, US-NATO is then "forced to step in" under a Humanitarian "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) mandate.  Media propaganda goes into high gear. "The International Community" comes to the rescue of the Syrian people."

Warships and fighter jets are then deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean. These actions are coordinated with logistical support to the rebels and Special forces on the ground.

The final objective is "regime change" leading to the "break-up of the country" along sectarian lines and/or the installation of an "Islamist-dominated or influenced regime" modelled on Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

War plans in relation to Syria are integrated with those pertaining to Iran. The road to Tehran goes through Damascus. The broader implications of US-NATO intervention are military escalation and the possible unleashing of a regional war extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia, in which China and Russia could be directly or indirectly involved.
Stages 1 through 4 have already been implemented.

Stage 5 has been announced.

Stage 6 involving the deployment of British and French warships to the Eastern Mediterranean is slated to be launched, according to the British Ministry of Defense, in "later Summer".  (See Michel Chossudovsky, The US-NATO War on Syria: Western Naval Forces Confront Russia Off the Syrian Coastline? Global Research, July 26, 2012.

Phase 7, namely "regime change" --which constitutes the end game of humanitarian warfare-- has been announced on numerous occasions by Washington. In the words of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, referring to President Bashar Al Assad: "It's no longer a question of whether he's coming to an end, it's when."

The End Game: Destabilizing the Secular State, Installing "Political Islam"

The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security (RUSI), a London based think-tank, with close links to both Britain's Ministry of Defense and the Pentagon. has intimated  that "some sort of western [military] intervention in Syria is looking increasingly likely... " What RUSI has in mind in its Syria Crisis Briefing entitled A Collision Course for Intervention, is what might be described as "A Soft Invasion" leading either to a "break-up of the country" along sectarian lines and/or the installation of an "Islamist-dominated or influenced regime" modelled on Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Several "scenarios" involving "clandestine" intelligence operations are put forth. The unspoken objective of these military and intelligence options is to destabilize the secular State and implement, through military means, the transition towards a post Assad "Islamist-dominated or influenced regime" modelled on Qatar and Saudi Arabia:

"A better insight is needed on the activities and relationships of Al-Qa’ida and other Syrian and international Salafist jihadists that are now entering the country in increasing numbers. The floodgates are likely to open even further as international jihadists are emboldened by signs of significant opposition progress against the regime. Such elements have the support of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and would undoubtedly have a role in Syria following the collapse of Assad. The scope of their involvement would need to be factored into intervention planning. (Ibid, p. 9, emphasis added)

While recognizing that the rebel fighters are outright terrorists involved in the killing of civilians, the RUSI Briefing, invoking tactical and intelligence considerations, suggests that allied forces should `nonetheless support the terrorists. (i.e. the terrorist brigades have been supported by the US led coalition from the very outset of the insurgency in mid-March 2011. Special Forces have integrated the insurgency):

"What military, political and security challenges would they [the jihadists] then present in the country, to the region and to the West? Issues include the possibility of an Islamist-dominated or influenced regime inheriting sophisticated weaponry, including anti-aircraft and anti-ship missile systems and chemical and biological weapons that could be transferred into the hands of international terrorists. At the tactical level, intelligence would be needed to identify the most effective groups, and how best to support them. It would also be essential to know how they operate, and whether support might assist them to massacre rivals or carry out indiscriminate attacks against civilians, something we have already witnessed among Syrian opposition groups." (RUSI - SYRIA CRISIS BRIEFING: A Collision Course for Intervention, London July 2012, emphasis added, p. 9 )

The foregoing acknowledgment confirms the US-NATO's resolve to use "Political Islam" --including the deployment of CIA-MI6 supported Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups -- to pursue their hegemonic ambitions in Syria.

Covert operations by Western intelligence in support of "opposition" terrorist entities are launched to weaken the secular state, foment sectarian violence and create social divisions. We will recall that in Libya, the "pro-democracy" rebels were led by Al Qaeda affiliated paramilitary brigades under the supervision of NATO Special Forces. The much-vaunted "Liberation" of Tripoli was carried out by former members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

Military Options and Actions. Towards a "Soft Invasion"?

Several concrete military options --which largely reflect ongoing Pentagon-NATO thinking on the  matter-- are contemplated in the RUSI Syria Crisis Briefing. All these options are based on a scenario of "regime change" requiring the intervention of allied forces in Syrian territory. What is contemplated is a "Soft Invasion" modelled on Libya under an R2P humanitarian mandate rather than an all out "shock and awe" Blitzkrieg.

The RUSI Briefing, however, confirms that continued and effective support to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels will eventually require the use of  "air power in the form of fighter jets and sea, land and air launched missile systems" combined with the influx of Special Forces and the landing of "elite airborne and amphibious infantry" (Ibid, p 16.)

This transition towards concrete naval and air power support to the rebels is no doubt also motivated by the setbacks of the insurgency (including substantial rebel losses) following the backlash by government forces in the wake of the July 18 terror attack against the National Security headquarters in Damascus, which led to the death of the Minister of Defense General Daoud Rajha and two other senior members of the country's national defense team.

Various overlapping military actions are envisaged, to be carried out sequentially both prior and in the wake of  the proposed "regime change":

"The top-of-the-range option, destruction of the Syrian armed forces through an Iraq-style ‘shock and awe’ invasion, could undoubtedly be achieved by a US-led coalition. As with all other forms of intervention, however, handling the aftermath would be far less predictable, and could draw coalition forces into a long-running and bloody quagmire. At present that option can be excluded as a realistic possibility. ... There is no doubt that the substantial neutralisation of Syria’s air defence infrastructure could be achieved by a US-led air operation. But it would require a major, sustained and extremely costly campaign including Special Forces deployed on the ground to assist targeting. ...

The remaining intervention options fall broadly into three sometimes overlapping categories. ... The first category is military enforcement action to reduce or end the violence in Syria, ... to prevent Assad’s forces from attacking the civilian population by direct [military] action. [RUSI ignores the fact that the killings are committed by the FSA rather than by government forces, M.C.].

The second is seeking to bring about regime change by a combination of support for opposition forces and direct military action. The second category might apply in the aftermath of regime collapse. The objective would be to support a post-Assad government by helping to stabilise the country and protect the population against inter-factional violence and retribution. ... A stabilisation force would be deployed at the request of the new government. In any intervention scenario there might be a need to either destroy or secure Syria’s chemical weapons, if they were about to be used, transferred or otherwise made insecure. This would require such specialised and potentially substantial combat forces, it is likely to be a mission that only the US could execute. [Reminiscent of Iraq's WMD, the pretext of Syria's chemical weapons is being used to justify a more muscled military intervention, M.C.]

The third category is humanitarian relief – bringing in supplies and medical aid to besieged populations. .... This form of intervention, which would most likely be conducted under the auspices of the UN, would require aid agencies such as the International Red Crescent as well as armed military forces including air power, again perhaps based on a NATO coalition. Humanitarian relief might be needed before or after a change of regime. (See RUSI - SYRIA CRISIS BRIEFING: A Collision Course for Intervention, London July 2012, emphasis added, p.9-10 )

"Humanitarian relief" is often used as a pretext to send in combat units. Special forces and intelligence ops are frequently dispatched in under an NGO cover.

Concrete US-NATO Military Actions

Does the RUSI Briefing reflect the current outlook of US-NATO military planning in relation to Syria?

What concrete military and intelligence actions have been taken by the Western military alliance in the wake of the Chinese and Russian vetoes in the United Nations Security Council?

The deployment of a powerful naval armada of French and British warships is already envisaged  for deployment at an unstipulated date "later in the Summer". (See Michel Chossudovsky, The US-NATO War on Syria: Western Naval Forces Confront Russia Off the Syrian Coastline?, Global Research, July 26, 2012)

The British Ministry of Defense, however, has intimated that Royal Navy deployments to the Middle East could only only be activated 'after" the London Olympic games. Two of Britain's largest warships, the HMS Bullwark and the HMS Illustrious have been assigned, at tremendous cost to British tax payers, to "ensuring the security" of the London Olympics.   HMS Bulwark is stationed in Weymouth Bay for the duration of the games. HMS Illustrious is "currently sitting on the Thames in central London". (Ibid)

These planned naval operations are carefully coordinated with stepped up allied support to the "Free Syrian Army", integrated by foreign jihadist mercenaries trained in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Western military alliance.

Will the US-NATO alliance launch an all out air operation?

Syria's air defense capabilities, according to reports, are based on Russia's advanced S-300 system?  (Unconfirmed reports point to the cancellation of delivery by Russia, following pressure from Israel, of the advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria) (See Israel convinces Russia to cancel Syrian S-300 missile deal: official, Xinhua,  June 28, 2012) Reports also suggest the installation of an advanced Russian radar system. (See  Report: Russia Sent Syria Advanced S-300 Missiles, Israel National News, November 24, 2011).

Who is fighting in Syria? Journalists Lie Than Admit That They’ve Been Manipulated

The 4th Media
Thierry Meyssan

Though the Western press portrays the Free Syrian Army as an armed revolutionary group, for more than a year Thierry Meyssan has affirmed that it is on the contrary a counter-revolutionary body. According to him, it would have progressively passed from the hands of reactionary monarchies in the Gulf to those of Turkey, acting for NATO. Such a non-mainstream affirmation needs demonstrative proof…

_____________________________________________

For the last 18 months, Syria has been prey to troubles that have steadily increased to become a widespread armed conflict having already killed about 20,000 people. If there is consensus on this observation, narratives and interpretations vary beyond.

For Western states and their press, the Syrians aspire to live in the Western market democracies. Following the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan “Arab Spring” models, they rose up to overthrow their dictator Bashar al-Assad. The latter suppressed the demonstrations with bloodshed. While Westerners would have liked to intervene to stop the massacre, the Russians and Chinese, out of self-interest or contempt for human life, opposed intervention.

On the contrary for all other states that are not vassals of the U.S. and for their media, the U.S. launched an operation planned a long time ago against Syria. First, through its regional allies, and then directly, they have introduced armed bands, modeled on the Contras in Nicaragua, that have destabilized the country.

But they found only very weak domestic support and were routed while Russia and China prevented NATO’s destroying the Syrian army and reversing the regional equation.

Who is telling the truth? Who is wrong?

Armed groups in Syria do not defend democracy, they fight against it

First, the interpretation of Syrian events as an episode of the “Arab Spring” is an illusion because this “spring” has no basis in reality. This is an advertising slogan to positively present unrelated facts. Although there has been a popular revolt in Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain, there was none in neither Egypt nor Libya.

In Egypt, the street demonstrations have been limited to the capital and parts of the middle class; never, absolutely never, have the Egyptian people identified with the telegenic spectacle of Tahrir Square [1]. In Libya, there was no political revolt, but a separatist movement in Cyrenaica against the power of Tripoli, and the military intervention of NATO, which cost the lives of about 160,000 people.

The Lebanese station NourTV has been very successful airing a series of broadcasts by Hassan Hamade entitled “The Arab Spring, from Lawrence of Arabia to Bernard-Henri Levy.”

The authors develop therein the idea that the “Arab Spring” is a remake of the “Arab Revolt” of 1916-1918 orchestrated by the British against the Ottomans. This time, Westerners have manipulated situations to upset a generation of leaders and impose the Muslim Brotherhood.

In fact, the “Arab Spring” is false advertising. Now, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Gaza are governed by a brotherhood; on the one hand imposing a moral order and on the other supporting Zionism and pseudo-liberal capitalism, that is to say the interests of Israel and the Anglo-Americans. The illusion was dispelled. Some authors, like Syria’s Said Hilal Alcharifi, now deride the “NATO spring“.

Secondly, the leaders of the Syrian National Council (SNC) as well as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) commanders are not democratic at all, in the sense that they would be favourable to “a government of the people, by the people, for the people“, according to Abraham Lincoln’s formula taken from the French Constitution.

Thus, the first president of the SNC was the Paris academic, Burhan Ghalioun. He was in no way “a Syrian opponent persecuted by the regime” since he circulated freely in and out of his country.

Nor was he a “secular intellectual” as he claims, since he was the political advisor to the Algerian Abbassi Madani, President of the Islamic Salvation Front (ISF), now a refugee in Qatar.

His successor, Abdel Basset Syda [2] entered politics only in the last months, and immediately established himself as a mere executor of US wishes. Upon his election as head of the SNC, he pledged not to defend the will of his people, but to implement the “road map” that Washington drew up for Syria: The Day After.

                                                        Logo of the “Free Syrian Army”

Nor are the Free Syrian Army fighters champions of democracy. They recognize the spiritual authority of sheikh Adnan Alrour, a takfirist preacher, who calls for the overthrow and killing of Assad, not for political reasons but simply because Assad is of the Alawite faith, that is to say a heretic in the preacher’s eyes.

All of the identified officers in the FSA are Sunnis and all of the FSA brigades are named after historical Sunni figures. The “revolutionary tribunals” of the FSA sentence their political opponents to death (and not only supporters of Bashar al-Assad) and they slaughter the unbelievers in public. The FSA program is to end the secular regime installed by the Baath, the SSNP and the Communist Party in favor of a pure religious Sunni regime.

The Syrian conflict was premeditated by the West

The western will to end Syria is known and it is quite sufficient to explain current events. Let us recall some facts that leave no doubt as to the premeditation of these events [3].

CIA Arming Syrian Insurgents

War Is a Crime
Stephen Lendman

Homs Massacre

On June 21, The New York Times headlined "CIA Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition," saying:

Operating covertly from southern Turkey, CIA operatives are "decid(ing) which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers."

Weapons supplied include "automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition, (and) antitank weapons...."

They're smuggled across Turkey's border through "a shadowy network of intermediaries...."

They're also entering through Lebanon.

Muslim Brotherhood officials are involved. So are Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, other Gulf States, Jordan and Israel.

Obama denies what other US officials confirm.

A knowledgeable unnamed Arab intelligence operative said:

"CIA officers are there and they are trying to make new sources and recruit people" to help topple Assad.

Turkish army vehicles are used to transport weapons and munitions to border areas. From there they're smuggled into Syria.

Turkish officials deny what confirmed evidence shows they're doing.

The New York Times article failed to explain what's been ongoing since violence erupted early last year.

Throughout the conflict, NATO's been waging covert war. Washington directs everything. Israel, France and Britain are directly involved. So are Gulf States, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon's March 14 alliance, and other Arab League countries.

In January 2012, British media confirmed that MI6 and CIA operatives were training Syrian insurgents. US, British, French, and Qatari special forces are involved.

They're recruiting, funding, equipping, arming, training, and directing insurgents. They're choosing targets. They're responsible for recent massacres and terrorist bomb attacks.

Last February, Mossad-connected DEBKAfile said:

"British and Qatari special operations units are operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus, according to debkafile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources."

They're "tactical advisers." They're "manag(ing) rebel communications lines." They're involved in supplying "arms, ammo, fighters and logistical aid."

They're operating from Homs, Bab Derib, Rastan, and Bab Amro. 

Iran claims U.S. planned internet attack

Washington Times
Jon Norwood

DALLAS, June 21st, 2012 — Heydar Moslehi, the Iranian Intelligence Minister, claimed on Thursday that a planned cyber-attack against their nuclear facilities was detected.  Moslehi said the United States, Britain, and Israel worked together to plan the attack and were referred to as arch enemies of Iran on their state television. This statement came directly following a failed summit between Iran and other world powers over Iran's controversial nuclear program.

"Based on obtained information, America and the Zionist regime along with the MI6 planned an operation to launch a massive cyber-attack against Iran's facilities following the meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Moscow," said Moslehi on Iran's press TV. He continues that, "They still seek to carry out the plan, but we have taken necessary measures".

This claim was quickly refuted by the chairman of the House intelligence committee Mike Rogers. At a Bloomberg Government conference in Washington Rogers said, "The United States does not use offensive capabilities. We just don’t do it," in reference to cyber-attacks.

What can be construed as offensive might be in question however. According to The New York Times President Obama ordered attacks on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities as early as 2008, continuing an earlier program started by President George W. Bush. These attacks were said to have used a worm referred to as Stuxnet by cyber-security experts. The purpose of this malware was to target the centrifuges used to enrich uranium in order to slow down the growth of the Iranian nuclear program. These claims were said to have been made by former government officials that would not allow their names to be used due to the classified nature of the information.

What specific attack the Iranian Intelligence Minister is referring too now is unknown as is the method that was too be used. The United States has not openly admitted to any involvement in this but the defense department has recently been gearing up to use the Internet to fight terrorism.

Special report: Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials

The Guardian
Ian Cobain

In 2004, Fatima Bouchar and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, were detained en route to the UK, and rendered to Libya. This is the story of their imprisonment, and the trail of evidence that reveals the involvement of the British government

Just when Fatima Bouchar thought it couldn't get any worse, the Americans forced her to lie on a stretcher and began wrapping tape around her feet. They moved upwards, she says, along her legs, winding the tape around and around, binding her to the stretcher. They taped her stomach, her arms and then her chest. She was bound tight, unable to move.

Bouchar says there were three Americans: two tall, thin men and an equally tall woman. Mostly they were silent. She never saw their faces: they dressed in black and always wore black balaclavas. Bouchar was terrified. They didn't stop at her chest – she says they also wound the tape around her head, covering her eyes. Then they put a hood and earmuffs on her. She was unable to move, to hear or to see. "My left eye was closed when the tape was applied," she says, speaking about her ordeal for the first time. "But my right eye was open, and it stayed open throughout the journey. It was agony." The journey would last around 17 hours.

Bouchar, then aged 30, had become a victim of the process known as extraordinary rendition. She and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a Libyan Islamist militant fighting Muammar Gaddafi, had been abducted in Bangkok and were being flown to one of Gaddafi's prisons in Libya, a country where she had never before set foot. However, Bouchar's case is different from the countless other renditions that the world has learned about over the past few years, and not just because she was one of the few female victims.

Documents discovered in Tripoli show that the operation was initiated by British intelligence officers, rather than the masked Americans or their superiors in the US. There is also some evidence that the operation may have been linked to a second British-initiated operation, which saw two men detained in Iraq and rendered to Afghanistan. Furthermore, the timing of the operation, and the questions that Bouchar's husband and a second rendition victim say were subsequently put to them under torture, raise disturbing new questions about the secret court system that considers immigration appeals in terrorist cases in the UK – a system that the government has pledged to extend to civil trials in which the government itself is the defendant.

British troops support Syrian armed groups in Homs

PressTV

An intelligence report says that British are providing logistic support to armed terrorist groups in the Syrian city of Homs in their bloody battle against civilians and the Syrian army forces.

The report published by Debka-file, which is widely believed to have close links to Israeli intelligence sources, revealed that British and Qatari forces supply ammunition and direct tactical support to armed groups in Homs to prepare the ground for a covert Turkish military operation in Syria.

According to the report, the presence of British and Qatari forces in Homs was high on the agenda during a Tuesday meeting between Syrian officials and the head of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov.

Secret Intelligence Service MI6, which collects Britain’s foreign intelligence, has also set up four bases in Homs to facilitate Turkey’s secret military operations in the Arab state.

While Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani made a proposal in January to deploy troops in Syria, Britain insists that it does not seek military action against the Syrian government.

Britain’s presence in Syria is a highly debated parliamentary issue in that country as the British government will have to bear another heavy burden of war if it carries out a Libya-style military operation in Syria.

Homs, one of the main focuses of terrorist groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has witnessed a number of acts of deadly violence since the beginning of the unrest in the country 11 months ago.

Meanwhile on Thursday, eight Syrian government forces were killed by armed terrorist groups in Homs and Idleb.

In recent days violence has been raging in Homs, where Syrian media say over 100 government troops have been killed.

The Syrian government has repeatedly accused several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of fueling the unrest in the country by providing armed gangs with weapons and financial resources to incite civil war and topple the government of President Bashar al-Asad. 

Centuries of open justice threatened by secret courts

The Independent
Andy McSmith and Kim Sengupta

Government rewrites judicial principles after lobbying by CIA

Secret justice looks set to be a regular feature of British courts and tribunals when the intelligence services want to protect their sources of information.

Civil courts, immigration panels and even coroner's inquests would go into secret session if the Government rules that hearing evidence in public could be a threat to national security.

The proposals, which run counter to a centuries-old British tradition of open justice, were introduced to a sparsely attended House of Commons yesterday by the Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke – and met almost no opposition. The planned changes to the British justice system follow lobbying of the Government by the CIA.

Civil rights groups warned a serious potential threat to individual liberty lurked behind the all-party consensus.

Mr Clarke is seeking to protect the Government from a repeat of a fiasco which has cost tens of millions of pounds and led to a breakdown in co-operation between British intelligence and an enraged CIA.

The best-known case involved Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in Guantanamo Bay for five years, and started a claim for damages from the UK Government, which he accused of complicity in torture.

The Court of Appeal released a summary of CIA intelligence which supported Mr Mohamed's claim that British intelligence officers knew about the torture of suspected terrorists.

The CIA was furious and halted the flow of information from its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and other US agencies apart from in the most serious cases. MI6 and the Foreign Office also received complaints from a number of other allied states anxious that information provided on a confidential basis would leak into the public domain.

Faced with irate colleagues at Langley, the British Government paid out to 16 terrorist suspects, to prevent further damage to US-UK relations. Yesterday, Mr Clarke let slip that the cases had already cost around £20m. Another 30 are in prospect because, he told MPs, "it is becoming fashionable" to challenge the Government in court.

Officials have privately complained that they cannot defend these cases without compromising sensitive intelligence, which means suspected terrorists have been able to use the civil courts as a "cashpoint".

If Mr Clarke's proposals are agreed, the power of the courts to order the intelligence services to disclose sensitive material will be curtailed. The Government is also planning to pass a law giving itself much more latitude to use what are called "closed material proceedings" in civil court cases and immigration tribunals, meaning the people at the centre of such cases would not be allowed to hear any evidence that MI5 or MI6 did not want them to hear. The material would, however, be examined by special advocates with security clearance.

There is also the prospect of grieving relatives being security vetted before they are allowed into inquests in cases which might involve sensitive material, such as the death of a terrorist suspect. If they refuse to be vetted, they would be barred.

Mr Clarke went out of his way to avoid a clash with Labour by reminding them that he was dealing with a problem they had to face in government, and emphasising that his Green Paper was "very green".

Mr Clarke told MPs: "The Government is clear that under the current system, justice is not being served and our national security is being put at risk. For justice to be done and the rule of law to be upheld, courts should be able to consider all the facts of the case. At the moment, we are not always getting at the truth because some evidence is too sensitive to disclose in open court."

CNN tells journalists in Libya “Don’t mention al Qaeda or you’ll get killed”

(FEDERALJACK) On 08-22-2011 Independent journalist Mahdi Nazemroaya told RT how people working for CNN told him not to talk about al-Qaeda being part of the rebels or he would be killed. Journalist Thierry Meyssan has reported that these same individuals are actually working for the CIA and MI6.

Memo reveals intelligence chief's bid to fuel fears of Iraqi WMDs

Sir John Scarlett was chairman of the joint intelligence committee
before serving as head of MI6 from 2004 to 2009.

Guardian
Chris Ames

Sir John Scarlett wanted dossier to strengthen case for war

The senior intelligence official responsible for Tony Blair's notorious dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction proposed using the document to mislead the public about the significance of Iraq's banned weapons.

Sir John Scarlett, who as head of the Joint Intelligence Committee was placed "in charge" of writing the September 2002 dossier, sent a memo to Blair's foreign affairs adviser referring to "the benefit of obscuring the fact that in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional".

The memo, released under the Freedom of Information Act, has been described as one of the most significant documents on the dossier yet published.

The disclosure supports the evidence of the former intelligence official Michael Laurie, who told the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war that it was widely understood that the dossier was intended to make a case for war and misrepresented intelligence to this particular end.

The role of the Joint Intelligence Committee is to present impartial intelligence-based advice to ministers. Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of communications, told Scarlett that the dossier's credibility depended on it being seen to be the work of Scarlett and his team of experts.

But the 2004 Butler review found that the published dossier had presented a more certain case on Iraq's weapons than was set out in the committee's reports. In spite of this, Scarlett went on to be head of MI6.

Scarlett's memo was sent to Sir David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser, in March 2002 after an early draft of the dossier had been drawn up covering four countries with "WMD programmes of concern": Iraq, Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, had commented that the paper "has to show why there is an exceptional threat from Iraq. It does not quite do this yet." In response, Scarlett suggested that the dossier could make more impact if it only covered Iraq. "This would have the benefit of obscuring the fact that in terms of WMD Iraq is not that exceptional," he wrote.

Iraq dossier drawn up to make case for war – intelligence officer

Guardian

Newly released evidence to Chilcot inquiry directly contradicts Blair government's claims about dossier

A top military intelligence official has said the discredited dossier on Iraq's weapons programme was drawn up "to make the case for war", flatly contradicting persistent claims to the contrary by the Blair government, and in particular by Alastair Campbell, the former prime minister's chief spin doctor.

In hitherto secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care."

His evidence is devastating, as it is the first time such a senior intelligence officer has directly contradicted the then government's claims about the dossier – and, perhaps more significantly, what Tony Blair and Campbell said when it was released seven months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Laurie, who was director general in the Defence Intelligence Staff, responsible for commanding and delivering raw and analysed intelligence, said: "I am writing to comment on the position taken by Alastair Campbell during his evidence to you … when he stated that the purpose of the dossier was not to make a case for war; I and those involved in its production saw it exactly as that, and that was the direction we were given."

He continued: "Alastair Campbell said to the inquiry that the purpose of the dossier was not 'to make a case for war'. I had no doubt at that time this was exactly its purpose and these very words were used."
Laurie said he recalled that the chief of defence intelligence, Air Marshal Sir Joe French, was "frequently inquiring whether we were missing something" and was under pressure. "We could find no evidence of planes, missiles or equipment that related to WMD [weapons of mass destruction],
generally concluding that they must have been dismantled, buried or taken abroad. There has probably never been a greater detailed scrutiny of every piece of ground in any country."

The document is one of a number released by the Chilcot inquiry. They include top secret MI6 reports warning of the damage to British interests and the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the UK if it joined the US-led invasion of Iraq.

However, a newly declassified document reveals that Sir Kevin Tebbit, then a top official at the Ministry of Defence, warned the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, in January 2003 that the US would "feel betrayed by their partner of choice" if Britain did not go along with the invasion.

Despite its concerns, MI6 told ministers before the invasion that toppling Saddam Hussein "remains a prize because it could give new security to oil supplies".

Laurie's memo raises questions about the role of Sir John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, who later became head of MI6.

"Our Man in Tripoli": US-NATO Sponsored Islamic Terrorists Integrate Libya's Pro-Democracy Opposition

Global Research
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Concepts are Turned Upside Down: The US-NATO military alliance is supporting a rebellion integrated by Islamic terrorists, in the name of the "War on Terrorism"...

There are various factions within the Libyan opposition: Royalists, defectors from the Qadhafi regime including the Minister of Justice and more recently the Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa, members of the Libyan Armed Forces, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) and the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO) which acts as an umbrella organization.  

Rarely acknowledged by the Western media, Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi Libya, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), is an integral part of the Libyan Opposition.

The Libyan Interim Council does not constitute a clearly defined entity. It is based on the representation from newly created local councils established to "manage daily life in the liberated cities and villages". (The Libyan Interim National Council » The Council’s statement)

Opposition forces are in large part made up of an untrained civilian militia, former members of the Libyan armed forces, together with the trained paramilitary Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is aligned with Al Qaeda, is in the frontline of the armed insurrection. 


The Al Qaeda Network as an Instrument of US-NATO Intervention

Both the LIFG as an entity as well as its individual members are categorized by the UN Security Council as terrorists. According to the US Treasury: "The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group threatens global safety and stability through the use of violence and its ideological alliance with al Qaida and other brutal terrorist organizations" (Treasury Designates UK-Based Individuals, Entities Financing Al Qaida -Affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group - US Fed News Service, February 8, 2006).

Concepts are turned upside down. Both Washington and NATO, which claim to be waging a "War on Terrorism", are supporting a "pro-democracy movement" integrated by members of a terrorist organization.

In a cruel irony, Washington and the Atlantic Alliance are acting in defiance of their own anti-terrorist laws and regulations.

Moreover, support under "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) to opposition forces integrated by terrorists is implemented pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which is blatant violation of UNSC resolution 1267. The latter identifies the Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), as a terrorist organization.

In other words, the UN Security Council is in clear violation not only of the UN Charter but of its own resolutions. (The Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee - 1267).

Historical Origins of The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)

Amply documented, the "Islamic jihad" has been covertly supported by the CIA since the onslaught of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, Montreal, 2005).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

"In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels." (Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992)

The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Al-Jama’a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, was founded in Afghanistan by Veteran Libyan Mujahideens of the Soviet-Afghan war.
From the outset in  the early to mid-1990s, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) performed the role of an "intelligence asset" on behalf of the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Starting in 1995, the LIFG was actively involved in waging an Islamic Jihad directed against the secular Libyan regime, including a 1996 attempted assassination of Muamar Qadhafi. 

"Former MI5 operative, David Shayler, revealed that while he was working on the Libya desk in the mid-1990s, British secret service personnel collaborated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is connected to one of Osama bin Laden’s trusted lieutenants. LIFG is now considered a terrorist group in the United Kingdom." (Gerald A. Perreira, British Intelligence Worked with Al Qaeda to Kill Qaddafi, Global Research, March 25, 2011, emphasis added)

Guerrilla-style terrorist attacks, allegedly with the support of MI6, were routinely conducted against Libyan government security forces, police and military personnel:

"Fierce clashes between [Qadhafi's] security forces and Islamist guerrillas erupted in Benghazi in September 1995, leaving dozens killed on both sides. After weeks of intense fighting, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) formally declared its existence in a communiqué calling Qadhafi's government "an apostate regime that has blasphemed against the faith of God Almighty" and declaring its overthrow to be "the foremost duty after faith in God." This and future LIFG communiqués were issued by Libyan Afghans who had been granted political asylum in Britain... The involvement of the British government in the LIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains the subject of immense controversy. LIFG's next big operation, a failed attempt to assassinate Qadhafi in February 1996 that killed several of his bodyguards, was later said to have been financed by British intelligence to the tune of $160,000, according to ex-MI5 officer David Shayler. While Shayler's allegations have not been independently confirmed, it is clear that Britain allowed LIFG to develop a base of logistical support and fundraising on its soil. At any rate, financing by bin Laden appears to have been much more important. According to one report, LIFG received up to $50,000 from the Saudi terrorist mastermind for each of its militants killed on the battlefield." [2005] (Quoted in Peter Dale Scott, Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their Patrons? Global Research, March 2011, emphasis added) 

There are contradictory reports as to whether the LIFG is part of Al Qaeda or is acting as an independent jihadist entity. One report suggests that in 2007 the LIFG became "a subsidiary of al Qaeda, later assuming the name of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).(See Webster Tarpley, The CIA’s Libya Rebels: The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq, Global Research, March 2011)

Continuity in US and Allied Intelligence Operations: Al Qaeda Operatives in Yugoslavia

Since the Soviet-Afghan war, the Al Qaeda network has served as an "intelligence asset" for the CIA. Confirmed by a 1997 US Senate document, Al Qaeda operatives were used by the Clinton administration to channel support to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the early 1990s. (See US Senate, Republican Party Committee, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1997/iran.htm, 1998)

Amply documented, The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was supported by NATO, had developed extensive ties to the Islamic terror network. (US Senate, Republican Party Committee, The Clinton Administration Sets Course for NATO Intervention in Kosovo, 1998, http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1998/kosovo.htm, See also Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, Montreal, 2005).

Al Qaeda in Yugoslavia served as an intelligence asset in the context of NATO's "humanitarian war". Terrorist organizations were covertly supported and funded. In 1999, the NATO intervention came to the rescue of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which was integrated by Al Qaeda operatives. (US Republican Party Committee documents on Kosovo, op cit):   

"One of the most disturbing aspects of the present [terrorism] crisis [1998 in Kosovo] is that it may have been triggered by our own inept foreign policy in Bosnia and Kosovo. There, beyond all common sense, we find ourselves championing Muslim factions who draw support from the very Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups who are our mortal enemies elsewhere" (Col. Harry G. Summers, "Bringing terrorists to justice," Washington Times, December 8, 1998, emphasis added. The late Col. Harry G. Summers (USA-Ret.) (1932-1999) was a Distinguished Fellow at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA.)

Is Libya's Operation Odyssey Dawn part of a US-NATO pattern? Support an insurgency integrated by terrorists with a view to justifying intervention on humanitarian grounds to "save the lives of civilians"?

This was NATO's justification for intervening in Bosnia and Kosovo. What lessons for Libya?
Former Head of Libyan Intelligence "Double Agent" Moussa Koussa Defects to the UK
The LIFG was supported not only by the CIA and The British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) but also by factions within Libya's intelligence agency, led by former intelligence head and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who defected to the United Kingdom in late March 2011.

Assistant U.S. Secretary
of State William J. Burns

In October 2001, the head of Libyan Intelligence, Moussa Koussa, met Assistant U.S. Secretary of State William J. Burns. The Koussa-Burns encounter was of crucial importance. Present at the meetings were senior CIA and MI6 officials, including Sir John Scarlett, who at the time (October 2001) was head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) of the Cabinet, reporting directly to Prime Minister Tony Blair. The JIC oversees, on behalf of the British government, the setting of intelligence priorities for MI6, MI5 and Defense Intelligence.

"Our Man in Tripoli" Moussa Koussa was to perform the role of a double agent. In secret meetings with Sir John Scarlett, it was "agreed that a British agent could operate in Tripoli". (Libya defector Moussa Koussa was an MI6 double agent, Sunday Express, April 3, 2011)

The development of the LIFG as a paramilitary jihadist movement as well its integration into anti-Qadhafi opposition forces bears a direct relationship to the central role played by double agent Moussa Koussa, who was instrumental in crafting close bilateral ties with the CIA and MI6.  

Sir John Scarlett, former
head of Britain's MI6

In this regard, Moussa Koussa's defection in late March has all the appearances of a carefully staged operation. In an unusual twist, the deal was negotiated with the British government through the intermediation of a former leader of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who is now working with a London-based human rights foundation:

Noman Benotman, a friend of Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, has told the BBC how he helped organise his defection from the Gaddafi regime.

Mr Benotman used to be a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group but now works for the counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation.

He said he believed Mr Koussa would be negotiating with the British government and was very co-operative regarding intelligence.

The BBC's Gordon Corera added that the British government was in a dilemma over how to treat Mr Koussa because of his background as head of Libyan intelligence.
Mr Benotman told BBC Breakfast how he helped Koussa defect and how they used to be rivals. (BBC Breakfast April 1, 2011, emphasis added)

Ironically, Benotman was recruited as a Mujahideen to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war. He was one of the founders of the LIFG in Afghanistan. Focussing on issues of "counter-extremism", Benotman is currently a Senior Analyst at the Quilliam Foundation. His present responsibilities include reaching out "to current and former extremists and using Quilliam as a platform from which to share his inside knowledge of al-Qaeda and other Jihadist groups with a wider audience."
 
The CIA "Counterterrorism Program" in Libya

The bilateral ties established between the CIA-MI6 and Libyan intelligence in October 2001 provided Western intelligence agencies direct access and oversight within Libya, through its pro-US counterparts in Libya's intelligence agency led by Moussa Koussa. This agreement enabled Western intelligence to effectively infiltrate the Libyan Intelligence Agency which was under the helm of an MI6 Double Agent.

According to the US State Department in a 2008 report, the Libyan government “has continued to cooperate with the United States and the international community to combat terrorism and terrorist financing... U.S. officials hope to extend counterterrorism assistance to Libya during FY2010 and FY2011..." (See Christopher M. Blanchard, Libya: Background and U.S. Relations, US Congress Research Service, July 16, 2010).

In 2009, Libyan Intelligence and the CIA established a joint counterterrorism program whereby Libyan intelligence officials would receive counterterrorism training by the CIA. This program was part of an agreement negotiated by Moussa Koussa with the CIA. It was also intended (in theory) to disband the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), with the support of  CIA intelligence operatives. Bear in mind the ambiguity of CIA "counterterrorism": the launching of the LIFG in Afghanistan in the early to mid 1990s was part of a CIA project to create a Libyan arm of its Al Qaeda network.

Also in 2009, the imprisoned leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) allegedly renounced their armed struggle waged against the Qadhafi regime in an agreement reached with Libyan security officials. (New jihad code threatens al Qaeda, CNN, November 2009)
What was the role of the US-Libya counterterrorism program from Washington's perspective?
Officially, it was to identify the names of LIFG members and disband the LIFG as an organization. In practice, the US-led operation in Libya, including the training of Libyan intelligence officials under CIA auspices, provided the Agency with a convenient smokescreen for conducting intelligence operations inside Libya.

The training program enabled the CIA to infiltrate and acquire trusted counterparts within Libyan intelligence.
The 2009 Counterrorism program bears a direct relationship to the March 2011 Rebellion. It enabled the Agency, together with the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), to provide covert support to the LIFG in anticipation of the March 2011 armed insurrection. 

The media suggests that the LIFG was disbanded (following the implementation of the CIA-sponsored counterterrorism program). There is no evidence to that effect. The LIFG remains on the (updated March 24, 2011) United Nations Security Council terror list:

QE.L.11.01. Name: LIBYAN ISLAMIC FIGHTING GROUP
Name (original script):
A.k.a.: LIFG F.k.a.: na Address: na Listed on: 6 Oct. 2001 (amended on 5 Mar. 2009)

Other information: Review pursuant to Security Council resolution 1822 (2008) was concluded on 21 Jun. 2010  

(The LIFG Listing is on p. 70, http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf/consolidatedlist.pdf, Under the UNSC rules disbanded terrorist organizations are removed from the list in conformity with a delisting procedure. The LIFG has not been removed from the list). United Nations Security Council: Consolidated List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with respect to Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden, and the Taliban and other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with them (updated March 24, 2011).

Weapons and Covert Support to LIFG Rebels
There are indications that the CIA and MI6 continue to provide covert support to the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which now constitutes the frontline of  the armed insurrection against the Qadhafi regime. 

Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime...
Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”. (Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links, Daily Telegraph, March 25, 2011, italics added)

Abdul Hakim Al-Hasadi, is a leader of the LIFG who received military training in a guerrilla camp in Afghanistan. He is head of security of the opposition forces in one of the rebel held territories with some 1,000 men under his command. (Libyan rebels at pains to distance themselves from extremists - The Globe and Mail, March 12, 2011)

The US-NATO coaltion is arming the Jihadists. Weapons are being channelled to the LIFG from Saudi Arabia, which historically, since the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war, has covertly supported Al Qaeda. The Saudis are now providing the rebels, in liaison with Washington and Brussels, with anti-tank rockets and ground-to-air missiles.

Media Disinformation: Islamic Terrorists Join the Pro-Democracy Movement "in a Personal Capacity"

Admiral James Stavridis, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, has tacitly acknowledged that "American intelligence had picked up "flickers" of terrorist activity among the rebel groups... Very alarming..." But we are not dealing with "flickers". LIFG fighters constitute the backbone of the armed insurgency.

The Western media has also expressed its concern, while insisting that the Jihadists are "former" members of the LIFG  who have joined the armed struggle "in a personal capacity" rather than as members of terrorist organization. According to Benotman in an interview with CNN:

"Dozens of former LIFG fighters have now joined rebel efforts to topple Gadhafi," but he stressed that they had done so in a personal capacity rather than organizing operations as a group.

"Some Western counter-terrorism officials fret that a prolonged civil war in Libya could open up space for al Qaeda. Governments and NGOs have to be quick," says Benotman, "in helping rebel-held areas develop education, health-care and the institutions of democracy." (Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, Libyan civil war: An opening for al Qaeda and jihad? CNN, March 23, 2011)

An Al Qaeda related terrorist organization integrates the Libya pro-democracy movement? Since when do terrorists act as individuals "in a personal capacity"?

Both the LIFG as an entity as well as its individual members are categorized by the UN Security Council as terrorists under UNSC resolution 1267. (The Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee - 1267)
 
"Our Man in Tripoli"

Former head of Libyan
Intelligence Moussa Koussa

Moussa Koussa was "Our Man in Tripoli". The circumstances of his defection as well as the history of his collaboration with the CIA and MI6, suggest that for the last ten years, he has been serving US and Allied interests, including the planning of the "pro-democracy" armed insurrection in Eastern Libya.

Former head of Libyan intelligence Moussa Koussa played a central role in channelling covert support to the LIFG on behalf of his Western intelligence counterparts. Former CIA director George Tenet, while not explicitly referring to "Our Man in Tripoli", acknowledges in his 2007 autobiography that "the easing of tensions with Libya [was] one of the major successes of his tenure, as it led to cooperation between the two spy services against al-Qaeda." (quoted in Intelligence Partnership between Qadhafi and the CIA on counter-terrorism, op cit)

There should be no doubt: NATO and the LIFG are bed-fellows. The Western military alliance is supporting a rebellion integrated by Islamic terrorists, in the name of the "war on terrorism".

Who are the terrorists? In a bitter twist, while the Islamic jihad is featured by the US Administration as "a threat to Western civilization", these same Islamic organizations including the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, not to mention the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.