Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi
Encyclopedia
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was a Libya
n paramilitary trainer for Al-Qaeda
. After being captured and interrogated by the American and Egypt
ian forces, the information he gave under torture
by Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush Administration
in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq
as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein
and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency
and the Defense Intelligence Agency
strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.
, the facility where Zacarias Moussaoui
and Ahmed Ressam
trained. An associate of Abu Zubaydah
, al-Libi was one of those whose assets were frozen by order of the September 26, 2002 list of terrorists released by the U.S. government following the September 11 attacks.
He was captured by Pakistan
i officials in November 2001, as he attempted to flee Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban precipitating the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
.
United States Department of Defense
spokesmen used to routinely described the Khaldan training camp as an "al Qaeda training camp", and used to routinely describe Al-Libi and Abu Zubaydah as senior members of Al Qaeda. However, during their testimony at their Combatant Status Review Tribunal
s, several Guantanamo captives, including Abu Zubaydah, described the Khaldan camp as being run by a rival jihadist organization one that did not support attacking civilians.
. When talking to FBI interrogators Russell Fincher and Marty Mahon, he seemed "genuinely friendly" and spoke chiefly in English, calling for a translator only when necessary. He seemed to bond closely with Fincher, a devout Christian
, and the two prayed together and discussed religion at length.
Al-Libi also told the interrogators details about Richard Reid
, and he agreed to continue cooperating if the United States would allow his wife and her family to emigrate, as he was prosecuted within the American legal system himself.
for permission to take al-Libi into their own custody and rendition him to a foreign country for more "tough guy" questioning, and were granted permission. They "simply came and took al-Libi away from the FBI", and one CIA officer was heard telling their new prisoner that "You know where you are going. Before you get there, I am going to find your mother and fuck her".
In the second week of January 2002, he was flown to the USS Bataan
in the northern Arabian Sea
, the ship which was being used to hold eight other notable prisoners, including John Walker Lindh
. He was subsequently handed over to Egyptian interrogators.
On September 15, 2002, Time
published an article that detailed the CIA interrogations of Omar al-Faruq
. In the article it states "On Sept. 9, according to a secret CIA summary of the interview, al-Faruq confessed that he was, in fact, al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. Then came an even more shocking confession: according to the CIA document, al-Faruq said two senior al-Qaeda officials, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had ordered him to 'plan large-scale attacks against U.S. interests in Indonesia
, Malaysia, (the) Philippines, Singapore
, Thailand
, Taiwan
, Vietnam
and Cambodia
.'"
Al-Libi has been identified as the primary source of faulty prewar intelligence regarding chemical weapons training between Iraq and al Qaeda that was used by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq
. Specifically, he told interrogators that Iraq provided training to al-Qaeda in the area of weapons of mass destruction. In Cincinnati in October 2002, Bush informed the public: "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."
This claim was repeated several times in the run-up to the war, including in then-Secretary of State
Colin Powell
's speech to the U.N Security Council on February 5, 2003, which concluded with a long recitation of the information provided by al-Libi. Powell's speech came less than a month after a then-classified CIA report concluding that the information provided by al-Libi was unreliable and about a year after a Defense Intelligence Agency
report concluded the same thing.
Al-Libi recanted these claims in January 2004 after U.S. interrogators presented to him "new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims", according to Newsweek
.
The DIA concluded in February 2002 that al-Libi deliberately misled interrogators. Some speculate that his reason for giving disinformation
was in order to draw the U.S. into an attack on Iraq, which al Qaeda believes will lead to a global jihad
. Others suggest that al-Libi gave false information because of the use of excessively harsh interrogation methods.
An article published in the November 5, 2005 New York Times quoted two paragraphs of a Defense Intelligence Agency report, declassified upon request by Senator Carl Levin
, that expressed doubts about the results of al-Libi's interrogation in February 2002. The declassified paragraphs are:
The January 2003 CIA paper Iraqi Support for Terrorism states that al-Libi told a foreign intelligence service that "Iraq — acting on the request of al-Qa'ida militant Abu Abdullah, who was Muhammad Atif
's emissary — agreed to provide unspecified chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qa'ida associates beginning in December 2000. The two individuals departed for Iraq but did not return, so al-Libi was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." The September 2002 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism stated that al-Libi said Iraq had "provided" chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates in 2000, but also stated that al-Libi "did not know the results of the training."
The 2006 Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq stated that "Although DIA coordinated on CIA's Iraqi Support for Terrorism paper, DIA analysis preceding that assessment was more skeptical of the al-Libi reporting." In July 2002, DIA assessed "It is plausible al-Qa'ida attempted to obtain CB assistance from Iraq and Ibn al-Shaykh is sufficiently senior to have access to such sensitive information. However, Ibn al-Shaykh's information lacks details concerning the individual Iraqis involved, the specific CB materials associated with the assistance and the location where the alleged training occurred. The information is also second hand, and not derived from Ibn al-Shaykh's personal experience."
The Senate report also states "According to al-Libi, after his decision to fabricate information for debriefers, he 'lied about being a member of al-Qa'ida. Although he considered himself close to, but not a member of, al-Qa'ida, he knew enough about the senior members, organization and operations to claim to be a member.'"
released "Phase II" of its report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Conclusion 3 of the report states the following:
On June 11, 2008 Newsweek published an account of material from a "A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002". The article reported that on August 7, 2002 CIA analysts had drafted a high-level report that expressed serious doubts about the information flowing from al-Libi's interrogation. The information that al-Libi acknowledged being a member al-Qaeda' executive committee was not supported by information from other sources. According to al-Libi, in Egypt he was locked in a tiny box less than 20 inches high and held for 17 hours and after being let out he was thrown to the floor and punched for 15 minutes. According to CIA operational cables, only then did he tell his "fabricated" story about Al Qaeda members being dispatched to Iraq.
using the pseudonym Omar Nasiri
, having infiltrated al-Qaeda in the 1990s, authored the book, Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda, a Spy's story
. In the book, Nasiri claims that al-Libi deliberately planted information to encourage the U.S. to invade Iraq. In an interview with BBC2's Newsnight
, Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque
after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim
country, according to Nasiri. Nasiri suggested to Newsnight that al-Libi wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. In the book, Nasiri describes al-Libi as one of the leaders at the Afghan camp, and characterizes him as "brilliant in every way." Nasiri explains that learning how to withstand interrogations and supply false information once captured was a key part of the training in the camps. Nasiri claims that al-Libi "knew what his interrogators wanted, and he was happy to give it to them. He wanted to see Saddam toppled even more than the Americans did."
George Tenet
released his memoir
titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
. With regard to al-Libi, Tenet writes the following:
But the Administration was "conspicuously silent" about al-Libi.
Noman Benotman, a former Mujahideen
who knew Libi, told Newsweek that during a recent trip to Tripoli
, he met with a senior Libyan government official who confirmed to him that Libi had been quietly returned to Libya and was still in prison there, but suffering from tuberculosis
.
The English language
edition of the Libyan newspaper Ennahar reported on May 10, 2009, that Al Libi had been repatriated to Libyan custody in 2006, and had recently committed suicide
by hanging
. It attributed the information to another newspaper, Oea. Ennahar reported Al-Libi's real name was Ali Mohamed Al-Fakheri. It stated he was 46 years old, and had been allowed visits with international human rights
workers from Human Rights Watch.
Al-Libi had been visited in April 2009 by a team from Human Rights Watch
, who were reportedly "stunned" to discover al-Libi in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison
during their fact-finding mission to Libya. The sudden death of al-Libi so soon after the visit by the HRW team has lead human rights organisations and Islamic groups to question whether al-Libi's death was in fact a suicide. Clive Stafford Smith
, Legal Director of the UK branch of the human rights group Reprieve, said "We are told that al-Libi committed suicide in his Libyan prison. If this is true it would be because of his torture and abuse. If false, it may reflect a desire to silence one of the greatest embarrassments to the Bush administration." Hafed Al-Ghwell, a Libya expert and director of communications at the Dubai campus of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, commented "This is a regime with a long history of killing people in jail and then claiming it was suicide. My guess is Libya has seen the winds of change in America and wanted to bury this man before international organisations start demanding access to him." Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director, said that al-Libi's death means that "the world will never hear his account of the brutal torture he experienced. So now it is up to Libya and the United States to reveal the full story of what they know, including its impact on al-Libi's mental health."
On June 19, 2009, Andy Worthington
published new information on al-Libi's death.
Worthington reported that former Guantanamo captive, United Kingdom resident, and fellow citizen of Libya Omar Deghayes
was his link to a source within Libya who had spoken with al-Libi prior to his death. Based on his Libyan source, Worthington was able to offer a more detailed timeline of Al Libi's last years.
The head of the Washington
office of Human Rights Watch stated al-Libi was "Exhibit A" in hearings on the relationship between pre-Iraq War false intelligence and torture. Confirmation of al-Libi's location came two weeks prior to his death. An independent investigation of his death has been requested by Human Rights Watch.
On October 4, 2009 the Reuters
reported that Ayman Al Zawahiri had asserted that Libya had
tortured Al Libi to death.
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n paramilitary trainer for Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
. After being captured and interrogated by the American and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian forces, the information he gave under torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
by Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush Administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush Administration even though then-classified reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
and the Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.
Training camp director
Al-Libi led the Al Khaldan training camp in AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, the facility where Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui
Zacarias Moussaoui is a French citizen who was convicted of conspiring to kill citizens of the US as part of the September 11 attacks...
and Ahmed Ressam
Ahmed Ressam
Ahmed Ressam is an Algerian al-Qaeda member who lived in Montreal, Canada.He was convicted of attempting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999, as part of the foiled 2000 millennium attack plots...
trained. An associate of Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah
Abu Zubaydah is a Saudi Arabian citizen, sentenced to death in Jordan and currently held in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.Not neutral: Arrested in Pakistan in March 2002, he has been in US custody for more than eight years, four-and-a-half of them spent incommunicado in solitary confinement...
, al-Libi was one of those whose assets were frozen by order of the September 26, 2002 list of terrorists released by the U.S. government following the September 11 attacks.
He was captured by Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i officials in November 2001, as he attempted to flee Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban precipitating the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, as the armed forces of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Afghan United Front launched Operation Enduring Freedom...
.
United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
spokesmen used to routinely described the Khaldan training camp as an "al Qaeda training camp", and used to routinely describe Al-Libi and Abu Zubaydah as senior members of Al Qaeda. However, during their testimony at their Combatant Status Review Tribunal
Combatant Status Review Tribunal
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense...
s, several Guantanamo captives, including Abu Zubaydah, described the Khaldan camp as being run by a rival jihadist organization one that did not support attacking civilians.
Cooperation with the FBI
Al-Libi was turned over to the FBI and held at Bagram Air BaseBagram Air Base
Bagram Airfield, also referred to as Bagram Air Base, is a militarized airport and housing complex that is located next to the ancient city of Bagram, southeast of Charikar in Parwan province of Afghanistan. The base is run by a US Army division headed by a major general. A large part of the base,...
. When talking to FBI interrogators Russell Fincher and Marty Mahon, he seemed "genuinely friendly" and spoke chiefly in English, calling for a translator only when necessary. He seemed to bond closely with Fincher, a devout Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, and the two prayed together and discussed religion at length.
Al-Libi also told the interrogators details about Richard Reid
Richard Reid
Richard Reid may refer to:*Richard Reid , British man convicted of terrorism*Richard Reid , New Zealand cricketer*Richard Gavin Reid , Canadian politician...
, and he agreed to continue cooperating if the United States would allow his wife and her family to emigrate, as he was prosecuted within the American legal system himself.
In CIA custody
The CIA approached George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
for permission to take al-Libi into their own custody and rendition him to a foreign country for more "tough guy" questioning, and were granted permission. They "simply came and took al-Libi away from the FBI", and one CIA officer was heard telling their new prisoner that "You know where you are going. Before you get there, I am going to find your mother and fuck her".
In the second week of January 2002, he was flown to the USS Bataan
USS Bataan (LHD-5)
USS Bataan is a commissioned in 1997. She is named to honor the defense of the Bataan Peninsula on the western side of Manila Bay in the Philippines during the early days of US involvement in World War II.-Christening:...
in the northern Arabian Sea
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...
, the ship which was being used to hold eight other notable prisoners, including John Walker Lindh
John Walker Lindh
John Phillip Walker Lindh is a United States citizen who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He is now serving a 20-year prison sentence in connection with his participation in Afghanistan's Taliban army...
. He was subsequently handed over to Egyptian interrogators.
Information provided
According to the Washington Post,On September 15, 2002, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
published an article that detailed the CIA interrogations of Omar al-Faruq
Omar al-Faruq
Omar al-Faruq was a Kuwaiti of Iraqi descent, and a senior al-Qaeda member. He was a liaison between al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists in the Far East, particularly Jemaah Islamiyah. He was captured in Bogor, Indonesia in 2002 by an Indonesian security agent who handed him over to the United States...
. In the article it states "On Sept. 9, according to a secret CIA summary of the interview, al-Faruq confessed that he was, in fact, al-Qaeda's senior representative in Southeast Asia. Then came an even more shocking confession: according to the CIA document, al-Faruq said two senior al-Qaeda officials, Abu Zubaydah and Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, had ordered him to 'plan large-scale attacks against U.S. interests in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Malaysia, (the) Philippines, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
and Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
.'"
Al-Libi has been identified as the primary source of faulty prewar intelligence regarding chemical weapons training between Iraq and al Qaeda that was used by the Bush Administration to justify the invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
. Specifically, he told interrogators that Iraq provided training to al-Qaeda in the area of weapons of mass destruction. In Cincinnati in October 2002, Bush informed the public: "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases."
This claim was repeated several times in the run-up to the war, including in then-Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
's speech to the U.N Security Council on February 5, 2003, which concluded with a long recitation of the information provided by al-Libi. Powell's speech came less than a month after a then-classified CIA report concluding that the information provided by al-Libi was unreliable and about a year after a Defense Intelligence Agency
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
report concluded the same thing.
Al-Libi recanted these claims in January 2004 after U.S. interrogators presented to him "new evidence from other detainees that cast doubt on his claims", according to Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
.
The DIA concluded in February 2002 that al-Libi deliberately misled interrogators. Some speculate that his reason for giving disinformation
Disinformation
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...
was in order to draw the U.S. into an attack on Iraq, which al Qaeda believes will lead to a global jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
. Others suggest that al-Libi gave false information because of the use of excessively harsh interrogation methods.
An article published in the November 5, 2005 New York Times quoted two paragraphs of a Defense Intelligence Agency report, declassified upon request by Senator Carl Levin
Carl Levin
Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
, that expressed doubts about the results of al-Libi's interrogation in February 2002. The declassified paragraphs are:
The January 2003 CIA paper Iraqi Support for Terrorism states that al-Libi told a foreign intelligence service that "Iraq — acting on the request of al-Qa'ida militant Abu Abdullah, who was Muhammad Atif
Mohammed Atef
Mohammed Atef was the alleged military chief of al-Qaida, although his role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years...
's emissary — agreed to provide unspecified chemical or biological weapons training for two al-Qa'ida associates beginning in December 2000. The two individuals departed for Iraq but did not return, so al-Libi was not in a position to know if any training had taken place." The September 2002 version of Iraqi Support for Terrorism stated that al-Libi said Iraq had "provided" chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda associates in 2000, but also stated that al-Libi "did not know the results of the training."
The 2006 Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq stated that "Although DIA coordinated on CIA's Iraqi Support for Terrorism paper, DIA analysis preceding that assessment was more skeptical of the al-Libi reporting." In July 2002, DIA assessed "It is plausible al-Qa'ida attempted to obtain CB assistance from Iraq and Ibn al-Shaykh is sufficiently senior to have access to such sensitive information. However, Ibn al-Shaykh's information lacks details concerning the individual Iraqis involved, the specific CB materials associated with the assistance and the location where the alleged training occurred. The information is also second hand, and not derived from Ibn al-Shaykh's personal experience."
The Senate report also states "According to al-Libi, after his decision to fabricate information for debriefers, he 'lied about being a member of al-Qa'ida. Although he considered himself close to, but not a member of, al-Qa'ida, he knew enough about the senior members, organization and operations to claim to be a member.'"
Senate Reports on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
On September 8, 2006, the United States Senate Select Committee on IntelligenceUnited States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is dedicated to overseeing the United States Intelligence Community—the agencies and bureaus of the federal government of the United States who provide information and analysis for leaders of the executive and legislative branches. The...
released "Phase II" of its report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. Conclusion 3 of the report states the following:
On June 11, 2008 Newsweek published an account of material from a "A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002". The article reported that on August 7, 2002 CIA analysts had drafted a high-level report that expressed serious doubts about the information flowing from al-Libi's interrogation. The information that al-Libi acknowledged being a member al-Qaeda' executive committee was not supported by information from other sources. According to al-Libi, in Egypt he was locked in a tiny box less than 20 inches high and held for 17 hours and after being let out he was thrown to the floor and punched for 15 minutes. According to CIA operational cables, only then did he tell his "fabricated" story about Al Qaeda members being dispatched to Iraq.
Book: Inside the Jihad
In November 2006, a MoroccanMorocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
using the pseudonym Omar Nasiri
Omar Nasiri
Omar Nasiri is the pseudonym of a Moroccan spy who infiltrated al-Qaeda, attending training camps in Afghanistan and passing information to the UK and French intelligence services...
, having infiltrated al-Qaeda in the 1990s, authored the book, Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda, a Spy's story
Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda, a Spy's story
Inside the Jihad: My Life with al Qaeda, a Spy's story is a book published by Basic Books, written by a Moroccan who has adopted the pen-name Omar Nasiri....
. In the book, Nasiri claims that al-Libi deliberately planted information to encourage the U.S. to invade Iraq. In an interview with BBC2's Newsnight
Newsnight
Newsnight is a BBC Television current affairs programme noted for its in-depth analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians. Jeremy Paxman has been its main presenter for over two decades....
, Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
country, according to Nasiri. Nasiri suggested to Newsnight that al-Libi wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. In the book, Nasiri describes al-Libi as one of the leaders at the Afghan camp, and characterizes him as "brilliant in every way." Nasiri explains that learning how to withstand interrogations and supply false information once captured was a key part of the training in the camps. Nasiri claims that al-Libi "knew what his interrogators wanted, and he was happy to give it to them. He wanted to see Saddam toppled even more than the Americans did."
Book: At the Center of the Storm
In April 2007 former Director of Central IntelligenceDirector of Central Intelligence
The Office of United States Director of Central Intelligence was the head of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the principal intelligence advisor to the President and the National Security Council, and the coordinator of intelligence activities among and between the various United...
George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
released his memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
titled At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA
At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA is a memoir co-written by former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet with Bill Harlow, former CIA Director of Public Affairs...
. With regard to al-Libi, Tenet writes the following:
Repatriation to Libya and death
In 2006 the Bush Administration announced that it was "transferring high-value Al Qaeda detainees from CIA secret prisons so they could be put on trial by military commissions."But the Administration was "conspicuously silent" about al-Libi.
Noman Benotman, a former Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
who knew Libi, told Newsweek that during a recent trip to Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
, he met with a senior Libyan government official who confirmed to him that Libi had been quietly returned to Libya and was still in prison there, but suffering from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
The English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
edition of the Libyan newspaper Ennahar reported on May 10, 2009, that Al Libi had been repatriated to Libyan custody in 2006, and had recently committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
. It attributed the information to another newspaper, Oea. Ennahar reported Al-Libi's real name was Ali Mohamed Al-Fakheri. It stated he was 46 years old, and had been allowed visits with international human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
workers from Human Rights Watch.
Al-Libi had been visited in April 2009 by a team from Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, who were reportedly "stunned" to discover al-Libi in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison
Abu Salim prison
Abu Salim prison is a top security prison in Tripoli, Libya which was often described as notorious for mistreatment and human rights abuses by human rights activists and other observers before the overthrow of the government of 40 years standing in 2011....
during their fact-finding mission to Libya. The sudden death of al-Libi so soon after the visit by the HRW team has lead human rights organisations and Islamic groups to question whether al-Libi's death was in fact a suicide. Clive Stafford Smith
Clive Stafford Smith
Clive Adrian Stafford Smith OBE is a British [see talk] lawyer who specialises in the areas of civil rights and the death penalty in the United States of America....
, Legal Director of the UK branch of the human rights group Reprieve, said "We are told that al-Libi committed suicide in his Libyan prison. If this is true it would be because of his torture and abuse. If false, it may reflect a desire to silence one of the greatest embarrassments to the Bush administration." Hafed Al-Ghwell, a Libya expert and director of communications at the Dubai campus of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, commented "This is a regime with a long history of killing people in jail and then claiming it was suicide. My guess is Libya has seen the winds of change in America and wanted to bury this man before international organisations start demanding access to him." Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director, said that al-Libi's death means that "the world will never hear his account of the brutal torture he experienced. So now it is up to Libya and the United States to reveal the full story of what they know, including its impact on al-Libi's mental health."
On June 19, 2009, Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington is a British historian, journalist, and film director.He has published three books, and been published in numerous publications.In 2009 Worthington was the co-director of a documentary about the Guantanamo detainees....
published new information on al-Libi's death.
Worthington reported that former Guantanamo captive, United Kingdom resident, and fellow citizen of Libya Omar Deghayes
Omar Deghayes
Omar Deghayes is a Libyan citizen with residency status in the United Kingdom, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002. He currently lives in the United Kingdom....
was his link to a source within Libya who had spoken with al-Libi prior to his death. Based on his Libyan source, Worthington was able to offer a more detailed timeline of Al Libi's last years.
The head of the Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
office of Human Rights Watch stated al-Libi was "Exhibit A" in hearings on the relationship between pre-Iraq War false intelligence and torture. Confirmation of al-Libi's location came two weeks prior to his death. An independent investigation of his death has been requested by Human Rights Watch.
On October 4, 2009 the Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
reported that Ayman Al Zawahiri had asserted that Libya had
tortured Al Libi to death.
See also
- Black sites
- Ghost detaineeGhost detaineeGhost detainee is an official term used by the U.S. Government to designate a person held in a detention center, whose identity has been hidden by keeping them unregistered and therefore anonymous. It was also used in the same manner by the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the Abu...
- Extraordinary renditionExtraordinary renditionExtraordinary rendition is the abduction and illegal transfer of a person from one nation to another. "Torture by proxy" is used by some critics to describe situations in which the United States and the United Kingdom have transferred suspected terrorists to other countries in order to torture the...
- Taxi to the Dark SideTaxi to the Dark SideTaxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature...
External links and references
- Letter from DIA declassifying two paragraphs of DITSUM # 044-02, October 26, 2005
- Kurt Nimmo.
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=168 CIA Patsy Spins Fairy Tale Plot to Assassinate Bush, Another Day in the Empire, December 23, 2005.