U.S. Sees Potential Infiltration by a Small Number of Islamist Fighters in Opposition Led by 'Responsible Men and Women'
y ADAM ENTOUS, KEITH JOHNSON and CHARLES LEVINSON
U.S. intelligence agencies believe ragtag rebel forces fighting Col. Moammar Gadhafi in eastern Libya include some Islamists with possible ties to al Qaeda, but the number of Islamist fighters is relatively small and their role in the opposition is limited, according to U.S. officials.
United Press International
'We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah,' U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, far left, said in testimony on Libya's rebel forces.
In a Senate hearing Tuesday, U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's supreme allied commander in Europe, said intelligence agencies had picked up "flickers" of an al Qaeda presence among Libyan opposition fighters. He also mentioned links to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based militant group.
"The intelligence that I'm receiving at this point makes me feel that the leadership that I'm seeing are responsible men and women who are struggling against Col. Gadhafi," Adm. Stavridis said. "We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah; we've seen different things. But at this point, I don't have the detail sufficient to say that there's a significant al Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks."
Asked by Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) about possible al Qaeda in Libya, Adm. Stavridis said the U.S. military was conducting a thorough intelligence assessment of the Libyan opposition as part of a "due diligence" process.
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The questions about the opposition come as the Obama administration struggles to keep pace with upheavals across the Mideast that have brought down or threaten to bring down authoritarian allies, but could usher in governments that may be less aligned with U.S. interests.
Adm. Stavridis's comments came a day after Mr. Obama addressed the nation to argue his case for a U.S. role in the conflict in Libya.
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, the U.S. is still "getting to know" the rebels.
"So far, they're saying the right things," President Barack Obama said Tuesday on "CBS Evening News" when asked about Libyan opposition leaders. "Most of them are professionals, lawyers, doctors—people who appear to be credible. That doesn't mean that…among all the people who opposed Gadhafi, there might not be elements that are unfriendly to the United States and our interests."
U.S. officials say limits to information about the Libyan opposition groups have slowed deliberations about how the U.S. should aid them. The Pentagon has been wary of calls in Congress to arm the rebels, in part because of concerns that weapons could end up with forces unfriendly to the U.S., officials say.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an address to the conference that the pressure on the Gadhafi regime must continue.
But officials briefed on the latest U.S. intelligence from Libya pushed back Tuesday at suggestions that al Qaeda or Hezbollah was becoming a force within the Libyan opposition.
"If anyone thinks there are vast numbers of al Qaeda terrorists running the rebel movement in Libya, then Churchill never smoked a cigar in his life," said a U.S. official.
"No one's saying there isn't a relative smattering of bad guys in Libya—after all, there always have been goons in the country—but let's get real here. This is, at its core, an anti-Gadhafi uprising rooted in major opposition to a repressive regime."
Islamists representing different streams of Islam aren't hard to find on the front lines. Among the rebel ranks are fighters who took on the Soviets in Afghanistan and the U.S. in Iraq. Members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, which was founded by fighters who returned to Libya after fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and waged a violent rebellion against Col. Gadhafi in the mid-1990s, appear to be playing a role in the current fighting, according to experts familiar with the group.Allies Meet as Rebels Move
Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press
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A Libyan rebel urged people to leave as shells from Gadhafi's forces started landing on the frontline outside of Bin Jawaad, Libya, Tuesday.
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The group was included on a U.N. list of groups affiliated with the Taliban after Sept. 11. Its leaders have distanced the group from al Qaeda in recent years, and the group's defenders argue that the its fight has been confined to battling Col. Gadhafi's regime.
Col. Gadhafi has sought since the start of the uprising to brand the opposition as al Qaeda-controlled, seeking to discredit the opposition and apparently win favor with the West. From the time he agreed to give up his nuclear ambitions in 2003 and until his recent falling out with the West, Col. Gadhafi and his intelligence services were allies of the Central Intelligence Agency in its campaign against al Qaeda in North Africa.
Gene Cretz, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, called Col. Gadhafi's claims about al Qaeda's role amid the rebels "patently ridiculous."
Mr. Cretz, the point man for U.S. contacts with the rebels, said that opposition forces were "very aware of the problem" and that they had caught "maybe three or four" members of an Algerian al Qaeda affiliate trying to infiltrate rebel forces in the first week of the uprising.
The affiliate, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is the current incarnation of an Algerian branch of the terrorist organization that has long sought to turn North Africa into an al Qaeda theater of operations. But its militancy has largely been confined to Algeria. The group's latest propaganda dispatch detailing militant activity made no mention of operations inside Libya.
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