Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links
Abdel-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 admitted he had earlier fought against 'the foreign invasion' in Afghanistan Photo: AFP
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi
admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area
in eastern Libya
to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today
are on the front lines in Adjabiya".
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".
His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda
had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and
acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then
smuggled into their sanctuaries".
Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion"
in Afghanistan,
before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan".
He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being
released in 2008.
US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in
guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.
Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the United
States military's West Point academy has said the two share an "increasingly
co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by allied
forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the
second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.
Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage of Islam" in the country.
British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the Japanese".
Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage of Islam" in the country.
British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the Japanese".
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