By Robert Barsocchini
Al Shabaab, the Islamic terrorist group that has just laid siege to a Kenyan university, killing nearly 150 people, benefited from the 2011 Western aggression that backed al Qaeda and affiliated militias to destroy the state of Libya:
The Telegraph:
Libyan arms that went missing during the fighting to remove Col Muammar Gaddafi are now spreading even further afield…
The new report by a special UN security council committee suggests that they have now travelled even further, with Libyan ammunition showing up in the continuing war being waged by al-Shabab [pictured above], an al-Qaeda offshoot in Somalia.
Somalia borders Kenya, where Al Shabaab has just attacked a university.
Al Shabaab has “Wahhabi roots”; Wahhabism is the extremist version of Islam exported by missionary theocracy Saudi Arabia, which is itself currently carrying out US-coordinated terrorist attacks against people in Yemen. “Al-Wahhab’s teachings are state-sponsored and are the official form of Sunni Islam in 21st century Saudi Arabia”.
In addition to support for Saudi Arabia dating to the 1930s, the US has on numerous occasions openly orindirectly supported al Qaeda and other Wahhabi terrorist groups.
The Western aggression that destroyed Libya also benefitted other al Qaeda and al Qaeda linked militias, such as Boko Haram:
- Al Jazeera: “…heavy weapons such as SAM-7 anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles…were either surreptitiously obtained by posing as Gaddafi’s supporters or indirectly purchased from mercenaries who had acquired these arms from Libyan depositories. …these arms have been transferred to groups such as Ansar Dine, Boko Haram and MUJAO, emboldening and enabling them to mount more deadly and audacious attacks.
- Commentary Magazine: “Unsecured Libyan weapons went to Boko Haram”
- Human Rights First: “Unsecured Libyan stockpiles empower Boko Haram and destabilize African Sahel”
- NBC News: “Apart from benefiting from sympathizers in the Nigerian military, the Islamic terror group is able to purchase small arms and occasionally some larger weaponry in nearby conflict zones, ‘probably Libya’ … The collapse of Libya has further flooded the market”
- Reuters and United Nations: “The Libyan civil war may have given militant groups in Africa’s Sahel region like Boko Haram and al Qaeda access to large weapons caches, according to a U.N. report released on Thursday. … Boko Haram killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 this year in Nigeria.”
- Washington Post: “Boko Haram … militants, who traveled to northern Mali last year to join the fight there, have returned with heavy weapons from Libya, presumably from former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s arsenal.”
Author and UK-based colleague on Twitter. Author is a regular contributor to Washington’s Blog and Counter Currents, and writes professionally for the film industry.
03 April, 2015
Countercurrents.org