Is Al Qaeda Gaining the Upper Hand in Libya?

A Libyan rebel commander who recruited his countrymen to  serve as jihadists in the Iraqi insurgency has said radical Islamists "today are on the front lines" in the uprising against Muammar Qaddafi.

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi told an Italian newspaper this week that some of the Libyan jihadists he recruited to fight multi-national forces in Iraq had returned home to participate in the rebellion.

They "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," he said, adding that the "members of al Qaeda (in Iraq) are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader."

The charismatic al-Hasidi, who has emerged as one of the most visible rebel spokesmen in the ongoing anti-Qaddafi  unrest, belongs to an Islamist group called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The  organization mounted a series of spectacular guerrilla attacks against Qaddafi's military near Benghazi and Derna in 1995 and 1996, reportedly killing dozens of soldiers.

He also fought with anti-coalition militias in Afghanistan. Captured in Pakistan in 2002, al-Hasidi was handed over to the U.S. and later repatriated to Libya. Qaddafi's regime kept him in prison until 2008.

While al-Hasidi's LIFG does not fall under the al Qaeda umbrella, the two groups share similar radical Islamist ideologies and militant strategies. In 2001 the U.S. designated LIFG a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).

In an interview with CBS News Tuesday night President Obama said the role of al Qaeda and other Islamists in the Libyan civil war is being assessed by U.S. and allied intelligence agencies: "That's why I think it's important for us not to jump in with both feet," he said, "but to carefully consider what are the goals of the opposition."

“There’s an operational advantage for militants in any place where law enforcement and domestic security are weak and distracted,” said Steven Simon, author of the Sacred Age of Terror and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Simon suggested last month that while the current wave of Arab revolts had largely bypassed al Qaeda and its credo based on the twin tenets of religious fundamentalism and militancy, Libya might prove to be the exception.

At the weekend, al Qaeda encouraged Libyan insurgents to continue waging war against Qaddafi in a videotaped message posted to jihadist websites.  The message, recorded by a senior Libyan al Qaeda commander, was the organization's first high-level statement on the revolt.

Earlier this week Chad's president Idriss Deby claimed al Qaeda plundered  Libyan military arsenals in rebel-held territory, acquiring weapons including surface-to-air missiles "which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries" in the Saharan desert.

Chad’s president also backed Qaddafi's assertion that the protests in Libya had been fomented, in part, by an al Qaeda network active in the North African country.

“There is a partial truth in what he says. Up to what point? I don’t know," said Deby. "But I am certain that (al Qaeda) took an active part in the uprising.”

While Qaddafi has reason to exaggerate the part militant Islamic fundamentalism has played in Libya's insurrection, his longtime regional enemy doesn't.

Qaddafi has repeatedly blamed al Qaeda for inciting the Libyan unrest, saying anti-regime protestors were being manipulated by Osama bin-Laden and warning that Islamist militants will fill the power vacuum if he is toppled.

The Libyan strongman was the first to issue an Interpol arrest warrant for bin-Laden, charging al Qaeda with acting in concert with domestic Islamists to assassinate two German counter-terrorism agents in Libya in 1994.

Qaddafi's concerns about al Qaeda and the resurgent Islamist threat helped prompt his decision to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction program and embark on a rapprochement with the West in 2004.

Casting himself in the once unimaginable role of an ally of convenience in the War on Terror, Libya was cautiously welcomed back into the international mainstream after decades of pariah state-status. Qaddafi's own history of sponsoring terrorist violence, including the bombing of a Pan Am airliner out of the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, was partially forgiven if never actually forgotten on the even-the-craziest-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend principle of realpolitik.

Prior to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit in 2008, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli provided her with a briefing which described Qaddafi as "a strong partner in the war of terrorism,"  lauding his efforts to contain the activities of Libyan jihadists returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The embassy said Qaddafi was routinely providing the West with "excellent" intelligence on al Qaeda and its allies and the quixotic leader was determined to "blunt the ideological appeal of radical Islam."

Regime change is the unstated goal of the West's intervention in what amounts to a Libyan civil war.

But President Obama is correct when he says the alliance should err on the side of caution when it comes to the opposition's objectives . The idea, after all, is surely to change the Qaddafi regime for a Western-tilting, secular government, not a jihadist-dominated one.

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