Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Times
January 27, 2008
Pg. 1
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD--A son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is behind a group of foreign and Iraqi fighters responsible for this week's devastating explosion in northern Iraq, a security chief for Sunni tribesmen who rose up against al Qaeda said yesterday.
At least 38 persons were killed and 225 wounded Wednesday when a huge blast destroyed about 50 buildings in a Mosul slum. The next day, a suicide bomber killed the provincial police chief and two other officers as they surveyed the blast site.
Col. Jubair Rashid Naief, who also is a police official in Anbar province, said those attacks were carried out by the Seifaddin Regiment, composed of about 150 foreign and Iraqi fighters who slipped into the country several months ago from Syria.
Col. Naief said the organization, which is working with al Qaeda in Iraq, was supported by Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, 36, the eldest son of the Libyan leader.
"I am sure of what I am talking about, and it is documented," Col. Naief said, adding that he is "100 percent sure" of the younger Mr. Gadhafi's role with the terror group.
A man who answered the phone at Col. Gadhafi's office in Tripoli, Libya, said he was not immediately available for comment on the accusation.
Col. Naief said his information about the Seifaddin Regiment and the younger Mr. Gadhafi's purported role came from "reliable sources" maintained by his Anbar Awakening Council within the ranks of al Qaeda in Mosul and elsewhere.
He said the information was passed to the U.S. military two or three months ago.
"They crossed the Syrian border nearest to Mosul within the last two to three months," Col. Naief said of the Seifaddin Regiment. "Since then, they have taken up positions in the city and begun blowing up cars and launching other terror operations."
The Anbar Awakening Council is an alliance of Sunni tribes in the western province that turned against al Qaeda and began working with U.S. forces. The council is credited with the sharp drop in violence in Anbar, once the main base for the insurgents.
Many of the council's fighters are thought to have been insurgents themselves until they began receiving money from the Americans to turn their guns on their former extremist allies.
The U.S. military did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment about Col. Naief's claim.
The Washington Post last week quoted U.S. military officials as saying that 19 percent of the foreign fighters in Iraq come from Libya. Overall, North Africans account for 40 percent of the foreign-fighter ranks, the newspaper said.
Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, however, seems an unlikely figure as a sponsor of terrorism. Touted as a reformer, Mr. Gadhafi has reached out to the West to soften Libya's image and return it to the international mainstream.
Known in Libya as "the Engineer," he won praise last year for helping release five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were jailed in Libya for purportedly infecting Libyan children with HIV.
Educated at a British university and fluent in English, German and French, he also has gained exposure as head of the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations, a nongovernmental network concerned with issues like human rights and education.
Mr. Gadhafi was quoted by the Austrian Press Agency last year as warning Europeans against more attacks by radical Islamists.
"The only solution to contain radicalism is the rapid departure of Western troops from Iraq as well as Afghanistan, and a solution to the Palestinian question," he was quoted as saying.
January 27, 2008
Pg. 1
By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press
BAGHDAD--A son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is behind a group of foreign and Iraqi fighters responsible for this week's devastating explosion in northern Iraq, a security chief for Sunni tribesmen who rose up against al Qaeda said yesterday.
At least 38 persons were killed and 225 wounded Wednesday when a huge blast destroyed about 50 buildings in a Mosul slum. The next day, a suicide bomber killed the provincial police chief and two other officers as they surveyed the blast site.
Col. Jubair Rashid Naief, who also is a police official in Anbar province, said those attacks were carried out by the Seifaddin Regiment, composed of about 150 foreign and Iraqi fighters who slipped into the country several months ago from Syria.
Col. Naief said the organization, which is working with al Qaeda in Iraq, was supported by Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, 36, the eldest son of the Libyan leader.
"I am sure of what I am talking about, and it is documented," Col. Naief said, adding that he is "100 percent sure" of the younger Mr. Gadhafi's role with the terror group.
A man who answered the phone at Col. Gadhafi's office in Tripoli, Libya, said he was not immediately available for comment on the accusation.
Col. Naief said his information about the Seifaddin Regiment and the younger Mr. Gadhafi's purported role came from "reliable sources" maintained by his Anbar Awakening Council within the ranks of al Qaeda in Mosul and elsewhere.
He said the information was passed to the U.S. military two or three months ago.
"They crossed the Syrian border nearest to Mosul within the last two to three months," Col. Naief said of the Seifaddin Regiment. "Since then, they have taken up positions in the city and begun blowing up cars and launching other terror operations."
The Anbar Awakening Council is an alliance of Sunni tribes in the western province that turned against al Qaeda and began working with U.S. forces. The council is credited with the sharp drop in violence in Anbar, once the main base for the insurgents.
Many of the council's fighters are thought to have been insurgents themselves until they began receiving money from the Americans to turn their guns on their former extremist allies.
The U.S. military did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment about Col. Naief's claim.
The Washington Post last week quoted U.S. military officials as saying that 19 percent of the foreign fighters in Iraq come from Libya. Overall, North Africans account for 40 percent of the foreign-fighter ranks, the newspaper said.
Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, however, seems an unlikely figure as a sponsor of terrorism. Touted as a reformer, Mr. Gadhafi has reached out to the West to soften Libya's image and return it to the international mainstream.
Known in Libya as "the Engineer," he won praise last year for helping release five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were jailed in Libya for purportedly infecting Libyan children with HIV.
Educated at a British university and fluent in English, German and French, he also has gained exposure as head of the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations, a nongovernmental network concerned with issues like human rights and education.
Mr. Gadhafi was quoted by the Austrian Press Agency last year as warning Europeans against more attacks by radical Islamists.
"The only solution to contain radicalism is the rapid departure of Western troops from Iraq as well as Afghanistan, and a solution to the Palestinian question," he was quoted as saying.