The Shaylergate Files
www.nlpwessex.org/docs/shaylergatehtm.htm
How MI6 Sponsored Al Qaeda In Libya


The al-Qaeda terrorist leader sponsored by Britain's MI6 intelligence agency
in a failed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in 1996 died in US custody in January 2015

"An alleged al-Qaeda leader has died just days before going on trial in New York over the 1998 US embassy attacks in Africa. Abu Anas al-Liby, 50, died in hospital on Friday, his wife and lawyers say. He is reported to have had liver cancer. Mr Liby was seized in a US raid in Tripoli in October 2013. He was to stand trial on 12 January over the 1998 embassy attacks, which killed more than 220 people in Kenya and Tanzania. Mr Liby, whose real name was Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, previously pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges. His wife, Um Abdullah, accused the US government on Saturday of 'kidnapping, mistreating and killing an innocent man,' according to the Associated Press news agency. She said her husband died from complications following liver surgery, AP reports. When he was seized in 2013, Mr Liby had been on the FBI's most wanted list for more than a decade, with a $5m (£3.1m) bounty on his head. He had been indicted by a New York grand jury in 2000. US Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to defend the capture after Libya called on the US to explain the raid on its territory. Many people in Libya were angry about what they said was a breach of the country's sovereignty. Mr Liby was detained by US commandos on 5 October 2013 and interrogated on board a US warship before being handed over to FBI agents. He was first put on a US Navy ship for interrogation but brought to the US when his health began to deteriorate after he stopped eating and drinking, US officials said. Mr Liby, who was also known to be suffering from hepatitis C, was accused of being one of the masterminds of the al-Qaeda embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998."
Libya terror suspect Anas al-Liby dies before US trial
BBC Online, 3 January 2015

al-Liby.jpg (5966 bytes)
Anas Al-Liby
The Al Qaeda Terrorist Funded And Sheltered By Britain

"Over the years, some dissidents suspected by foreign governments of involvement in terrorist acts have been protected by the British government for one reason or another from deportation or extradition.... In the past, terrorism experts say, Britain benefited significantly from its willingness to extend at least conditional hospitality to a wide range of Arab dissidents and opposition figures .... Mustafa Alani, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, a London think tank, said [Anas] al-Liby was probably left in legal limbo by the British government, allowing him to be used or discarded as circumstances permitted.... According to a renegade officer for the British intelligence service MI5, David Shayler, British intelligence plotted with Islamic extremists [including al-Liby] to assassinate Gaddafi in early 1996..."
Britain a Refuge for Mideast Dissidents - Some With Suspected Ties to Bin Laden Resist Extradition
Washington Post, 7 October 2001


'Our Terrorists'

"A top-secret report linking MI6 with a failed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi appeared on an American internet site yesterday, refuting Robin Cook's claim that British intelligence was not involved. The document, marked 'UK Eyes Alpha', details contacts between MI6 and a group of Middle Eastern plotters who tried unsuccessfully to blow up Gadaffi's motorcade. The report, coded CX95/ 53452, was passed to senior Foreign Office officials. It revealed when and where the assassination attempt was due and said that at least 250 British-made weapons were distributed among the plotters. The four-page CX document was published on the California-based Yahoo! website. The Sunday Times has complied with a request by Rear-Admiral Nick Wilkinson, secretary of the government's defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee, not to print the address of the website on which the CX report is published."
Revealed: Cook misled public over Libya plot
Sunday Times, 13 February 2000

"The document published on the internet and marked 'UK eyes alpha' alleges that MI6 had been told of the plot two months before it was said to have taken place in February 1996.... Mr Cook refused to confirm whether the document was genuine or a forgery. But despite this, Rear admiral Nick Wilkinson, secretary of the D notice committee which operates an agreed self-censorship system with the media on matters of national security, asked journalists not to publish the document's website address. According to the document, coded CX95/53452 and published on a Yahoo internet site, at least 250 British-made weapons were distributed to the plotters. The document detailed how an uprising was planned for the capital Tripoli and plotters would use vehicles similar to those in the colonel's security service. Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude said that the documents raised 'serious questions' over Mr Cook's previous comments and demanded an immediate inquiry. And the Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: 'Knowing that there were plots against Gaddafi is one thing, but being involved in them is something entirely different.' The Libyan government has summoned Britain's ambassador to ask to take part in any investigations over the plot."
Shayler: Cook 'misled' over Gaddafi plot
BBC Online, 15 February 2000

"A top secret report for senior Whitehall officials which linked MI6 to a bomb plot to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi was today believed to have been posted on the Internet. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook denied two years ago that British secret agents had been involved in the assassination attempt which narrowly failed to kill Gaddafi, but killed a number of bodyguards.... The report, coded CX95/53452, detailed when and where the assassination attempt was due to take place and said that 250 British-made weapons were distributed among the plotters. CX reports reportedly summarise MI6's key intelligence findings and are circulated to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office and the Joint Intelligence Committee. Whitehall sources confirmed to The Sunday Times that the four page report - which carried a coded header sheet - was genuine. It was headed: 'Libya: Plans to overthrow Gaddafi in early 1996 are well advanced.' The Government's defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee asked for the address of the website on which the report was published to be withheld from publication. In a statement, the Foreign Office declined to state that the intelligence report was a fake. And it conceded that the British Government had known of plots against Gaddafi.... a storm is likely to engulf the Foreign Secretary over the disclosure that British intelligence apparently knew about the plot in advance. Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude demanded an immediate inquiry. He told The Sunday Times: 'Did Cook conceal the truth? Was it kept from him or did he ignore it?' Claims of British involvement in a plot to kill Gaddafi first emerged when former MI5 officer David Shayler alleged MI6 paid about £100,000 to help purchase jeeps and weapons. The intelligence report leaked on the web was said to have been passed to Sir John Coles, the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, and to GCHQ, the Government listening base, MI5, and the Ministry of Defence. It read: 'The coup was scheduled to start at around the time of the next General People's Congress on February 14, 1996. 'Coup will start with unrest in Tripoli, Misratah and Benghazi. The source said that the plotters would have cars similar to those in QADHAFI's security entourage with fake security number plates. They would infiltrate themselves in order to kill or arrest QADHAFI."
'Kill Gaddafi plot report' posted on net
Independent, 13 February 2000

On This Page

The Shayler Affair
British Sponsorship Of Al Qaeda In Libya
Why Britain Wouldn't Support
Gadaffi's Interpol Arrest Warrant For Bin Laden
Britain Shelters Anti-Gadaffi Terrorists In UK
Until Oil Deal Is Done
MI6 2004 Deal With Gadaffi
'It's The Oil Stupid'
'As You Sow So Shall You Reap'
Britain Gets Hit On 7/7 By Libyan Al Qaeda 'Blowback' After Invasion Of Iraq

The Shayler Affair

"Another cache of intelligence nasties has emerged, blinking, into the mainstream media daylight by way of WikiLeaks. This time, the information is drawn from official Guantánamo reports on detainees, drawing on information gleaned over the years of 'enhanced' interrogations. One case that caught my attention was that of Algerian carpet seller Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an alleged 'al-Qaida operative, facilitator, courier, kidnapper and assassin' who also apparently worked as an agent of CSIS (Canadian Secret Intelligence Service) and our very own MI6. So was this man a double-agent, playing his own lonely game and caught between the demands of his al-Qaida contacts and his western handlers? Or has MI6 been employing its very own al-Qaida assassin? ... once caught, he was deemed to be politically embarrassing and hung out to dry..... This would certainly not be the first time this has happened to intelligence agents. Dirty tricks were intrinsic in the dirty war in Northern Ireland from the early 1970s, and agents such as Martin McGartland, Denis Donaldson (deceased) and Kevin Fulton have learned all too brutally what the phrase 'hung out to dry' really means. This was not restricted to Northern Ireland. In 1996, MI6 illegally funded an 'al-Qaida' coup to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi, using as its agent a Libyan military intelligence officer. The attempt manifestly failed, although innocent people were killed in the attempt. This was all hushed up at the time, but now seems rather tame as we watch our defence secretary, Liam Fox, fly out to discuss with his US counterpart, Robert Gates, the overt assassination of Gaddafi using predator drones. State terrorism as the new diplomacy?"
Former MI5 officer - Annie Machon
Guantánamo Bay files: Was Bin Hamlili really an MI6 source?
Guardian, 'Comment Is Free', 26 April 2011

"This tragic episode is fast becoming British Watergate..... As the head of Britain's intelligence services, Tony Blair now has a simple - and honourable - choice. To expose the truth."
David Shayler, ex- M15 counter-terrorism officer, on British state-sponsored terrorism
'Don't shoot the messenger'

Observer, 27 August 2000

View Shayler Affair Article In Pakistan's Dawn Newspaper
Against Which The UK Government Took Out An
Injunction To Prevent Further Publication
Click here

[Excerpt from injunction against Observer journalist Martin Bright including transcription errors]

"IT IS ORDERED THAT: (1) The Defendant be restrained until trial [handwritten: the conclusion of the current trial of DMS [i.e. David Michael Shayler] or any retrial] or further Order whether by himself, his servants or agents or otherwise howsoever from further publishing or causing or permitting to be published or disclosed or instruction or encouraging any other person further to publish or disclose in any way whatsoever, including, for the avoidance of doubt, publication or disclosure on the Internet, the article written by the Defendant entitled, 'MI6 Hire Al Qaeda Men to Kill Gaddafi: Ex-Official' and published on 30 October 200 in Pakistan in the Dawn newspaper and on the Internet on the Dawn newspaper's Interned site or any part thereof."
HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL
and
MARTIN BRIGHT

1 November 2002

Shayler released from jail and vows to fight on - Dec 2002
Shayler 'state secrets' trial begins - October 2002

Shayler loses human rights challenge in House of Lords - March 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.... two French intelligence experts ......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 ....... 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.... The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996. Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000..... The Observer has been restrained from printing details of the allegations during the course of the trial of David Shayler, who was last week sentenced to six months in prison for disclosing documents obtained during his time as an MI5 officer..... Shayler claims he was first briefed about the plot during formal meetings with colleagues from the foreign intelligence service MI6 when he was working on MI5's Libya desk in the mid-Nineties. The Observer can today reveal that the MI6 officers involved in the alleged plot were Richard Bartlett, who has previously only been known under the codename PT16 and had overall responsibility for the operation; and David Watson, codename PT16B. As Shayler's opposite number in MI6, Watson was responsible for running a Libyan agent, 'Tunworth', who was was providing information from within the cell. According to Shayler, MI6 passed £100,000 to the al-Qaeda plotters.... Shayler, who conducted his own defence in the trial, intended to call Bartlett and Watson as witnesses, but was prevented from doing so by the narrow focus of the court case.... During the Shayler trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates to protect national security. Reporters were not able to report allegations about the Gadaffi plot during the course of the trial.... These restrictions have led to a row between the Attorney General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on national security issues..... Members of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during the trial."
Martin Bright - MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'
Observer, 10 November 2002

"Michael Tugendhat, QC, appearing for various national newspapers, is expected to argue that the Government has provided no evidence that national security will be threatened by the trial and will underline the importance of open justice..... Shayler will be defending himself during the trial. He is expected to claim that British secret service agents paid up to £100,000 to al Qaeda terrorists for an assassination attempt on Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffy in 1996. He is seeking permission to plead a defence of 'necessity' - that he acted for the greater good by revealing wrongdoing by the security service... "
Calls for secret Shayler trial
London Evening Standard, 7 October 2002

"...Brisard and Dasquié discovered that the first country to issue an international arrest warrant against bin Laden was not the US, but Moamar Gadafy's Libya, in March 1998.... Bin Laden supported a fundamentalist group called al-Muqatila... Al-Muqatila wanted to assassinate Gadafy, whom it considered an infidel. According to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, British intelligence - also in league with al-Muqatila - tried to assassinate Gadafy in November 1996. It was because of British collaboration with al-Muqatila that the Interpol warrant [for Bin Laden] was ignored, Brisard says..."
US efforts to make peace summed up by 'oil'
Irish Times, 19 November 2001

Libya shows film of 1996 Gaddafi assassination attempt

"....the real criminals in this affair are the British Government and the intelligence services. The Government has a duty to uphold the law. It cannot simply be ignored because crimes are carried out by friends of the Government. In November 1999, I sent the Home Secretary Jack Straw detailed evidence of involvement by MI6 officers in a plot to murder Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi. Although the assassination failed when attempted in 1996, innocent Libyan civilians were killed. In a dossier I presented to Mr Straw, I included the names of those who had also been briefed about the plot within MI5. .....When presented with this compelling evidence these very senior Ministers should, of course, have called in the police immediately. We would never countenance two police officers conspiring to murder a criminal. Why should we accept that two MI6 officers could do the same to Colonel Gaddafi? This week, I will be writing to both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service asking them to investigate the role of the Government in this case.... I am left wondering why Sir Stephen did not perform his clear public duty and call in Special Branch to investigate the Gadaffi plot as soon as he realised that MI6 did not have Ministerial authorisation to plot to assassinate a foreign head of state. In August 1998, I also pointed out publicly that MI5 had evidence of the plot on its file SF754-0168. .... The Government's failure to ensure that two MI6 officers are brought to justice for their part in planning a murder is what I would expect of despots and dictators.... It is corruption. It is sleaze. And sleaze was where New Labour came in as a supposed breath of fresh air after the Conservatives had grown corrupt. ..... This tragic episode is fast becoming British Watergate..... If people want to live in a country where the intelligence services work in absolute secrecy with no respect for the rule of law or basic human rights, they should go and live in Libya, Iraq or Iran..... As the head of Britain's intelligence services, Tony Blair now has a simple - and honourable - choice. To expose the truth."
David Shayler
Don't shoot the messenger
Observer, 27 August 2000

"A police inquiry into a student arrested under the Official Secrets Act in connection with the former MI5 officer David Shayler has been abandoned, the Guardian learned yesterday. Julie Ann Davies, a mature student at Kingston University in Surrey, was taken out of a lecture in March to be arrested by four special branch officers, who removed her computer and other personal belongings while holding her in a cell. Ms Davies had been active in the campaign to have charges against Mr Shayler dropped and for more accountability of the secret agencies. She was questioned about an MI6 report which appeared on the internet that lent credence to Mr Shayler's allegations about MI6 involvement in a plot to kill the Libyan leader, Colonel Gadafy. She had been bailed three times and was recently told to appear again before the police next month."
Charges dropped against student in Shayler case
Guardian, 23 August 2000

"An ex-MI5 officer has joined David Shayler in speaking out about mismanagement in the UK's security service. Jestyn Thirkell-White, who resigned from the service in 1996, said MI5 was in desperate need of reform and modernisation. He said it was 'totally wrong' that no investigations had been launched into Mr Shayler's claims - including one that MI6 colluded in an assassination plot to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.... 'MI5 and special branch were acting like the very police state they are supposed to be protecting us from.' [said Mr Thirkell-White] Mr Thirkell-White and Mr Shayler served together in the anti-terrorism T Branch of MI5..... John Wadham, director of Liberty, which represents both Mr Shayler and Mr Thirkell-White, said the new revelations confirmed what Mr Shayler had been saying all along. 'It is now time to stop attacking whistleblowers and instead to investigate the allegations they have made about MI5,' he said. Mr Shayler, currently in exile in France, faces attempts in the UK to prosecute him under the Official Secrets Act."
Ex-MI5 agent backs Shayler
BBC Online, 22 July 2000

"The threat of legal action [against Shayler] has led to a dramatic escalation of tensions, with Shayler revealing to the Observer the identity of the two serving intelligence officers who he claims were involved in the alleged plot against Gaddafi. The paper said that for legal reasons it was prevented from publishing the names.... It is now thought that Shayler is also prepared to name others names, including the agent's boss, code-named PT16, who is alleged to have authorized the operation, and his own MI5 line manager, to whom he voiced concerns about what he called a 'Boys' Own' operation.... Shayler said he had embarked on the path of disclosing intelligence operations in a bid to force the government to launch a full inquiry into the security services, which, he claims, are increasingly out of control."
Renegrade MI5 spy threatens: I'll name officer who failed to warn of '94 embassy bombing
Jerusalem Post, 29 February 2000

"We will only know the truth of the matter if we have a full independent enquiry into the plot (and my other disclosures). Without that no one can say hand on heart what happened (apart from me. I was briefed on the plot at the time). Anything less sends out the wrong signal to MI6. Anything less suggests that MI6 is above the law or that MI6 can continue to carry out illegal operations without government interference. I need hardly tell you how that begins to eat away at the rule of law and also to undermine our democracy because unelected intelligence officers decide our foreign policy, not our elected representatives... Many MPs including the Intelligence and Security Committee are now looking negligent and foolhardy for not pursuing my disclosures more vigorously. They shouldn't be caught out a second time or the people will begin to think that parliament and the opposition in general has no credibility whatsoever".
David Shayler, former MI5 officer, on earlier illegal activities of MI6
Statement, 15 February 2000

"Former M15 agent David Shayler has said the UK foreign secretary may have been misled over whether British secret services were involved in a plot to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Muhammar Gaddafi.... Speaking on BBC's Newsnight programme, Mr Shayler said that it was possible that the foreign secretary had not been given the truth. He said the document vindicated his allegations and warranted a full investigation into others made by him. 'It is established that there was certainly a Gaddafi plot, so when Robin Cook unequivocally said I'm perfectly clear these allegations are foundless and it is pure fantasy - he went too far. I accept that in normal circumstances, people would be more inclined to believe a government minister than a whistleblower. But now we have shown that the government has certainly compromised the truth if not outrightly lied about this, then I'm vindicated and I think we have to have a full inquiry now.' The claims will be studied by Parliament's Security and Intelligence Committee, the committee's chairman, Tom King, said. However he pointed out that the document, if genuine, only showed that British agents knew about a plot and did not show they were involved in it. Mr Cook's denial two years ago came after the government sought Mr Shayler's extradition from France. Mr Shayler had alleged that British intelligence paid about £100,000 towards jeeps and weapons for the assassination. The extradition attempt failed but Mr Shayler is effectively exiled to France. The document published on the internet and marked 'UK eyes alpha' alleges that MI6 had been told of the plot two months before it was said to have taken place in February 1996.... Mr Cook refused to confirm whether the document was genuine or a forgery. But despite this, Rear admiral Nick Wilkinson, secretary of the D notice committee which operates an agreed self-censorship system with the media on matters of national security, asked journalists not to publish the document's website address. According to the document, coded CX95/53452 and published on a Yahoo internet site, at least 250 British-made weapons were distributed to the plotters. The document detailed how an uprising was planned for the capital Tripoli and plotters would use vehicles similar to those in the colonel's security service. Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude said that the documents raised 'serious questions' over Mr Cook's previous comments and demanded an immediate inquiry. And the Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: 'Knowing that there were plots against Gaddafi is one thing, but being involved in them is something entirely different.' The Libyan government has summoned Britain's ambassador to ask to take part in any investigations over the plot."
Shayler: Cook 'misled' over Gaddafi plot
BBC Online, 15 February 2000

"A top secret report for senior Whitehall officials which linked MI6 to a bomb plot to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi was today believed to have been posted on the Internet. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook denied two years ago that British secret agents had been involved in the assassination attempt which narrowly failed to kill Gaddafi, but killed a number of bodyguards.... The report, coded CX95/53452, detailed when and where the assassination attempt was due to take place and said that 250 British-made weapons were distributed among the plotters. CX reports reportedly summarise MI6's key intelligence findings and are circulated to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office and the Joint Intelligence Committee. Whitehall sources confirmed to The Sunday Times that the four page report - which carried a coded header sheet - was genuine. It was headed: 'Libya: Plans to overthrow Gaddafi in early 1996 are well advanced.' The Government's defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee asked for the address of the website on which the report was published to be withheld from publication. In a statement, the Foreign Office declined to state that the intelligence report was a fake. And it conceded that the British Government had known of plots against Gaddafi.... a storm is likely to engulf the Foreign Secretary over the disclosure that British intelligence apparently knew about the plot in advance. Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude demanded an immediate inquiry. He told The Sunday Times: 'Did Cook conceal the truth? Was it kept from him or did he ignore it?' Claims of British involvement in a plot to kill Gaddafi first emerged when former MI5 officer David Shayler alleged MI6 paid about £100,000 to help purchase jeeps and weapons. The intelligence report leaked on the web was said to have been passed to Sir John Coles, the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, and to GCHQ, the Government listening base, MI5, and the Ministry of Defence. It read: 'The coup was scheduled to start at around the time of the next General People's Congress on February 14, 1996. 'Coup will start with unrest in Tripoli, Misratah and Benghazi. The source said that the plotters would have cars similar to those in QADHAFI's security entourage with fake security number plates. They would infiltrate themselves in order to kill or arrest QADHAFI."
'Kill Gaddafi plot report' posted on net
Independent, 13 February 2000

"A top-secret report linking MI6 with a failed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi appeared on an American internet site yesterday, refuting Robin Cook's claim that British intelligence was not involved. The document, marked 'UK Eyes Alpha', details contacts between MI6 and a group of Middle Eastern plotters who tried unsuccessfully to blow up Gadaffi's motorcade. The report, coded CX95/ 53452, was passed to senior Foreign Office officials. It revealed when and where the assassination attempt was due and said that at least 250 British-made weapons were distributed among the plotters. The four-page CX document was published on the California-based Yahoo! website. The Sunday Times has complied with a request by Rear-Admiral Nick Wilkinson, secretary of the government's defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee, not to print the address of the website on which the CX report is published."
Revealed: Cook misled public over Libya plot
Sunday Times, 13 February 2000

"The BBC has broadcast an interview with the former MI5 officier David Shayler in which he spoke about an alleged plot by the UK's Secret Intelligence Service to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi. The interview with Panorama was recorded before his arrest in France at the request of the UK Government. In it, he told how a £100,000 payment to an agent 'Tunworth' funded a militant plot to murder Gaddafi. The film was not broadcast until Friday because the government has an injunction designed, it says, to protect national security. The BBC decided to go ahead with the transmission after parts of the script were submitted to government solicitors, who gave authority to proceed. 'We are talking about tens of thousand pounds of tax-payers' money being used to attempt to assassinate a foreign head of state,' Mr Shayler said. He said he was told that authorisation for the plot by the SIS, the UK's overseas spying service, had come from the very top of the Foreign Office. The revelations, after investigations by BBC journalist Mark Urban, are among the most damaging against the security services for decades and will put further pressure on the government to examine allegations that it has dismissed as 'inconceivable'. .... Mr Shayler joined MI5 in 1994, as part of the G9 section dealing with Libya. At a joint meeting on Libya with the SIS he heard of an agent known as Tunworth. Also at the meeting was PT16B, who controlled Tunworth and detailed Tunworth's collaboration with an extremist group in Libya trying to kill Colonel Gaddafi. However the CX Report, circulated to officals, GCHQ and the Foreign Office, did not say that Tunworth was actively involved in the plot. Mr Shayler later learned that as the assassination plot gathered pace, about £100,000 was given to Tunworth.... In February 1996 a bomb was planted under Gaddafi's motorcade, but it exploded under the wrong car. Several bodyguards were killed and in the ensuing gunbattle three extremists were reportedly killed. Mr Shayler spoke of his surprise when told of the alleged plot.... Mr Urban obtained evidence that meetings did take place with PT16B, that Britian had advance knowledge of the attempt on Gaddafi's life and that Tunworth was a go-between with Islamic militant groups in Libya. However, Foreign Office ministers at the time of the affair said they had not given any authorisation for a murder attempt. Mr Urban concluded that one answer was that security services had acted without any political authority. He said that the BBC had obtained other evidence of SIS activities, but these were withheld for security reasons."
BBC screens Shayler interview
BBC Online, 8 August 1998

See also:
02 Aug 98 | UK
Former MI5 agent arrested

06 Aug 98 | UK
MI6 plot to kill Gaddafi denied

07 Aug 98 | UK
'I'm telling the truth' - Shayler

How Shayler was briefed on the Gaddafy assassination plot - click here
Shayler reporting - BBC
Shayler reporting - Guardian

Why Britain Wouldn't Support
Gadaffi's Interpol Arrest Warrant For Bin Laden

"So 'brave' Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the 'war on terror'. The motives, however, are rather more cynical. Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, to Sirte, near Tripoli. As the BBC said at the time, Libya was keen to re-enter the world economy, and the UK did not want to lose out on potentially lucrative oil contracts.... The problem of access to Libyan hydrocarbons was Gadafy's record of running a state terrorist machine - responsible for arming the IRA, the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Britain had even, according to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, paid £100,000 to an al-Qaida cell in Libya to assassinate Gadafy in 1996, and then granted asylum to a member of the cell named Anas al-Liby, who lived in Manchester until 2000."
The path to friendship goes via the oil and gas fields
Guardian, 27 March 2004

Gadaffi And Al Qaeda Were Enemies
Which Is Why MI6 Sponsored Al Qaeda To Assassinate Him

And Why Britain Wouldn't Support Gadaffi's Interpol Arrest Warrant For Bin Laden

".... the first country in the world to seek the arrest of Osama bin Laden was Libya...."
Ronald K. Noble, Secretary General of Interpol
PBS, 16 April 2003

"As was seen in Sudan in 1995, diplomatic and political pressure and shortage of resources can threaten the [al Qaeda] network. Similarly, when Libya pressured Sudan, Bin Laden asked Al-Qaeda's Libyan members to leave the group."
Blowback
Jane's Intelligence Review, 26 July 2001

"Far from being soul-mates, Qadhafi and bin Laden have long been at odds; it was Qadhafi who, in March 1998, issued the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden, a fact little known in the West. The warrant was issued in connection with the March 1994 murders of German anti-terrorism agents Silvan and Vera Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. Western intelligence agencies for a number of reasons chose to downplay and ignore the warrant; five months later the U.S. embassies in East Africa were bombed.... Ironically, the common thread running through Libya, bin Laden and the U.S. is the 1979-1988 Afghan war. Among the Arab volunteers were several thousand Libyans and in the early 1990s Libyan 'Afghan vets' formed the shadowy Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG,) whose purpose was to overthrow Qadhafi and establish an Islamic state based on sharia law. The following year, they attempted to assassinate Qadhafi when an LIFG group led by Wadi al-Shateh threw a bomb beneath his motorcade. Qadhafi cracked down and many LIFG members fled to Europe and the Middle East. Another LIFG assassination attempt occurred in 1998 when Qadhafi's motorcade was attacked..... On February 24, 2004, Former CIA director George Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that, 'one of the most immediate threats is from smaller Sunni extremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaida links. They include…the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group,' an assertion Tenet repeated to the 9/11 Commission the following month."
Libya and Al-Qaeda: A Complex Relationship
Terrorism Monitor, Volume 3, Issue 6 (March 24, 2005)

"Brisard and Dasquie have long experience in intelligence analysis. Brisard was until the late 1990s director of economic analysis and strategy for Vivendi, a French company. He also worked for French secret services, and wrote for them in 1997 a report on the now famous Al Qaeda network, headed by bin Laden. Dasquie is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online, a respected newsletter on diplomacy, economic analysis and strategy, available through the Internet..... Brisard and Dasquie contend the U.S. government's claim that it had been prosecuting bin Laden since 1998. 'Actually,' Dasquie says, 'the first state to officially prosecute bin Laden was Libya, on the charges of terrorism.' 'Bin Laden wanted [to] settle in Libya in the early 1990s, but was hindered by the government of Muammar Qaddafi,' Dasquie claims. 'Enraged by Libya's refusal, bin Laden organised attacks inside Libya, including assassination attempts against Qaddafi.' Dasquie singles out one group, the Islamic Fighting Group (IFG), reputedly the most powerful Libyan dissident organisation, based in London, and directly linked with bin Laden. 'Qaddafi even demanded Western police institutions, such as Interpol, to pursue the IFG and bin Laden, but never obtained co-operation,' Dasquie says. 'Until today, members of IFG openly live in London.'"
U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors
Inter Press Service, 15 November 2001

"In the 1990s Islamism found a strong popular following in Libya. Despite its oil wealth, the country has suffered from chronic socio-economic problems brought about by a combination of economic mismanagement, falling oil prices and the international sanctions that were imposed upon Libya in 1992. ..... militant groups also appeared on the scene in the 1990s, made up largely of veterans of the war in Afghanistan. These included the LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] and the much smaller and less well known groups that mostly consisted of a leader (emir) and a handful of followers, such as Harakat al-Shuhada' al-Islamiyyah (Libyan Islamic Martyrs Movement), headed by al-Hami; and Ansar Allah (supporters of Allah). The LIFG stood out among these groups because it tried to bring all of the militant groups under its wing to create a more united front against the regime, but to no avail. The exact date of the formation of The LIFG (al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah fi-Libya) is unknown because a formal declaration of its establishment did not come until October 1995. The LIFG traces its origins, to the clandestine jihadist organization established in Libya in 1982, and currently led by Awatha al-Zuwawi. This small organization had contacts with Islamic movements outside Libya, especially in Afghanistan, where many of its members went. Among them was Zuwawi himself, who spent number of weeks in Afghanistan in 1986, before returning to Libya. In Afghanistan these Jihadists honed their fighting skills in guerilla warfare. There, they were also exposed to Islamist scholars such as 'Abdallah 'Azzam, many of whose writings are posted on the group's site.It seems that the Libyan fighters in Afghanistan established the LIFG in 1992. At the same time, the LIFG seems to have formed a basis infrastructure in Libya proper, from which they began to plan activities against the regime of Mu’ammar Qadhafi..... That Britain has not designated LIFG a terrorist organization is significant, as several prominent leaders of the group continue to live and act in London and Manchester..... In June 1995 militants, disguised as members of Qadhafi's Revolutionary Committees, launched an operation to free a detained comrade from a hospital. Weeks later, they stormed a prison in Benghazi and released more of their comrades. Fierce clashes between security forces and LIFG's members erupted in Benghazi in September 1995, leaving dozens killed on both sides. After weeks of intense fighting the LIFG formally declared its existence in a communiqué. This and future LIFG communiqués were issued by Libyan Afghan veterans who had been granted political asylum in Britain, were anti-Qadhafi sentiments stemming from the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, soared. The involvement of the British government in the LIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains the subject of immense controversy. The next big operation of the LIFG was a failed attempt to assassinate Qadhafi in February 1996 that killed several of his bodyguards."
‘The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’ (LIFG)
Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Volume 3 (2005), Number 2 (June 2005)

"Early 1990s - Violence in a number of regions worldwide, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Chechnya, Bosnia, Tajikistan, East Africa, Yemen and Philippines. Groups that would later be a significant international terrorist threat formed eg Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines. Extremist support networks created in the UK and Europe.... 1990s - Radical young men from the UK go to support jihad overseas...."
Annex C - TIMELINE OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST THREAT
[Home Office] Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005

Libya shows film of 1996 Gaddafi assassination attempt

"Pakistan’s problem is that extremist organisations and training camps, such as those linked to the London bombers, were either created by, or supported and used by, ISI. The camps were set up in the late 1980s with US backing to train fighters for jihad in Afghanistan."
Just whose side is Pakistan really on?
Sunday Times, 13 August 2006

"Trying to unravel where the thousands of British volunteers received training in Pakistan over the past decade is a tortuous business. So, too, is determining how various jihadi groups are tied to al-Qaeda’s leadership, which is believed to be in the mountainous border areas of Waziristan. The training camps have been operating there for more than 15 years, frequently switching location and importing instructors from militant groups from Europe to Indonesia..... Scotland Yard is known to be frustrated by the assistance that the Pakistani intelligence organisation, the ISI, has provided in the hunt for those who assisted the 7/7 bombers."
Top al-Qaeda trainer 'taught suspects to use explosive'
London Times, 12 August 2006

"A Libyan Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda, according to an audio message on the internet attributed to the radical network's second-in-command. Ayman al-Zawahri purportedly said the Fighting Islamic Group in Libya was becoming part of al-Qaeda. Earlier this year Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat also claimed to have joined the network.... In the message, the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, is described as 'an enemy of Islam' and criticised for giving up weapons of mass destruction in 2003, in exchange for an end to Libya's international isolation..... In the same tape, a leader of the Fighting Islamic Group in Libya is introduced as Abu Laith al-Libi. 'We proclaim our alliance with the Al-Qaeda network... to become the faithful soldiers of Osama Bin Laden,' it says. The group was formed in the early 1990s by Libyans who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan and has dozens of members arrested and jailed throughout North Africa."
Libyan Islamists 'join al-Qaeda'
BBC Online, 3 November 2007


Britain Shelters Anti-Gadaffi Terrorists In UK
Until Deal Oil Is Done

"Over the years, some dissidents suspected by foreign governments of involvement in terrorist acts have been protected by the British government for one reason or another from deportation or extradition.... In the past, terrorism experts say, Britain benefited significantly from its willingness to extend at least conditional hospitality to a wide range of Arab dissidents and opposition figures .... Mustafa Alani, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, a London think tank, said [Anas] al-Liby was probably left in legal limbo by the British government, allowing him to be used or discarded as circumstances permitted.... According to a renegade officer for the British intelligence service MI5, David Shayler, British intelligence plotted with Islamic extremists [including al-Liby] to assassinate Gaddafi in early 1996..."
Britain a Refuge for Mideast Dissidents - Some With Suspected Ties to Bin Laden Resist Extradition
Washington Post, 7 October 2001

Anas al-Liby is affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) - Click Here

"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.... two French intelligence experts ......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 ....... 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.... The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996. Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000..... "
MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'
Observer, 10 November 2002

The Deal

"So 'brave' Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the 'war on terror'. The motives, however, are rather more cynical. Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, to Sirte, near Tripoli. As the BBC said at the time, Libya was keen to re-enter the world economy, and the UK did not want to lose out on potentially lucrative oil contracts.... The problem of access to Libyan hydrocarbons was Gadafy's record of running a state terrorist machine - responsible for arming the IRA, the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Britain had even, according to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, paid £100,000 to an al-Qaida cell in Libya to assassinate Gadafy in 1996, and then granted asylum to a member of the cell named Anas al-Liby, who lived in Manchester until 2000."
The path to friendship goes via the oil and gas fields
Guardian, 27 March 2004

Once Things Were Patched Up With Gaddafi
Britain Rounded Up His Terrorist Enemies That It Had Been
Sheltering In The UK For Years

"Anas Al-Liby recently lived in the United Kingdom, where he has political asylum. He is believed to currently be in Afghanistan. Speaks Arabic and English. Indicted for: conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy National Defense utilities of the United States. Usama Bin Laden,  Muhammad Atef,  Ayman Al Zawahiri ,  Mustafa Mohammed Fadhil ,  Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam,  Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan ,  Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah,  Saif Al-Adel,  Anas Al-Liby , Ahmed Mohamed Hamed Ali , and Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah ,  and others already in custody are believed to be responsible for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August, 7, 1998.  These terrorist attacks indiscriminately killed 224 innocent civilians and wounded over 5,000 others. These terrorist are believed to be part of an international criminal conspiracy headed by Usama Bin Laden.  The U. S. Government is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction, in any country, of those people listed above."
Wanted, Anas Al-Liby, Up to $5 Million Reward
US Department of Justice, 'Rewards For Justice' web site as at 18 June 2005

Anas al-Liby is affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) - Click Here

"The British government’s decision in October 2005 to designate the al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah fi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, LIFG) as a terrorist organization must have come as welcome news to Colonel Qadhafi, given that at its peak the group represented the strongest challenge the Libyan regime has ever faced. Indeed, Qadhafi had long been complaining that the British were hosting Libyan nationals intent on overthrowing his regime. While the U.S. government placed the LIFG on its list of designated terrorist organizations back in 2004, it appears to have taken the London bombings to push the British to follow suit. Following this designation the British authorities arrested five members of the LIFG and, despite the protestations of human rights organizations, also signed an agreement with the Qadhafi regime that would enable the men to be deported to Libya. The deal marks a major success for the Libyan regime in its victory over the Islamists and, if the men are returned, it is likely to be the final nail in the coffin of what, for all intents and purposes, is a dying organization. The LIFG was set up in Afghanistan in 1990 by a group of jihadists who had travelled to fight the Soviets during the 1980s. After the Soviet withdrawal the Libyans, like many other Arab mujahideen, turned their attention to establishing an Islamic state in their own country. Some of the group’s members returned to Libya in the early 1990s and began preparing themselves to launch an armed struggle against the Qadhafi regime....The regime’s response upon discovering the existence of the LIFG was to embark upon a large-scale liquidation campaign. The group was able to put up enough of a fight to enter into a series of clashes with the security services and to launch an assassination attempt against Qadhafi, but the regime ultimately succeeded in killing or arresting a large number of the group’s members or sympathizers.... Following this crushing defeat, the LIFG existed primarily as a movement in exile. As such, their abilities have always been limited and their members scattered across a range of countries. Some who fled Libya returned to Afghanistan where the Taliban were happy to provide them with refuge and from where they hoped to regroup and focus their attention on taking the jihad to Libya. However, after the bombing of Afghanistan in November 2001 they were once again on the run. Many went to Iran and others fled further a-field to Europe or to Asia but this did not enable them to evade capture.... Accordingly, the arrests of the five men in Birmingham, Cardiff and London in October [2005] look more like a symbolic defeat for the remnants of a fading organization."
LIFG: An Organization in Eclipse
Terrorism Monitor, 3 November 2005

"British police and immigration authorities on Wednesday said they arrested eight people suspected of 'facilitating terrorism abroad' in pre-dawn raids that involved 500 officers from London to Manchester.Police and officials at the Home Office, which is responsible for domestic security, declined to identify those arrested or offer details of the allegations against them, except to say that the allegations did not involve potential attacks in Britain.... U.S. officials, however, have said the group is affiliated with al-Qaeda and has attempted to overthrow the Libyan leader, Moammar Gaddafi. In February, the U.S. Treasury Department formally designated Sanabel a group providing financial assistance to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and froze its assets."
Britain Arrests 8 for 'Facilitating Terrorism Abroad'
Washington Post, 26 May 2006

But At The First Sign Of Weakness NATO Kills Gaddafi

"The former partner of an MI6 whistleblower has described the 'dangerous moral slide' of the UK’s intelligence services, comparing a 1996 assassination plot against then Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to his treatment during the 2011 uprising. Annie Machon, former partner of the whistleblower David Shayler, said that British agents had worked alongside rebels in Libya in 1996 in a failed plot to try to kill the dictator, who took power in a 1969 coup. Shayler was imprisoned twice for exposing the plot. Yet in 2011, Machon said, Gaddafi’s downfall in which he was captured and killed by members of an uprising was closely reported and filmed. 'The reporting of MI6 help [for the 1996 plot], of Gaddafi being pulled out of a drainpipe and buggered with a bayonet - nobody cared,' she said. 'It says something that what was a dirty secret in 1996 was openly reported in 2011 - it’s a dangerous moral slide that we, as civilised nations, have taken in that time.'....Shayler was sentenced to six months in prison in 2002 for releasing 28 classified documents to a national newspaper, which led to stories that MI5 held files on government ministers, failed to act on knowledge of IRA bomb plots, and carried out illegal phone surveillance. Shayler fled the UK with Machon three days before the first story was published and went into hiding in Europe for nearly a year, with Machon returning just once to the UK to 'comfort our traumatised families', none of whom had known about their work until they saw the story on the front pages.... Machon made a plea for whistleblowers to be supported by the press and public by focusing not on the 'diversionary tactic' of their personal lives but on what they are trying to expose. 'Snowden will not be the last but might be the bravest whistleblower in intelligence agency history.'"
MI6 whistleblower's partner accuses intelligence agencies of 'moral slide'
Guardian, 24 October 2014


MI6 2004 Deal With Gadaffi
'It's The Oil Stupid'

"[BP's] Lord Browne sought an injunction to ban the reporting of details of a number of key claims made by Mr Chevalier, including.... that Lord Browne visted Colonel Gadaffi in Libya accompanied by a serving or former secret service agent."
A little white lie that meant one of Britain’s top businessmen had to be shown the door
London Times, 2 May 2007

"In the long run, we're not safer because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There's our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies. The deal we made with Qadaffi in Libya looks like hypocrisy: we'll make peace with a brutal dictator if it gets us oil. President Bush is right when he says all people aspire to freedom but he doesn't recognize that people have different definitions of democracy. Publicly promoting democracy while supporting tyranny may be the most damaging thing we do. From the standpoint of democracy, Saudi Arabia looks much worse than Iran. We use the term 'Islamofascism'—but we're supporting it in Saudi Arabia, with Mubarak in Egypt, and even Jordan is a police state. We don't have a strategy because we don't have a clue about what motivates our enemies.... We need to acknowledge that we are at war, not because of who we are, but because of what we do. We are confronting a jihad that is inspired by the tangible and visible impact of our policies. People are willing to die for that, and we're not going to win by killing them off one by one. We have a dozen years of reliable polling in the Middle East, and it shows overwhelming hostility to our policies—and at the same time it shows majorities that admire the way we live, our ability to feed and clothe our children and find work. We need to tell the truth to set the stage for a discussion of our foreign policy. At the core of the debate is oil. As long as we and our allies are dependent on Gulf oil, we can't do anything about the perception that we support Arab tyranny—the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and other regimes in the region. Without the problem of oil, who cares who rules Saudi Arabia? If we solved the oil problem, we could back away from the contradiction of being democracy promoters and tyranny protectors. We should have started on this back in 1973, at the time of the first Arab oil embargo, but we've never moved away from our dependence. As it stands, we are going to have to fight wars if anything endangers the oil supply in the Middle East. What you want with foreign policy is options. Right now we don't have options because our economy and our allies' economies are dependent on Middle East oil."
Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's Bin Laden unit
Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security
Harper's Magazine, 23 August 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1179206,00.html

The path to friendship goes via the oil and gas fields

Colonel Gadafy is just the latest beneficiary of a cynical strategy

Michael Meacher
Saturday March 27, 2004
The Guardian


So "brave" Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the "war on terror". The motives, however, are rather more cynical.

Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, to Sirte, near Tripoli. As the BBC said at the time, Libya was keen to re-enter the world economy, and the UK did not want to lose out on potentially lucrative oil contracts.

For both the UK and US, an energy crisis is looming. The latest BP statistical review of world energy predicted that UK proven oil and gas reserves will last, respectively, only 5.4 and 6.8 years at present rates of use. It has been estimated that by 2020 the UK could be dependent on imported energy for 80% of its needs. The US energy department has calculated that net imports of oil, already at 54%, will rise to 70% by 2025 because of growing demand and declining domestic supply.

Libya produces high-quality, low-sulphur crude oil at very low cost (as low as $1 per barrel in some fields), and holds 3% of world oil reserves. It also has vast proven natural gas reserves of 46 trillion cubic feet, but actual gas reserves are largely unexplored and estimated to total up to 70 trillion cubic feet.

The problem of access to Libyan hydrocarbons was Gadafy's record of running a state terrorist machine - responsible for arming the IRA, the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Britain had even, according to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, paid £100,000 to an al-Qaida cell in Libya to assassinate Gadafy in 1996, and then granted asylum to a member of the cell named Anas al-Liby, who lived in Manchester until 2000.

Moreover, just two months before Gadafy's pact with the west was announced on December 19 last year, Libya was caught trying to import nuclear technology from Malaysia. If it had been Saddam Hussein, no doubt the deal would have been scotchedon the grounds of his unreliability and bad faith. But it is remarkable how sometimes terrorists suddenly turn into "statesmanlike and courageous" friends (to use Jack Straw's phrase).

None of the history of mutual hostility over the past two decades prevented a deal along these simple lines: we accept your acknowledgement of guilt over flight 103, you open up your WMD programmes to inspection, and then both of us can start benefiting from trading your oil again. The weakness of this deal as presented, however, is that it appears that Libya didn't have any WMD, other than chemical weapons no longer likely to be useable. The International Atomic Energy Agency stated last December that "Libya was not close to building a nuclear weapon". Indeed, Libya had itself nine months earlier proposed inspections, so the west's triumphalism says more about the US-UK desire to placate domestic critics than about forcing any fundamental policy change on a recalcitrant Gadafy.

Nor is this rapid shift from terrorist to statesman confined to Libya. The US backing of Islamic terrorism in the Balkans provides another example.....

US BACKED ISLAMIC TERRORISM IN THE BALKANS - CLICK HERE

"Libya has said it is willing in principle to pay compensation for the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people in 1988. Speaking after talks between Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and UK Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien, Libya's foreign minister said the government also wanted to formalise relations with the United States.....After three hours of talks at Sirte, a coastal town about 320km (200 miles) east of Tripoli, Mr O'Brien was cautiously optimistic.... Libya is keen to re-enter the world economy and the UK does not want to lose out to other European nations already jostling for advantage when it comes to potentially lucrative oil contracts."
Libya hints at Lockerbie pay-out
BBC Online, 8 August 2002

"The world's biggest energy companies are preparing to fight it out for a stake in Libya's alluring oil and gas industry. Of 122 companies that registered to apply for oil and gas exploration permits under the latest government licensing programme, 63 have been given the green light to submit bids, says Tarek Hassan-Beck, a top executive at the Stateowned National Oil Corporation (NOC). The list is a roll-call of the world's top oil firms. BP, Royal Dutch/Shell, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil are in the running, as well as smaller explorers such as Marathon Oil. Industry insiders expect China's State-owned energy companies to provide US and European rivals with stiff competition.  Tripoli's exploration drive will open the floodgates to billions of pounds in foreign investment in the oil and gas industry, which badly needs capital and modern technology if the authorities are to meet their ambitious target of almost doubling oil output to three million barrels a day by 2010.... The Libyan investment climate has changed radically as the country has restores links with the West. Although some restrictions remain on the export of US equipment, sanctions have been lifted and Gaddafi has instigated a raft of free-market reforms."
Race begins for Libya's oil
Evening Standard, 7 December 2004

"Qadhafi seeks about $30 billion in foreign investment to advance his desert nation to the booming production levels of the 1970s. According to the US Energy Information Administration, enhanced recovery technologies and new drilling techniques should ramp up production capacity at major oil fields, including Libya's largest, Bouri, which produces some 60,000 bpd, or half its 1995 output.... Tripoli's removal from the US State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism comes nearly two decades after it was implicated in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. Still, surging energy demands in Asia and volatile climates in the Middle East and Latin America have prompted the Bush administration to take a long view, designating African oil a 'strategic national interest'. US energy officials hope that the Gulf of Guinea region, anchored by Nigeria, will meet a quarter of energy demands by 2010, and US companies are prowling the continent for new prospects. Libya is an ideal supplier for its light sweet crude, which is easily refined into gasoline, accessibility to US tankers and safe distance from Middle East turmoil."
Analysis: US eyes Libya's buried prize
United Press International, 19 May 2006

"Libya plans to boost its oil output to 2 mln barrels per day (bpd) in 2007, rising to 3 mln bpd in 2010, from its current production of about 1.6 mln, National Oil Company (NOC) chairman Dr Shukri Ghanem said.... Libya offers great potential for new oil strikes since only about 25 pct of its oil and gas acreage is covered by exploration licences and most of the country has not been explored using modern techniques.... After being held back by UN and US oil sanctions since the 1980s, Libya's production is set to increase thanks to the lifting of these embargoes in 2003 and 2004, since when many US companies formally operating in the country have now returned."
Libya to boost oil output to 2 mln bpd in 2007, 3 mln in 2010
AFX News, 13 June 2006

"With the last vestiges of U.S. sanctions swept away, Moammar Gadhafi's bid to bring Libya back into the diplomatic mainstream has scored a stunning success. Gadhafi's next goal: an economic revival funded by the doubling of oil production in the coming decade. High-tech U.S. oil extraction methods should help, as will geography: Libya, on the North African coast, should be immune from disruptions that could snare the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. Analysts describe Libya as a country with a bright future, whose emergence from diplomatic isolation is balm to an oil-thirsty world. 'Libya and Gadhafi are making all the right moves,' said Dalton Garis, an American oil economist at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 'The Libyans have done a lot to normalize things, more than anyone would've expected.' Libya also is one of the few countries with huge oil reserves and actively encouraging foreign companies — especially American firms — to explore and produce oil."
Oil brightens future for Libya
Associated Press, 21 May 2006

"U.S. oil firms pressured U.S. President George Bush to exempt Libya from a law that allows victims of state terrorism to collect money from foreign governments. Bush signed a bill into law in January that allows victims of state-sponsored terrorism to collect funds from foreign governments. With Congress already excluding Iraq from the law, oil giants from Chevron to Marathon want that favor extended to Libya as well, The New York Times said Tuesday. Bush administration officials back the move and asked for congressional support. 'Commercial relationships provide important continuing incentives for them to cooperate with us on counter-terrorism,' said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council. Lobbyists for the oil industry say penalizing Libya will hurt the U.S. economy as Libya has the largest oil reserves in North Africa at a fraction of the cost of its Middle East counterparts."
Big oil wants relief for Libya
United Press International, 22 April 2008

"Nearly 20 years after the terror bombing aboard Pan Am Flight 103 killed 189 Americans, the Bush administration is trying to resolve a bitter dispute between U.S. terror victims and Libya -- while still boosting oil supplies....The Bush administration wants to give Libya a waiver on a law that allows terror victims to sue the country as well as the U.S. companies that are eager to do business with Libya. The law has halted billions of dollars in contracts between U.S. companies and Libya and slowed exploration for new oil supplies because of questions about liability....The oil companies are letting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce take the lead in lobbying for the exemption from the law....The State Department says it's working with Libya to strike a final deal to settle all victims' claims, as oil companies and Libya are lobbying Congress for waivers."
Proposed U.S.-Libya deal angers Pan Am Flight 103 families
CNN, 4 May 2008

"US President George W Bush has signed a law paving the way for Libya to pay millions of dollars to US victims of terror, but accept no responsibility....The deal could lead to closer ties between Washington and Tripoli."
US signs Libya compensation deal
BBC Online, 5 August 2008

"Diplomacy has trumped decency in a congressionally approved measure to smooth things over with Libya. This wouldn't have anything to do with accessing Moammar Gadhafi's abundant oil reserves, would it? Legislation signed Monday by President Bush shields Libya from any subsequent lawsuits from U.S. victims of terrorism. The State Department will resolve pending litigation against Mr. Gadhafi's regime, formerly regarded as Thugs R Us....It wasn't just Congress that came out for Libya. Big Oil, as well, offered strong support for the Libyan agreement, or, more precisely, Libyan oil. This, after Mr. Gadhafi spent millions for top lobbyists."
Another Libyan deal: Oily politics?
Pittsburgh-Tribune Review, 8 August 2008

"Libya, the holder of Africa's largest oil reserves, threatened to cut oil output in response to a U.S. law that allows terror victims to seize assets of foreign governments as compensation. Congress passed a law in January that would let families of American victims of Libyan-linked attacks confiscate Libyan assets and those of companies doing business with the North African nation. At least two lawsuits have already been filed in Washington. 'We hope that we reach a solution that at least respects the sovereignty of the different countries,' and excludes 'this threat of force,' Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp, said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg television from Cairo. Ghanem served as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2006, when the U.S. began easing two decades of sanctions, including the removal of Libya from a U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism."
Libya May Cut Oil Output on U.S. Threat to its Assets
Bloomberg, 26 June 2008

"Washington's rapprochement with OPEC member Libya is motived by more than just the U.S. need for oil, top U.S. diplomat Condoleezza Rice said on a historic visit to Tripoli on Friday. Rice is making the first visit to the north African country by a U.S. secretary of state since 1953, a trip U.S. officials hope will end decades of enmity and violence five years after Libya gave up its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003. Referring to the possible impact of the trip on bilateral ties, Rice told reporters: 'It is helpful, but this is a much broader relationship.' 'It has much broader potential than just energy.' But Rice added that Libya, owner of Africa's largest oil reserves, could help in terms of the world's fuel supplies and that it was important to have reliable and multiple source of energy. U.S. companies want to compete for contracts in a wide range of sectors in Libya, which is seeking to rebuild its economy after years of sanctions. Such sectors include agriculture, water, telecoms, transport, power generation, construction, engineering, banking and health services. Libya's energy sector is already open to U.S. participation. but better relations, in particular the provision of more visas for U.S. executives, are expected to help deepen the U.S. role in the energy sector. The main U.S. companies involved in Libya are Amerada Hess, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Occidental. The United States imported an average of 85,500 barrels per day of Libyan oil in 2006, equivalent to about seven percent of Libyan petroleum exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Libya's main oil customers are European countries."
Rice says Libya is about more than oil
Reuters, 5 September 2008

"Forty years into the revolution he unleashed on Libya Muammar Gaddafi has announced plans to dismantle the Government, hand the riches from Africa's biggest oil reserves to the people and nationalise foreign oil operations that have recently been allowed back into the country. 'The administration has failed and the state economy has failed. Enough is enough. The solution is, we Libyans take directly the oil money and decide what to do with the money,' he says....The Western oil companies that have been operating in Libya since 2003 - when Colonel Gaddafi abandoned his weapons of mass destruction and Libya took responsibility for bombing Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie - may also have a keener grasp of their future. Another motion is to nationalise foreign-run oil projects. Among those to have arrived since international sanctions were lifted are the British groups BG, BP and Shell. 'Obviously we do not know how it will go,' said one petrochemicals group."
Gaddafi offers oil and power to people
London Times, 21 February 2009


'As You Sow So Shall You Reap''
Britain Gets Hit On 7/7 By Libyan Al Qaeda 'Blowback' After Invasion Of Iraq

Who Is Abu Faraj al-Libbi?

"Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed announced Wednesday the capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, and five other suspected al-Qaeda militants, after a gun battle in Waziristan on Monday. Abu Faraj al-Libbi was wanted in connection with two attempts to assassinate Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, one on December 25, 2004. Security officials said the Libyan born al-Libbi was thought to be a top general for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and acted as an operational commander in Pakistan...."
Pakistan captures al Qaeda suspect
Wikinews, 5 May 2005

After The Anglo-American Led Invasion of Iraq In 2003
Libyan Abu Faraj al-Libbi Oversees Al Qaeda Attacks Against Britain

"The Pakistani military, working with the U.S. military and U.S. intelligence, has captured Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a man both U.S. and Pakistani officials believe is the current operations director of al-Qaida — the successor to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed — and the man who they believe is responsible for planning al-Qaida attacks on the United States. Al-Libbi, a Libyan citizen who has long worked with Osama bin Laden, is believed to have taken over the No. 3 job in al-Qaida with the capture of his mentor Khalid Sheik Mohammed in March of 2003, a senior U.S. official tells NBC News.  Al-Libbi is in charge of all al-Qaida's U.S. and U.K. operations, including any current plots."
NBC: Who is Abu Farraj al-Libbi?
NBC News, 4 May 2005

"A captured al Qaeda leader warned United States interrogators that the London mass transit system was a likely target for an attack. U.S. officials tell ABC News that Al Faraj al Libbi, captured in Pakistan this past May, detailed plans to target London and selected U.S. cities, but did not specify a time for the attacks."
The Warning Before the Attack
ABC News, 8 July 2005

"What is known is that [Abu Faraj] al-Libbi moved from Libya to Pakistan in the mid-1980s before joining the jihad in Afghanistan. He married a Pakistani woman and is said to specialise in maps and diagrams. He is thought to have joined Bin Laden in Sudan with other Libyan nationals in about 1992 and to have become Al-Qaeda’s co-ordinator with home-grown Pakistani terrorist groups after 9/11."
Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of ‘mistaken identity’
Sunday Times, 8 May 2005

"Abu Faraj al-Libbi, arrested in Pakistan this week, is a Libyan described by Pakistani officials as the key al-Qaeda operative in the country. But until a year ago, he was a relatively unknown figure in the hierarchy of alleged militants on the run since 11 September. Libbi's name was first made public in Pakistan last year when it was included in the poster of six most-wanted militants issued by the government."
Pakistan and the 'key al-Qaeda' man
BBC Online, 4 May 2005

"Details of the network that recruited the British suicide bombers are emerging as police piece together the final months of Tanweer, the Aldgate Tube bomber. Pakistani officials have established that when Tanweer, 22, was supposed to be studying at a religious school he met a British-born militant, Zeeshan Siddiqui, who was arrested for terror offences. Scotland Yard now wish to question Siddiqui, who stunned his parents in West London when he dropped out of college in 1999 to join a radical Islamic group. His best friend at Cranford Community College was Asif Hanif, who in 2003 blew himself up in a Tel Aviv nightclub. Officials in Islamabad said that Siddiqui is a close aide of al-Qaeda’s operational commander, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who was arrested this year and handed over to the US. "
Egyptian chemist and head of Pakistani religious school held
London Times, 16 July 2005

"The four men who met at London's King's Cross railway station must have looked ordinary enough to the thousands of commuters rushing to work on the morning of July 7.... The biggest police investigation in British history has already unearthed a number of links between the bombers and al-Qaeda, which counterterrorism officials fear may have other cells standing by.... The [7/7] bombers' trail may also lead to Pakistan. A Pakistani official says British investigators want to reinterrogate Naeem Noor Khan, 25, a Pakistani arrested in Karachi last year who admitted being a top al-Qaeda communications man. His confession and computer archives led to charges of conspiracy to commit murder and other terrorism offenses being lodged against eight men in Britain last August. Khan's former boss, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a Libyan in U.S. custody who may be bin Laden's No. 3 and is believed to have directed al-Qaeda's cells in London, told his interrogators about a plot to attack London's transport system in May that was later aborted, according to Pakistani investigators."
Hate Around The Corner
TIME, 17 July 2005

"Pakistan believes the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic passenger jets was sanctioned by al-Qaida's second in command, it was reported today. The Associated Press, quoting senior intelligence officials, said interrogations of suspects in custody in Pakistan had indicated Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's 'number two', had probably cleared the plot. Al-Zawahiri has shown considerable interest in terrorist attacks relating to the UK, issuing video and audio statements last August and this July blaming British foreign policy for the July 7 attacks and claiming that bombers Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan had been trained by al-Qaida. Investigators have concentrated over the past week on connections between the alleged plotters and Pakistan. Rashid Rauf, a British citizen from Birmingham arrested in Pakistan shortly before last week's police operation and believed to be related to one of the arrested men, has been described by authorities in Pakistan and the UK as a key planner behind the suspected plot. The reports follow claims in Pakistani newspapers that al-Qaida's number three, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, had been identified as the planner of the alleged plot. Mr al-Libbi was arrested and handed over to the US government in May 2005, so if he is found to have been involved it would suggest that the alleged plot had been hatched more than 12 months ago."
Pakistan links al-Qaida's number two to plot
Guardian, 17 August 2006

"Pakistani security sources said yesterday that al-Qaida's 'number three' was behind the alleged plot to blow up several transatlantic flights leaving the UK. They also suggested Britain wanted to allow the plotters to try a dry run, without explosives, so as to gather more evidence, but was persuaded to intervene earlier by US and Pakistani authorities. British detectives are in Islamabad working with the Pakistani security services with regard to Rashid Rauf, the Briton held in connection with the alleged plot. No decision has been made as to whether he will be extradited to Britain. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who after Osama bin Laden and the Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri, is suspected of being al-Qaida's third in command, has been named by Pakistani security sources as the main planner of the alleged plot, according to Dawn, a daily newspaper. He has also been accused of being in a plot to assassinate Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, and was arrested last year and turned over to the US."
Pakistan says al-Qaida link to plot found
Guardian, 17 August 2006

"[7/7 London Bombers] Khan and his colleagues in particular were members of a UK-based al-Qaeda network that had been planning terrorist attacks on multiple targets in New York, London and elsewhere in Europe. The cells involved in this planning, which included Khan and his colleagues, were being directed by a senior al-Qaeda operative, Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Al-Libbi had been arrested and detained in Pakistan in May 2005. US investigators called into interrogate him told the press that al-Libbi admitted that 'the London mass transit system was a likely target for an attack.' That warning was reportedly passed on to British intelligence services. But the parliamentary intelligence committee report blandly insists that no warnings at all of the 77 terrorist attack was received by the security services. This is demonstrably false. Without an independent public inquiry, we may never know what happened to this, along with the many other warnings of the London bombings, that had been passed on to our government from various credible sources. My research indicates that the networks under al-Libbi’s jurisdiction overlapped strongly with al-Muhajiroun, a militant British group headed by Omar Bakri Mohammed who is now in Lebanon, debarred from returning to the UK. Although routinely derided as nothing more than a hothead and a loudmouth, two of Bakri’s boys from al Muhajiroun had already conducted a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv years before the London bombings, which Bakri had openly praised. A Manchester businessman Kursheed Fiaz has told the BBC that Sidique Khan, described as the chief bomber, had personally known the Tel Aviv bombers and had visited Fiaz with them as early as the summer of 2001 to discuss recruitment tactics."
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
7/7: The British Terror Paradigm
Media Monitors Network, 14 July 2006

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, London, United Kingdom. He teaches courses in political theory, international relations and contemporary history at the School of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom. He is the author of 'The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry'

Al Muhajiroun Are Another Former Tool Of MI6

".... all these guys [carrying out the 7/7 investigation] should be going back to an organization called Al-Muhajiroun, which means The Emigrants. It was the recruiting arm of Al-Qaeda in London; they specialized in recruiting kids whose families had emigrated to Britain but who had British passports. And they would use them for terrorist work .... the first group of course were primarily Pakistani. But what they had in common was they were all emigrant groups in Britain, recruited by this Al-Muhajiroun group. They were headed by the, Captain Hook [Abu Hamza], the imam in London the Finsbury Mosque, without the arm. He was the head of that organization. Now his assistant was a guy named Aswat, Haroon Rashid Aswat. Aswat is believed to be the mastermind of all the bombings in London... This is the guy, and what's really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him.... What ties all these cells together was, back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started .....The CIA was funding the operation to defend the Muslims, British intelligence was doing the hiring and recruiting. Now we have a lot of detail on this because Captain Hook [Abu Hamza], the head of Al-Muhajiroun, [his] sidekick was Bakri Mohammed, another cleric. And back on October 16, 2001, he gave a detailed interview with al-Sharq al-Aswat, an Arabic newspaper in London, describing the relationship between British intelligence and the operations in Kosovo and Al-Muhajiroun. So that's how we get all these guys connected. It started in Kosovo...."
Interview with former US Federal Prosecutor John Loftus
Fox TV, 29 July 2005

As You Sow, So Shall You Reap

"WMR [Wayne Madsen Report] has obtained a confidential 'France Only' report of the French intelligence service, Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), that states that the CIA and Britain's MI-6 maintained effective control of an important Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan as late as 1995, fully two years after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, an attack that was launched with the help of Sudanese intelligence officers loyal to Osama Bin Laden. The CIA and MI-6 permitted control of training operations at Darunta, an 'Arab Afghan' base located near the camp of Osama Bin Laden and used to manufacture explosives and chemical weapons and train in their use, to pass to the control of Ibn Cheikh, a Libyan leader of Al Qaeda. The DGSE report, dated January 9, 2001, is classified 'Defense Confidential' and 'National (French) Use Only' states, 'Besides the Maghreb enclave, the training at Darunta, which, for approximately 2 months, mainly involved the manufacture and the use of the explosives by terrorists. This training, initially provided at the camp of Khalden, in Paktia, was transferred during 1995, on the order of Ibn Cheikh, to Darunta, in order to slide [the training] from the control of the security services of certain countries, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom.' ...."
Classified French DGSE intelligence report: Al Qaeda Training Camp passed from Control of CIA to Bin Laden in 1995
Wayne Madsen Report, 27 May 2006

[Wayne Madsen, a former U.S. Naval officer who was assigned to the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration,
is the author of
  'Jaded Tasks : Brass Plates, Black Ops & Big Oil - The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co' published July 2006. Recent articles by Madsen have appeared in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, San Jose Mercury News, Centre Daily (State College, PA), San Diego Union-Tribune, Charlotte Observer, Kansas City Star, Charleston (WV) Gazette, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, Charleston (WV) Gazette, Centre Daily (State College, PA)]

Wayne Madsen Report Claimed May 2006 That It Had Obtained French Intelligence Details
Of Al Qaeda Camp At Darunta In Afghanistan
Under Effective CIA-MI6 Control Until 1995 When It Was Permitted To Pass Into The Hands
Of An Anti-Gaddafi Al-Qaeda Group

Copies of report at:
1.http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
2. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/richmondreport/2006/05/the_air_war_begins.html
3. http://www.outlookindia.com/fullpost_v2.asp?refer=70348
4. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAD20060527&articleId=2523

5.
http://www.apisgroup.org/article.html?id=3178

Classified French DGSE intelligence report
Al Qaeda Training Camp passed from Control of CIA to Bin Laden in 1995

[extract]

"May 23, 2006 WMR has obtained a confidential 'France Only' report of the French intelligence service, Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), that states that the CIA and Britain's MI-6 maintained effective control of an important Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan as late as 1995, fully two years after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, an attack that was launched with the help of Sudanese intelligence officers loyal to Osama Bin Laden. The CIA and MI-6 permitted control of training operations at Darunta, an 'Arab Afghan' base located near the camp of Osama Bin Laden and used to manufacture explosives and chemical weapons and train in their use, to pass to the control of Ibn Cheikh, a Libyan leader of Al Qaeda.

The DGSE report, dated January 9, 2001, is classified 'Defense Confidential' and 'National (French) Use Only' states, 'Besides the Maghreb enclave, the training at Darunta, which, for approximately 2 months, mainly involved the manufacture and the use of the explosives by terrorists. This training, initially provided at the camp of Khalden, in Paktia, was transferred during 1995, on the order of Ibn Cheikh, to Darunta, in order to slide [the training] from the control of the security services of certain countries, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom.'

The report continues by stating that in 1998, the training was expanded to include the use of C-4 plastic explosives and different types of detonators (electric, acid, etc.). Training also included the use of homemade explosives (like improvised explosive devices killing so many in Iraq today) and poisons such as arsenic, cyanide, gas, diamond powder, nicotine, and ricin. After Al Qaeda took control of Darunta from the CIA and MI-6, the camp was used to train Al Qaeda operatives to launch a series of deadly attacks, including the November 19, 1995 attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, the 1998 attacks on the US embassy in Nairobi, the abortive Dec. 31, 1999 'Millennium' attack on Los Angeles International Airport by Algerian Ahmed Ressam, and the attack on the USS Cole....


Madsen1.jpg (9125 bytes)

Madsen2.jpg (32702 bytes)

[PARA 3 ABOVE: 'Besides the Maghreb enclave, the training at Darunta, which, for approximately 2 months, mainly involved the manufacture and the use of the explosives by terrorists. This training, initially provided at the camp of Khalden, in Paktia, was transferred during 1995, on the order of Ibn Cheikh, to Darunta, in order to slide [the training] from the control of the security services of certain countries, in particular the United States and the United Kingdom.']

Two significant items emerge from the DGSE report. One is the fact that the CIA and MI-6 were dealing with a Libyan Al Qaeda member at the same time Libyan leader Muammar el Qaddafi had declared war on Al Qaeda. Unlike the United States, Libya issued an Interpol arrest warrant for Bin Laden on March 16, 1998. With this treasure trove of proof of U.S. (and British) support for Al Qaeda, Qaddafi had the U.S. and the neo-cons over the barrel. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bush administration now considers Qaddafi (once branded as terrorist number one) to be a good friend.

Interpol arrest warrant for Bin Laden.

The other item is the training of Ahmed Ressam at Darunta. Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was charged with removing classified documents from the National Archives concerning the Ressam bombing plot. The question remains -- what were in these documents and did they have anything to do with the CIA's fingerprints on the Darunta camp?"

Click Here For Pictures Of Darunta Camp


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