MidnightWatcher's Blogspot

By Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwell – “WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Intelligence on the rebel forces battling Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has shown “flickers” of al Qaeda or Hezbollah presence, but there is still no detailed picture of the emerging Libyan opposition, NATO’s top operations commander said on Tuesday.

‘We are examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders of these opposition forces,’ Admiral James Stavridis, who is NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and also the commander of U.S. European Command, said during testimony at the U.S. Senate.”  Read more.

Can’t say I’m surprised.

“By Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham – In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited ‘around 25’ men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are ‘today are on the front lines in Adjabiya’.

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters ‘are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,’ but added that the ‘members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader’.

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad’s president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, ‘including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries’.”  Read more.