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The Libyan Left Behind Novels

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I confess I’m skeptical every time a set of documents gets “left behind” in Libya. First there were the intelligence documents showing how the US and UK collaborated in the rendition and torture of Libyan opposition figures. Then there was Ambassador Chris Stevens’ journal, in apparently undamaged condition. And now there are the documents a WaPo reporter found at the still unsecured compound.

Documents detailing weapons collection efforts, emergency evacuation protocols, the full internal itinerary of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’s trip and the personnel records of Libyans who were contracted to secure the mission were among the items scattered across the floors of the looted compound when a Washington Post reporter and a translator visited Wednesday.

[snip]

At least one document found amid the clutter indicates that Americans at the mission were discussing the possibility of an attack in early September, just two days before the assault took place. The document is a memorandum dated Sept. 9 from the U.S. mission’s security office to the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, the Libyan-government-sanctioned militia that was guarding the compound, making plans for a “quick reaction force,” or QRF, that would provide security.

“In the event of an attack on the U.S. Mission,” the document states, “QRF will request additional support from the 17th February Martyrs Brigade.”

Other the documents detail — with names, photographs, phone numbers and other personal information — the Libyans contracted to provide security for the mission from a British-based private firm, Blue Mountain. Some of those Libyans say they now fear for their lives, and the State Department has said it shares concerns about their safety.

Not only do I find it a remarkable coinkydink that only in Libya do documents have a way of conveniently appearing. But all the documents in question are documents that address a specifically relevant subject matter at a convenient time. Moreover, given earlier reports that documents showing contacts were looted, I’m doubly skeptical an itinerary of Chris Stevens’ meetings would be left lying around, particularly given all the questions about what he was doing in Benghazi. And I’ll come back to my thoughts about the Libyan security contractors in a later post.

Ah well. None of that takes away from the laudable work of the reporters that continue to unearth this stuff.

Which brings me to the real question raised by the discovery of these documents. Thus far, at least 3 media teams have spent significant time at the compound.

And yet the FBI haven’t shown up for a visit once.

Perhaps that’s a factor of the FBI having chased their Arabic Agents out of the Bureau (I haven’t heard of similar problems with Agents of North African descent); it’d be a lot easier to at least do a few evidence collection visits if the FBI officers didn’t look and sound like Ken and Barbie. But in the WaPo’s case, at least, a reporter and a translator made it safely in and out of the compound.

Maybe the FBI can deputize the press to conduct this investigation?

Bashar al-Assad, Gitmo Judge and Jury

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As Steven Aftergood reported, Syrian Gitmo detainee Abdulhadi Omer Mahmoud Faraj has challenged the government’s inane policy prohibiting detainee attorneys from refuting the claims made in Gitmo files. The motion argues that letting the claims go unrebutted jeopardizes any chance Faraj might have for repatriation or resettlement, and even endangers his family in Syria.

Abu Zubaydah’s Evidence

One problem, the motion argues, is the allegations in his Gitmo file come from, “unreliable claims made by individuals under conditions that amount to coercion, if not torture.” Faraj’s Gitmo file includes the following claims:

  • In a 2002 CIA report, Abdurahman Khadr (Omar’s brother, who was then working as a CIA informant) said the Syrian guesthouse in Kabul at which Faraj stayed conducted document forgery
  • In a 2002 CIA report, Abu Zubaydah said he helped fund the Syrian guesthouse
  • In a 2002, 2003, and 2005 CIA reports, Abu Zubaydah said one person at the guesthouse was an expert forger, another was a bomber with ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and a third met with him in 2001; only the third, Maasoum Abdah Mouhammad, is among the group of 4-5 Syrians with whom Faraj allegedly had the closest ties, and he was transferred to Bulgaria in 2010
  • Mohammed Basardah, notorious for falsely implicating a large number of detainees, claimed that another of the Syrians Faraj had ties with was fighting with him at Tora Bora

In other words, many of the claims against Faraj constitute claims made by the two most unreliable Gitmo witnesses–and another who was then on the CIA payroll–implicating others associated with Faraj. Most of those claims were minimized or ignored in Faraj’s most recent Administrative Review Board.

Syrian Military Intelligence Evidence

The motion discusses the other problem with his Gitmo file more obliquely, with a reference to Syrian human rights violations, including its dubious allegations that opposition figures are Islamic extremists.

According to Human Rights Watch, “Syrian security services regularly arrest men suspected of Islamist affiliation or sympathies” and torture them to obtain confessions.

[snip]

Given the current violent response by the Syrian government to pro-democracy protesters, the unchallenged narrative depicting Mr. Faraj as a “terrorist” only increases the risk of harm to him and his family.

But the Gitmo file clearly reveals the problem: some of the key allegations against Faraj come from two CIA reports, dating to 2001, recording claims passed on by Syrian Military Intelligence.

Syrian authorities dismantled terrorist cells in Damascus and Hamah, SY in 2000, arresting fifteen members of the cells while some cell members, including SY-327, escaped. The Syrian Military Intelligence (SMI) stated that those who escaped were believed to have fled to Afghanistan.

Read more →

Recruiting Informants: Framings, Expulsion, and Torture

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Between this MoJo story from last week and this Telegraph story from today, it sure looks like the US and Brits have utterly dispensed with rule of law in hopes of recruiting informants.

Last week, Nick Baumann told the story of Yonas Fikre. While visiting family in Sudan, men purporting to be FBI (remember that CIA has repeatedly lied and said they were FBI since 9/11) pushed him to become an informant. When he refused, the Agents told him he had been put on the no-fly list. He then traveled to UAE, where he was detained (reportedly at the behest of the US, torture, and interrogated–in an effort, Fikre says, to elicit a false confession.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph tells of the process depicted by more of the documents liberated in Libya (I’m still wondering when the documents explaining how Ibn Sheikh al-Libi was suicided). In violation of laws prohibiting it, MI5 not only provided information to Libyans about Libyan refugees in the country, but set up meetings to try to coerce them to become informants.  If offering them citizenship didn’t work, the story describes, then they would prosecute them for meeting with the Libyan agents whose meeting they had set up.

The minutes suggest that MI5 preferred to use the carrot, rather than the stick, in inducing the target to start giving up information about his associates: ‘We might allow him to visit his family in Libya, then return to Britain. We could offer to help clear his name with Libyan authorities. We could offer to help with citizenship or residency. This could open the door to his co-operation. We could enter his office frequently, do business with him and open the door to further conversations.’

But if that didn’t work, then they could resort to coercion: ‘Libyan operatives could ask him [the target asylum seeker] about problems at home in Libya or in Britain.
‘They offer to help in return for giving information we want

about other targets. If he refuses, British police will arrest him and accuse him of associating with Libyan secret agents. He will be told that as a non-resident of Britain he could be deported if found guilty.’

At some point this isn’t about collecting intelligence anymore (particularly in the case of Fikre’s mosque, the Imam from which the FBI has probably sent 10 informants against without ever being able to make a case against him). It’s about instilling turning Muslim men into the puppets of the governments claiming to wage counter-terrorism campaigns.

The Libyan Gift That Keeps Giving: Sarkozy’s Turn

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In the last few days, Tony Blair has developed Alberto Gonzales-like levels of forgetfulness with regards his flip-flops on Libya as he tries to answer questions about the Abdel Hakim Belhaj rendition.

But it looks like Blair won’t be the only European figure who may soon regret his inconsistency with regards to Libya.

Tucked into an article about US Judge Ricardo Urbina’s decision that British MPs couldn’t use FOIA to get information on British collaboration in our renditions is this tidbit directed as Sarkozy:

Previously unpublished documents show that French secret agents regularly spied on dissidents, and passed on information which led to them being captured and killed.

This all took place while the French President was still calling Gaddafi the “Brother Leader” and treating him as an honoured guest in Paris.

The damning revelations are contained in 5,600 pages of notes uncovered in archives in Sabah, in the south of Libya.

Jomode Elie Getty, a Libyan living in France, said he found a report dated 13 June 2007 that proved a surveillance operation had been organised against him and other dissidents by France’s secret service.

Another intelligence report, filed just before Gaddafi arrived on a state visit to France a few months later, read that it was necessary to “listen to contacts, to identify them and track them down” and to “prevent anti-Libyan acts”. The operation was co-ordinated by loyal Gaddafi lieutenant Bashir Saleh who, intriguingly, was “rescued” by the French during the rebellion and is now under 24-hour protection in Paris.

Then there’s the call from Saif al-Islam for Sarkozy to give back €50 million allegedly laundered from from Moammar Qaddafi through Swiss and Panamanian bank accounts to a key Sarkozy aide back in 2005.

“Sarkozy must first give back the money he took from Libya to finance his electoral campaign. We funded it. We have all the details and are ready to reveal everything,” said Saif-al Islam, currently held in Libya following the overthrow of his father’s regime.

“The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people. He was given the assistance so he could help them, but he has disappointed us. Give us back our money.”

I’m not entirely sure why these EuroNeocons believed they’d be able to flip-flop their support like this and get away with it.

But given the thoroughly uncritical guarantees Libya backers offered that nothing could go wrong, I must confess to a bit of amusement.