The Right Conservative News Site | Right Side News

Switch to desktop Register Login

Black Flags over "Arab Spring"

The Black Flags of Al Qaeda Reign over the Arab SpringLibya Shield -- a security provider to USA in Benghazi -- and the AQ flag of jihad. As Hillary Cinton testified last week: The United States has to be "effective in partnering with the non-jihadists, whether they fly a black flag or any other color flag."


Clinton replied by talking about the many reports that cross her other words, no.

Unfortunately, Marino followed up with nothing specific. For example, he could have informed the secretary of state that the report i.d.'s  the leader of Libya Shield militia, Wissam bin Hamid, a reported veteran of the Iraq insurgency (Afghanistan, too), as a suspected leader of Al Qaeda in Libya. To be sure, bin Hamid's Libya Shield militia fights and parades under the black flag of Al Qaeda (above), and bin Hamid is a vocal proponent of sharia over all in Libya ("Islamic shariah is a red line. We will not cede one rule of it....") It was Libya Shield members, not incidentally, who met -- squabbled with and delayed -- the small contingent sent to Benghazi from Tripoli on the night of September 11, 2012 (just another security shocker not noted in the Benghazi hearings). In the final cable Amb. Christopher Stevens signed on 9/11/12, bin Hamid is further id'd as having threatened US personnel with withdrawing security from the US compound if a Muslim Brotherhood candidate didn't win upcoming Libyan elections.

Wouldn't it have been logical for Marino and his colleagues to have asked: Mme. Secretary, how can it be that the United States government permitted an out-and-out jihadist, a suspected leader of Al Qaeda in Libya, to provide security for US interests in Benghazi? What were US interests in Benghazi, anyway? Why was Amb. Stevens even there on 9/11/12? In fact, could you explain what American interest is served by the administration's "Arab Spring" policy that allies the US with jihadists?

What difference does it make?! Mme. Secretary might well have responded. Anyway, bin Hamid is merely a former automobile workship owner, -- the NYT said so.

Marino went on to display photos of Al Qaeda flags from protests around the Muslim world, eliciting a classic, if grossly underreported, Clinton response:


The Secretary of State just declared herself blind to AQ's flag of jihad.

And Congress? It seems eqaully as to the implications of Obama-Clinton policy: that  Uncle Sam has furthered the jihad over the course of "Arab Spring," and particularly in Libya and Egypt, with spillover now visible throughout the region.

This logical conclusion is getting pushback from one of the leading busybodies in the world, French "philosopher" Bernard Henri Levy, who credits himself (and made a movie about it) as having singlehandedly connected Libyan "rebels" with France's Sarkozy, who then brought along the UK and the US to join in overthrowing Qadaffi. (He even seems to be right about his role to a shocking extent.) Levy denies any connection between events in Libya and events in Mali and Algeria.

Levy writes:

Supposedly, putting an end to Gaddafi’s dictatorship opened Pandora’s boxin Africa.




Ordinarily this argument could be laughed off.


OK, BHL (as he likes to refer to himself): Take your best shot.



To be sure, AQIM is mainly comprised of Algerian nationals and it indeed predates the assault on Benghazi. So what? How do those facts prevent events in LIbya, which Levy, improbably enough, helped advance, from energizing and even advancing the jihad in Africa?

Let's see what the LOC August 2012 report, "Al Qaeda in LIbya: A Profle," has to say about AQIM and Libya. The report's preface opens:

This report attempts to assess al Qaeda's presence in LIbya. Al-Qaeda Senior Leadership (AQSL) and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)have sought to take advantage of the Libyan Revolution to recruit militants and to reinforce their operational capabilities in an attempt to create a safe haven and possibly to extend their area of operations to Libya.

Sounds like the overthrow of Qaddafi was a boon to all branches of AQ, non?


Onto pp. 36-37:

Like AQSL, AQIM has shown great interest in the Libyan Revolution. AQIM’s leaders have praised and congratulated the Libyan rebels for their victory, referring to them as mujahidin and “grandsons” of ‘Umar al-Mukhtar, an anticolonial figure, as a way of linking the Libyan Revolution with anticolonial jihad, which is a central tenet of AQIM’s jihadist discourse. While they called on Libyans to distrust NATO, AQIM’s leaders promised to join in combat only in case of a foreign ground invasion and did not take credit for any participation in the Libyan rebellion, probably in an attempt to demonstrate support without giving the impression of meddling in the internal affairs of the Libyan rebels.71

Probably in line with AQSL’s penchant for secrecy, AQIM has denied any direct involvement in the Libyan rebellion, and its message is inclusive of all rebels. Its apparent intent is to focus on local alliances, likely with militias close to its Islamist paradigm, as a way of extending its safe haven and procuring weapons for its ongoing jihadist operations in Algeria and northern Mali.

For instance, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the AQIM leader in the Sahel, was reportedly in Libya and allegedly attended the al-Qaeda–type parade in Sirt as the guest of Wisam Ben Hamid, the leader of Katiba al-A’hrar Libya [Libya Shield].

What was that about Mokhtar having "zero" -- nussing -- to do with Libya? He was in Libya last spring as Grand Marshal of US security coordinator Wissam bin Hamid's "Al Qaeda-type" parade! Meanwhile, the LOC report goes on:

Belmokhtar was the first AQIM leader to acknowledge the Libyan Revolution’s advantages for his organization, specifically in terms of procurement of weapons, and the two movements share a commitment to jihad for the sake of establishing the rule of God on earth.72

Obama was AWOL Stevens Died Obama LiedThat would be "Allah," by the way. And this is the common thread, the thread of jihad, that Hillary Clinton and Monsieur Levy close their eyes to. NATO made war in Libya believing that eliminating  Qaddafi (like eliminating  Mubarak in Egypt) would unleash Western(ish) values yearning to be free, or something. This same see-no-Islam view led us to expect the same basic thing to take place in the wake of "the surge" in Iraq and nation-building in Afghanistan. (Wrong again.) You can actually see the nub of this Libyan policy taking shape in Wikileaks cables written by the late Christopher Stevens in 2008, which begin to feature the particularly eastern Libyan desire to remove Qaddafi as a means to neutralize local "radicalism." (Eastern Libya sent more jihadists to fight Americans in Iraq per capita than anywhere in the world.) The elimination of Qaddafi pleased the "radicals" of eastern Libya, all right, but eliminating Qaddafi didn't eliminate jihad. On the contrary, itserved jihad, which now continues, energized. And now they run from it -- Levy denying it outright, Mrs. Clinton now talking "spreading jihadist threat" like she's been a tough guy all along. Obama ... saying nothing.

The LOC report continues:’s clandestine network in Libya will probably continue to provide critical support to AQIM, especially with regard to arms procurement and safe passage of militants, which are essential to sustain AQIM’s war in northern Mali. These arms and militants are critically needed to maintain the strategic advance that AQIM and its allies, the Movement of Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) and Ansar-Din (Supporters of the Religion), achieved when they expelled the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (local name for the territory historically inhabited by the Tuareg) from the main cities in the north of Mali in June 2012. Since then, AQIM and its allies have controlled the northern two-thirds of Mali, and the region has become an autonomous land in which terrorists roam, train, and plot.

More, alas, to come.





You are now being logged in using your Facebook credentials