It probably will be considered highly suspicious that Abu Anas al-Liby died just nine days before he was set to stand trial for his role in the 1998 African Embassy bombings. Abducted in Libya in 2013, al-Liby is alleged to have died from liver cancer at the age of fifty. His wife isn’t buying it.
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.
We can say for certain that he was kidnapped, or whatever you want to call it when someone is snatched from a foreign country and detained without the consent of the government there.
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.
In the interminable War on Terror, I don’t think there is a single individual who has had more misinformation spread about him than al-Libi, who has been “captured” more times than al Qaeda Number Threes have been killed.
I don’t say this as a cynic. The record is clear.
Actually, it is as clear as mud. And the circumstances of his death place a nice capstone on a life that was obviously much more myth than reality.
He may, however, have had a career working with MI6. At least for a time.
A year later [1996] MI6 is said to have paid a Libyan Al Qaeda cell to kill Colonel Gaddafi. It is thought that Liby, 49, pictured, was allowed to stay in return for aiding the alleged plot, which was unsuccessful.
A trial would have been, shall we say, interesting.
It sounds very suspicious.
The spectre of terrorism eventually asks the question, ‘who is worse, the terrorists themselves or those whose intent is to bring them to ground?’
Terrorist, double agent, whatever. Good riddance to him. The people who play those sorts of games (no matter their nationality or religion) are not worthy of our concern or our sympathy.
Am I to draw the conclusion from this episode that the american government is a corrupt and murderous regime? Fair enough. Why should I invest one moment of my time or money supporting it?
What?
You wrote that his death was highly suspicious. I took that to mean you think he was allowed to die so as to avoid exposing some inconvenient info at trial. That would seem to imply that the US government is pretty despicable. No?
= “nothing to see here, move along” [gif for hand gesture here]
Am I to draw the conclusion from this episode that the [A]merican government is a corrupt and murderous regime? … Why should I invest one moment of my time or money supporting it? Yes. As corrupt and murderous as the Israeli regime.
Why should I invest my tax money supporting it?
Oh, that’s right, they’re dog’s chosen people and the rest of us can kiss their asses.
“was seized in 2013”
Can’t blame that one on Dick Cheney. His death is squarely on Obama’s watch. Does the buck still stop there? Or is the buck passed there?
○ Summer 1995: CIA Designs Program to Abduct Islamist Militants and Send them to Egypt
My diaries …
○ US Marines On the Shore of ‘Montezuma and Tripoli’ | May 2014 |
○ Reagan’s CIA Man In Libya Now Employed by Obama | March 2014 |
The stink of a rotted-out system wafts on both sides of the contemporary terrorism question. But all reality is three-dimensional. Find a third side and stay there.Let the others hustle themselves into non-being. The sooner, the better.
AG
Just about as convenient as Hunter Thompson’s “suicide” and Harry Reid’s recent “exercise accident.