Frenemies: That Annoying Portmanteau Explains How The Libyan Rebels Are Al Qaeda!

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This handsome devil is Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi. He's the Libyan "rebel" leader and he said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime no allegedly aligned with us, the good guys. Here's what the Telegraph reported just yesterday.

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".

Now, how's that for a headline? You know, it would sure be embarrassing for Ol' POTUS if the news sheeple broke from the pack and reported that we're actually backing al Qaeda's AQIM. Maybe some of our reporters and the like should read the papers. Let's start with this Sify News report here, shall we?

The fall of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi might see the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorist groups filling up the void, US analysts have said.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that was branded by the US as a terrorist organisation in May 2010 has been operating from its base in Algeria, and has now extended its reach to the borders of Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Chad and Libya, Fox News reports.

Gaddafi had earlier not only provided intelligence on the terrorists' operations to the US, but has also publicly spoken out against them.

Branding the group members as 'bad Muslims', Gaddafi said: "The security forces found a mosque in al-Zawiya. In a mosque! Weapons, alcohol, and their corpses - all mixed up together."

Now that the Libyan dictator has gone into hiding, many analysts have raised concerns whether southern Libya will become a magnet for jihadist groups.

Cully Stimson, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who is now a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that the al-Qaeda affiliate might turn out to be an adaptive enemy.

"AQIM has found their niche. They are going to exploit that to the degree they can. They have the ability in the strategic interest in moving and being adaptable. One of the most high-profile cases was a British hostage Edwin Dyer, who was murdered after lengthy negotiations for his release stalled," Stimson added.

US Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz has described the AQIM as a "danger to the region".

If you're having a hard time getting your head around who are the good guys and the bad guys, let's add to that confusion. The Guardian (that's right, Sparky, foreign media) reported this in 2002.

British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.

The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth , published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998.

According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Now, in a moment of admitted "I Told You So," this is my March 21st PIX 11 News Commentary. 'Twas three days after the commencement of Operation Here We Go Again. And with great journalistic fanfare I merely read what international media sources and experts said about Libya, thus ignoring altogether anything from the snap-crackle-and-pop form of pathetic and feckless journalism that the impuissant media outlets are forced to produce. Watch at the 1:27 mark, I make it very clear who the rebels are.