Posts tagged Libya
Al-Qaida militants recruiting fighting force in Libya
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AL-Qa’ida has sent militants to Libya in a bid to recruit a fighting force after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi ‘s regime, but the group has yet to gain a strong foothold there, US officials say.
The assessment of al-Qa’ida’s efforts in Libya came in response to a report by CNN television that experienced militants from the network — including a former British terror suspect — had been dispatched to the country and had managed to mobilize fighters.
US officials confirmed that al-Qa’ida had sent some members to Libya and was pushing its north African branch, al-Qa’idain the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), to promote Islamist extremism, but the practical effect remained unclear.
“Al-Qa’ida has sent some operatives, and is encouraging local affiliates — namely AQIM — to infiltrate Libya in an attempt to drum up extremist activities,” one American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
But the official said al-Qa’ida was badly damaged by a decade-long US campaign and that the extremist network found itself marginalized by a wave of popular uprisings in Libya and across the Arab world.
“When it comes to the overthrow of Gaddafi , and the Arab Spring in general, al-Qa’ida is arriving late to the game,” the official said in an email.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise that an organization so close to strategic defeat would seek opportunities to rehabilitate its image and be relevant again.
“But this is a threat we are well aware of and are working with Libyan authorities to counter.”
According to CNN, al-Qa’ida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri personally ordered a seasoned operative – a former British detainee – to Libya, the television news channel reported citing a Libyan source briefed by Western officials.
The operative, who arrived in Libya in May, has allegedly recruited some 200 fighters in the country’s east and Western intelligence agencies are tracking his efforts, CNN said.
Another operative, with European and Libyan passports, was arrested en route to Libya from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in “an unnamed country,” according to CNN.
US officials, however, could not confirm Zawahiri’s role or the estimated number of fighters recruited.
Following the collapse of Gaddafi ‘s regime in the face of an armed rebellion and a NATO-led air campaign, Western governments have voiced concern about extremists trying to exploit instability in the country or getting their hands on surface-to-air missiles.
A second US official said there was no sign al-Qa’ida was making headway in Libya.
“It is way too early for people to suggest that al-Qa’ida is going to establish a firm foothold in Libya,” said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“It is entirely conceivable they would reject out of hand any attempt by al-Qa’ida or other extremist groups to shape their future.”
A US diplomatic cable from 2008 published earlier this year by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks portrayed the eastern Libyan town of Derna as a bastion for extremists.
The ranks of al-Qa’ida in Iraq had large numbers of Libyan volunteers from the eastern area, according to documents found in Iraq.
Libya Shuts Down Internet Service Ahead of Planned Anti-Government Protests
0NEW YORK — Internet services in Libya, already spotty throughout the country’s violent upheaval, appeared completely halted in an attempt to stifle information about the insurrection.
The move, coming ahead of planned protests in Libya, appears similar to Egypt’s response to the demonstrations that led President Hosni Mubarak to step down last month. The Libyan government controls the country’s primary Internet service provider.
Arbor Networks, a Chelmsford, Massachusetts, network security company said Friday that all Internet traffic coming in and out of Libya had ceased, starting at about noon EST Thursday (1700 GMT). Google’s transparency report, which shows traffic to the company’s sites from various countries, also showed that Internet traffic had fallen to zero in Libya.
Several days into Egypt’s largely nonviolent protest, the government there shut down Internet access for almost a week. Anti-government protesters there had been using social-media services such as Facebook and Twitter to organize and share personal experiences of the unrest.
That wasn’t the case in Libya, a country where relatively few people have Internet access. Only about 6 percent of Libyans have Internet access in the home or in public places, such as Internet cafes, according to the research group OpenNet Initiative. That compares with 24 percent of Egyptians and 81 percent of people in the U.S., according to OpenNet.
As a result, services such as Facebook and Twitter have played a marginal role in galvanizing anti-government protesters, said Jillian York, who coordinates the OpenNet Initiative, a research project run by scholars at Harvard University and the University of Toronto and by the Canadian consultancy SecDev Group.
Nonetheless, because the Internet isn’t as central to everyday life in Libya, it is more likely that the few who can get online are educated, influential and using the Web to keep informed about politics, York said.
“You’ve got millions of people in Egypt using the Internet. It’s not just the few people with access are reporting on protests. It’s mommy blogging. It’s all sorts of things not related to the protests,” she said. “In Libya there’s a stronger chance they’d be focused on what’s happening right now politically.”
But the blackout will affect even those who are not politically active. The loss of Internet access will make it more difficult for Libyans, particularly those living in the capital of Tripoli, to receive updates about the uprising in other parts of the country, said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based nonprofit that promotes free expression on the Internet.
“For the people not in Tripoli the Internet is not so central in what’s become an armed rebellion,” she said. “For the people in Tripoli it’s going to further isolate them from people in other parts of the country and information about what’s happening there.”
In particular, an Internet blackout in Libya will make it tougher for people outside the country to know how the uprising is unfolding. That was likely the government’s main motivation in shutting down the Internet in a country where people are more likely to communicate using cell phones, said Richard Esguerra, policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“I think what it raises is illuminating about how desperate this act is,” he said. “Shutting off the Internet seems to be one of the last things in the playbook in terms of a dictator that’s being threatened by uprisings.”
The AP saw no evidence of cell phone disruptions in Libya on Friday though coverage has on occasion been spotty. Libya has one of the highest concentrations of cell phone users in Africa. The Libyan government owns the country’s two mobile phone operators.
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