US Forces Undertake Two African Raids, Capture Embassy Bombing Figure 229
CNN reports that two separate U.S. military operations have taken place this weekend in Africa; the first in Tripoli, the second in Somalia. "In the earlier raid, U.S. forces captured Abu Anas al Libi, an al Qaeda operative wanted for his role in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. In the second raid, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in southern Somalia targeted the top leader of Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group linked with al Qaeda." According to the report, it's unclear for now whether the second of these attempts was successful. Unsurprisingly, the Libyan raid has raised the ire of the interim government there, which has objected to the U.S. arrest and removal of al Libi (to an undisclosed placed outside of Libya) as a kidnapping.
Re:And we're reading about it here why? (Score:5, Interesting)
More bullshit superpower propaganda lies, from the United Snakes.
Two Failed U.S. Raids
Yesterday two U.S. raids attempted to abduct a man in Libya and a man in Somalia. The raid in Libya did get the target but already has some bad impacts for the Libyan government. The raid in Somalia, by so called elite SEAL forces, failed completely.
The raid in Libya caught [libyaherald.com] one Abu Anas Al-Libi, accused in connection with the bombing of a U.S. embassy in Kenia some 15 years ago. It also killed some 15 Libyan soldiers. The man, one Abu Anas Al-Libi, has lived away from Libya and came back after U.S. and NATO forces waged war against the Libyan government under Ghaddafi. He seems to have lived quite openly [nytimes.com] in the capitol Tripoli:
The raid will surely lead to some controversies [libyaherald.com]:
The various gangs that are the now the major powers in Libya will see this raid as (another) attack on Libya's sovereignty. Some major blowback against the interim government and other targets can be expected. There was already a tribal response against the government but the only mentioning of it is buried deep in the 25th paragraph of the NYT version [nytimes.com] of the story:
Some "coincidence" ...
The botched raid in Somalia was on a beach house allegedly used by the local Al Shaabab jihadists. The raid was first reported [garoweonline.com] by locals and then by the Al Shaabab itself:
There was a lot of confusion [reuters.com] about this raid and it took nearly a day until the U.S. confirmed that it forces had been beaten back. At one time the NYT and Fox News said that a senior Shabaab boss was killed while NBC said he was captured and AP said he was not found. This reminds one of all the propaganda claims made about the Bin Laden raid. This time though we will immediately know for sure as the book about this SEAL raid
Unsurprisingly?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd rather say "understandably" or "unexpectedly", because the Libyan government has every right to be pissed off.
What happens when an elite Iraqi commando enters the US and "arrests" prominent terrorist and war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, killing 15 secret service agents in the process?
The way it's written, this is an insulting propaganda piece.
Re:And we're reading about it here why? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the BBC is reporting it [bbc.co.uk] too. I first heard about it on BBC radio where the report was that unknown forces, either US or French, got their asses kicked and had to flee after Al Shaabab got wind of the attack and prepared for it. Equipment and blood found on the beeches.
It's hard to see how the US claim that Anas al-Liby is "lawfully detained" can be true either, since clearly they didn't have authorization to kidnap him from Libya and they won't reveal where he is. He would be either in a POW camp or civilian prison, but they won't say where he is which seems to be code for "we took him somewhere to be tortured", going by past activities.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And we're reading about it here why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to be an ass, but beyond the cute and cuddly propaganda, Libya didn't have a government (as in something that governs) since Gaddafi. This is simply because Libya as a country is a colonial age construct with borders drawn with a ruler. In reality, it's a tribal area with approximately 150 various tribes who are largely autonomous and often hate each other.
Gaddafi unified Libya because his political agenda has been "every tribe has its own militia and is largely autonomous, but to outsiders we're Libyans first". He maintained this by careful balance of both financial and military incentives, tribes that followed him in a more loyal fashion got much better financing, access to military gear and luxury goods. At the same time his secret police was hard at work figuring out who was on who's side. But each tribe got extreme amount of freedom in its own affairs, down to having its own army, police, and often legal framework.
After he was overthrown, this central control system broke down and now there's no Libya - instead there are approximately 150 small autonomous regions now which largely maintained their own armies from Gaddafi times, and care very little for what current "government" wants (in quote marks because it doesn't really govern anything).
As a result, destabilization of "Libyan government" is an oxymoron. You can't really destabilize something that is completely unstable in the first place. Will tribes use this as an extra excuse when they need to? Sure. Would they have done the same thing and use another of myriad of excuses, or just tell government to fuck off instead as they did before this incident on countless occasions? Yes.