Recently in Libya Category

Wherever Sharia experiences a resurgence, the observable effect is that tolerance decreases and harassment of all kinds increases. Muslims are certainly not immune, especially if they belong to sects at variance with the dominant practice of the country, such as Sufis, Ibadis (also facing persecution in Libya), Ahmadis, or Shi'ite minorities in Sunni countries and vice-versa.

Those who would go after Christians and Jews will eventually come for their fellow Muslims who for whatever reason are found ideologically impure. "Freed from Gaddafi, Libyan Sufis face violent Islamists," by Tom Heneghan for Reuters, February 1:

(Reuters) - Freed from Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship, Libya's Sufi Muslims find themselves under renewed pressure from violent Islamists who have been attacking them and their beliefs as heretical. The desecration of graves belonging to Sufi saints and sages in recent months have put the peaceful Sufis on the defensive, prompting some to post armed guards at their mosques and lodges to ward off hardline thugs.

But the birthday of Islam's Prophet Mohammad, one of the highpoints in the Sufi calendar, is on Saturday and Libyan Sufis are determined to take their traditional processions through the streets to show they will not be cowed.

At a meeting of Sufi scholars to plan the celebrations, Sheikh Adl Al-Aref Al-Hadad said even being driven out of his zawiyah (Islamic school) late last year by Islamists known as Salafis would not deter him from marching.

"I'm worried but I'm not afraid," said Al-Hadad, whose Tripoli school was stormed by armed men who burned its library, destroyed office equipment and dug up graves of sages buried there. They turned the school into a Salafi mosque.

On January 13, extremists crashed a bulldozer through the walls of the old cemetery in the eastern city of Benghazi, destroyed its tombs and carried off 29 bodies of respected sages and scholars. They also demolished a nearby Sufi school.

Sheikh Khaled Mohammad Saidan, whose Dargut Pasha Mosque faces Tripoli's port, said most Islamists in post-Gaddafi Libya disagreed with Sufis, but peacefully. "But there are no police around and you never know what some people might do," he added.

Sufi lodges from around Tripoli will march on Saturday through narrow alleys of the walled old town, waving flags and chanting poems in praise of Mohammad to the beat of cymbals, drums and tambourines.

To the puritanical Salafis, these practices amount to bida (innovation) and shirk (idolatry), both grave sins that must be stopped, by force if necessary.

Sufism, a mystical strain in both Sunni and Shi'ite Islam, dates back to the early days of the faith. Apart from their prayers, Sufi devotions include singing hymns, chanting the names of God or dancing to heighten awareness of the divine.

Revered saints, scholars and holy people are buried in shrines and some are honored with annual pilgrimages. While many Islamic scholars say this is admissible, puritanical schools of Islam such as Saudi Arabia's Wahhabis or the Afghan Taliban consider it heretical. [...]

Libya's Sufis also worry they are being outflanked politically. Many new religious officials have Salafi leanings, they say, and are appointing Salafi imams to mosques vacated by pro-Gaddafi preachers. Salafi preaching is now widespread on Libyan television and radio, they say.

Salafis have also begun denouncing traditional imams to the authorities, prompting them to be replaced by hardliners. "About half the imams here have been replaced by Salafis," said one imam at a large Tripoli mosque where Salafis in the congregation are campaigning against celebrating Mawlid.

Political parties are starting to form, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Libyan Salafis have not yet announced if they plan to launch a party and contest elections, as in Egypt....

The last great hope of the West here is that Libya will be a "moderate" Islamic regime. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, Western governments have kept hoping to see the emergence of a model Sharia regime that will operate as Sharia has been advertised to them -- not what Sharia is, but what it could, would, should be according to academic exercises removed from how Sharia has been practiced and enforced for over a millennium.

The motto of Western governments in their policy toward the Muslim world could well be the words of the woman at the end of the article: "We all want Sharia, but not the one they're talking about."

Accordingly, Sharia never works as advertised, but it does work according to its design. Unfortunately, it is a politically correct article of faith that the publicity and substance are one and the same. Caveat emptor: "war is deceit."

We tried to tell you. "Libyan Islamists rally to demand sharia-based law," from Reuters, January 20:

(Reuters) - Hundreds of Libyan Islamists rallied on Friday to demand that Muslim sharia law inspire legislation in what organizers called a response to the emergence of secular political parties after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship last year.

Assembled by Islamist political and religious groups, mostly young and bearded men holding up copies of the Koran demonstrated in squares in the capital Tripoli, the eastern city of Benghazi and in Sabha in the southern desert.

In Tripoli's Algeria Square, Islamists burned copies of the "Green Book," Gaddafi's eccentric handbook on politics, economics and everyday life, to underline that the Koran should be the country's main source of legislation.

By contrast, a group of secularists who have staged a sit-in in the square for more than a month chanted: "We want a civil state."

The Islamist demonstrators encompassed members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood and harder-line Salafis, who both back strict versions of Islam, and relative moderates who prefer a civil state simply inspired by sharia.

The protests offered a glimpse into Libya's political future in which Islamist and secularist parties are expected to vie for seats in a national assembly scheduled to be elected in June to draft a constitution for the North African country.

Experts believe the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized political force and could emerge as the leading political player in Libya after Gaddafi, who harshly suppressed Islamists during his 42 years in autocratic power.

Western powers are coming to accept that the advent of democracy in the Arab world means bringing Islamists to power. They have become the biggest election winners in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco over the past few months.

The chairman of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil, promised in October to uphold Islamic law. "We as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic sharia as the source of legislation, therefore any law that contradicts the principles of Islam is legally nullified," he said.

The deputy central bank governor said last month a law regulating Islamic banking would be issued in the first quarter of 2012, but stressed that both conventional and Islamic banks would be allowed to operate in Libya.

Islamists in Algeria Square held up placards demanding a financial system respecting Islam's ban on interest and calling for a constitution derived from sharia's legal and moral codes.

"We want to run our life according to Islamic principles, be it the economy, politics or our relations with other countries," said Abdul Basit Ghuwaila, a preacher at a Tripoli mosque. "Most people think Islam is just about harsh penalties."

Ghuwaila, 49, said sharia should not govern all Libyan law, but insisted that legislation should not contradict it.

Nour al-Zintani, a participant in the month-long sit-in for a secular state, said the majority of Libyans wanted Islam to be a part of their life but not a strict interpretation of it.

"We all want sharia," she said, standing next to her teenage daughter, both of them wearing a Muslim headscarf, "but not the one they're talking about, the one that rejects women. We want a moderate Islam that gives women their rights."

As was the case with Egypt, weren't the Salafists and their sympathizers in Libya supposed to be a Tiny Minority of Extremists? We tried to tell you. "In Libya, a Fundamentalist War against Moderate Islam Takes Shape", by Steven Sotloff for Time, January 18:

The Libyan revolution has not been kind to Mahmud al-Arabi. Last March, forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ransacked his grocery store in Zuwara after he fled to Tunisia, stealing about $6,000 worth of supplies. When he returned in September, facing mounting debts, al-Arabi turned to selling beer and liquor — an illegal enterprise in a country where alcohol has been banned for four decades. His new business drew the attention of Islamist rebels who helped to overthrow Gaddafi. After they threatened the store's landlord, they blew up Arabi's shop. Out of money and out of work, Arabi spends his days in his trailer home lamenting the turn his country has taken. Says he, "I got nothing but suffering from this revolution."

Throughout this country, Libyans are discovering that their hard fought battle to win freedoms is at risk. Puritanical Muslims known as Salafis are applying a rigid form of Islam in more and more communities. They have clamped down on the sale of alcohol and demolished the tombs of saints where many local people worship. The small town of Zuwara near the Tunisian border, dominated by a heterodox Muslim sect despised by the Salafis, is quickly becoming the battlefield for competing visions of Libya's future.

Arabi's trailer sits on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by crushed Heineken beer cans. Inside, bowls strewn around the floor capture the rain drops that leak through the porous ceiling. "I prefer selling alcohol to begging," he says, explaining how he lost his entire savings during the revolution. After Gaddafi loyalists took the town, he was a wanted man for supporting the anti-regime fighters and had to be smuggled to Tunisia at a cost of 3,500 dinars. "I lost everything in my store and had no money. So I decided to sell alcohol."

He shows off a room with 3,000 small cans of Heineken beer and a dozen liquor bottles. "Business was very good," he boasts. "I had more than a hundred customers a day who bought Absolut [Vodka], J&B and [Johnny Walker] Red Label." But when the Salafis came knocking, Arabi knew his days as an alcohol vendor were numbered. "They said this was a Muslim village where alcohol is forbidden," he relates. "I didn't want any trouble with them and agreed to stop selling alcohol at the store. But the Salafis weren't satisfied with that and destroyed it."

It is not only Arabi who has faced the Salafis' wrath. The estimated 200-to-400 members of the local Salafi movement have demolished shrines belonging to adherents of the Ibadi sect, long considered heretics by orthodox Sunni Muslims. In the town's cemetery, large blocks of stone surround what was once a mausoleum. The large conical shaped structure that once adorned it now lies collapsed in the debris. Salafists are intolerant of other strands of Islam and have physically attacked Muslim minorities in other parts of the Arab world such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims frequent the shrines of saints, believing they have powers of intercession with the divine. Salafis, however, believe these are pagan rites that must be obliterated from Islam. "The situation has gotten much worse lately," says Ibadi Sheikh Walid Darder. "We may have not had political rights under Gaddafi, but we did not live in fear of going to the mosque."

Throughout Libya, Gaddafi's fall has emboldened Salafis, who were persecuted and imprisoned under the now deceased leader. They have increased their public presence, taken over mosques, and even hoisted the flag of al-Qaeda over the courthouse in Benghazi where the revolution began eleven months ago. In the capital of Tripoli, Salafis have destroyed more than six shrines. In one incident, dozens swarmed mausoleums belonging to two Muslim mystics and dug up their bodies so that worshippers could no longer visit their tombs. They also burned the relics around the shrines.

Arabi however is not concerned with the destruction of obscure tombs he does not frequent. "I just want my life back," he pleads. "I fought in the mountains here against Gaddafi. My payback is blowing up my shop," he says, turning to dump a bowl full of rainwater on the soggy field outside his trailer.

Many reports from the time of the fall of Gadhafi's regime described terrible brutality by Libya's revolutionaries against black Africans, as Bashir has heaped abuse on Darfur and the now-independent South Sudan. The great irony is that Bashir, who considers himself an Arab, would be described as a black man in any town in the West. Life imitates art, as Bashir could be described as the Arab world's answer to Dave Chapelle's blind black Klansman. That both regimes are indifferent to non-"Arab" causes would not be surprising.

In any case, once again, Muslim countries are protecting and supporting Bashir, as the OIC and Arab League have done in the past, and utterly ignoring the charges against him. The reality on the ground does not line up with vaunted egalitarianism of Islam that is so heavily emphasized in dawah sales pitches. "Sudan's Bashir criticises Kadhafi in Libya trip," by Jay Deshmukh for Agence France-Presse, January 7:

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, wanted internationally for genocide and war crimes, said on Saturday in Tripoli that slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi caused great suffering among the Sudanese people.

His arrival in Tripoli marked Bashir's first Libya visit since Kadhafi was ousted, but the trip faced strong criticism from New York-based Human Rights Group, which said that hosting such an "international fugitive" sent troubling signals about the commitment of Libya's new rulers to human rights.

Wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and war crimes in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, Bashir said that after Libya, Kadhafi inflicted the most damage in Sudan, the official WAL news agency reported.

"We all suffered from the old regime... We (the Sudanese) were the second to have suffered the most, after the Libyan people," Bashir told WAL.

Upon arrival in Tripoli, the Sudanese leader was met by Libya's Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council (NTC), and members of the interim government, an AFP photographer reported.

Bashir, who claims that Sudan provided weapons to help oust Kadhafi, said the visit felt "like it was the first time," adding that he came to underline Sudan's support for the Libyan people and the country's new government that took charge after Kadhafi's four-decade dictatorship fell. [...]

But Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, strongly criticised his visit to Libya.

"Omar al-Bashir is an international fugitive from an arrest warrant for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes," Dicker told AFP by telephone from New York.

"Many governments have refused him entry into their countries. His arrival in Tripoli sends a disturbing signal about NTC's commitment to human rights and the rule of law."...

Well, we could have told them that a lot sooner. You can't say we didn't try. "The Islamist Winter: New Report Suggests Extremist Views Winning in Libya," by Catherine Herridge for Fox News, January 4 (thanks to Twostellas):

The Arab Spring may quickly become an Islamist Winter in Libya, reads a new report circulated among federal law enforcement and written for policymakers on Capitol Hill.

An advance copy of the report entitled "A View to Extremist Currents In Libya" and obtained by Fox News, states that extremist views are gaining ground in the north African country and suggests a key figure emerging in Libya formerly tied to al Qaeda has not changed his stripes.

"Despite early indications that the Libyan revolution might be a largely secular undertaking ... the very extremist currents that shaped the philosophies of Libya Salafists and jihadis like (Abd al-Hakim) Belhadj appear to be coalescing to define the future of Libya," wrote Michael S. Smith II, a principal and counterterrorism adviser for Kronos LLC, the strategic advisory firm that prepared the report.

The Obama administration's National Director of Intelligence also thought the Muslim Brotherhood was "largely secular."

Belhadj is considered one of the most powerful militia commanders in Libya as head of the Tripoli Military Council. As Fox News reported earlier this year, Belhadj is reported to be a former emir of an al Qaeda affiliate known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group or LIFG. Founded in 1995 to set up an Islamic state or emirate inside Libya, it waged jihad against the regime of former Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.

On Nov. 3, 2007, senior al Qaeda leaders announced that LIFG had officially joined Usama bin Laden's network, according to the State Department which designated LIFG as a terrorist organization.

Belhadj, who joined the group at its inception, had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. He was arrested in Malaysia in February 2004, reportedly interrogated by the CIA, before he was sent home to Libya. He was released from prison in 2009 as part of a rehabilitation program.

In its report, Smith writes that a 400-page document authored by members of the LIFG in 2009 and widely depicted as a repudiation of al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism in general was largely misinterpreted by both media and policymakers in the West, and that helped foster support for the revolution in 2011.

"The resultant misapprehensions bolstered by insufficient analysis of the LIFG's 'revisions' have likely influenced decisions made in Washington and Brussels since February 17, 2011," reads the report.

This summer, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was asked by Fox News about Belhadj, his connections to LIFG and whether he had a place within the Libyan transitional government.

"They're going to have to make their own decisions as all of these countries who have been in transition recently have had to make -- whether past action, past affiliation meets the smell test within the principles that they've laid out," Nuland replied.

Smith emphasized that traditionally Libyan operatives have been central to the al Qaeda mission.

"Libyans have been featured prominently in the history of core al Qaeda. Libyan LIFG member Abu Yahya al-Libi is regarded as core al Qaeda's top Sharia official and many analysts anticipated he would be appointed bin Laden's successor. His brother is Abd al-Wahad al-Qayid, a founding member of the LIFG who was one of the six LIFG leaders who authored the group's corrective studies while imprisoned in Libya."

The Kronos report says that "Libya is of such strategic interest" to al Qaeda that for years it was its own entity separate from its north Africa affiliate -- al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Libya was considered important to al Qaeda because of its geographic proximity to Egypt and its perceived ability to "affect the jihadist political situation in Egypt."....

They already have quite a few friends there. Along with the havoc they can wreak within Libya, it would be a handy forward operating base for striking in Europe, noting that one of the major figures named below has already spent time in the United Kingdom. This development may also be a chance to bolster ties with the North African franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. "Source: Al Qaeda leader sends veteran jihadists to establish presence in Libya," by Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank for CNN, December 29:

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda's leadership has sent experienced jihadists to Libya in an effort to build a fighting force there, according to a Libyan source briefed by Western counter-terrorism officials.

The jihadists include one veteran fighter who had been detained in Britain on suspicion of terrorism. The source describes him as committed to al Qaeda's global cause and to attacking U.S. interests.

The source told CNN that the al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, personally dispatched the former British detainee to Libya earlier this year as the Gadhafi regime lost control of large swathes of the country.

The man arrived in Libya in May and has since begun recruiting fighters in the eastern region of the country, near the Egyptian border. He now has some 200 fighters mobilized, the source added. Western intelligence agencies are aware of his activities, according to the source.

Another al Qaeda operative, of dual European-Libyan nationality, was arrested in an unnamed country on his way to Libya from the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

The individual now trying to establish a bridgehead for al Qaeda in Libya is known as "AA." His name has not been made public because of UK law on terrorist suspects who are detained but not charged.

"AA" has been close to Ayman al-Zawahiri since the 1980s and first traveled to Afghanistan in the early 1990s to join mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation -- as did hundreds of Arab fighters.

"AA" later moved to the United Kingdom, where he began spreading al Qaeda's ideology to younger Muslims. He was an admirer of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who emerged as leader of al Qaeda in Iraq after the U.S. invasion and who led an especially brutal campaign that targeted civilians and promoted sectarian hatred between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

After the terrorist attacks in London in July 2005, heightened concern about terrorist activities in the UK led to the arrest of a number of Libyans resident in England.

"AA" was detained under what was termed a "control order," a mechanism used to detain terrorist suspects -- usually under home arrest -- without charging them. Control orders have been used in dozens of cases where the government does not want to reveal evidence in court for fear of compromising security sources. Those subject to control orders are not named by authorities.

"AA" also spent some time in Belmarsh high-security jail in the UK in 2006-07, possibly because he was seen as a flight-risk. It is also possible, according to the source, that he was resisting legal moves to have him deported to Libya. At the time, relations between the Gadhafi regime and the United Kingdom were improving, and Libyan authorities were seeking the deportation of opponents.

At some point the control order lapsed, and "AA" left Britain late in 2009 and went back to the Afghan-Pakistan border area -- taking two teenagers with him. One was subsequently killed.

Western intelligence agencies have voiced concern in public and privately about the potential for Islamist extremists and especially al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Libya....

In September, the National Transitional Council firmly declared the case to be closed. As this report notes, however, there is no timetable just yet for British police to travel to Libya. When or if there is, will Megrahi take another impeccably timed sudden turn for the worse?

"Libya to allow UK police to probe Lockerbie: minister," by Adrian Croft for Reuters, December 15:

LONDON (Reuters) - The Libyan government will allow British police to go to Libya to investigate the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the unsolved 1984 killing of a policewoman in London, a British minister said on Thursday.

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt, who held talks with Libyan ministers in Tripoli last week, said the Libyan government had given permission for British police to carry out fresh investigations into the two shadowy episodes that occurred under the rule of late strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

"I have absolute confidence that the police from Dumfries and Galloway (in Scotland) and the Metropolitan Police (in London) will be going back to Libya to get their investigations going again and they will be given a positive opportunity to do so by the Libyan authorities," Burt told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Burt, the Foreign Office minister responsible for North Africa and the Middle East, said no date had been set yet for a police visit, noting that Libyan authorities had a lot of other issues to deal with in a turbulent post-Gaddafi transition.

But he said that in his talks with Libyan Interior Minister Fawzi Abd al All and Foreign Minister Ashour bin Hayal, both had recognized the importance of the so-called "legacy" issues.

They include the bombing of a U.S. airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, the killing of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London and Libyan aid for Irish Republican Army guerrillas during 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.

Fletcher, 25, died after being hit by a shot fired from the embassy during a demonstration against Gaddafi. After an 11-day siege, 30 Libyans in the embassy were deported and no one was ever charged with her killing.

Libyan Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of playing a "significant part in planning and perpetrating" the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum jail term of 27 years but was returned to Libya in August 2009 after being freed from a Scottish jail on the grounds he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer. He remains alive today.

The decision angered many victims' relatives and strained traditionally strong ties between Britain and the United States, with some U.S. politicians asking whether it had been designed to help oil giant BP secure contracts in Libya.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who took office in May 2010, has called the release a mistake. However, Scotland has responsibility for its own legal system following devolution in 1999.

In August, a British newspaper said Libyan officials knew the whereabouts of a former diplomat wanted for Fletcher's killing. In the same month, officials from Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) gave conflicting statements about whether they would permit any suspect to be tried abroad.

Gratitude:

Britain played a leading role in the NATO air campaign that helped NTC fighters topple Gaddafi in August.

Turkey's Ottoman dreams continue to advance under Erdogan. The praise for Libya is noteworthy in light of the al-Qaeda involvement and hardline pro-Sharia character of the new Libyan regime.

"Turkey to restore Ottoman mosques in Middle East," from Today's Zaman, December 4 (thanks to Joshua):

Turkey is taking steps to restore and renovate mosques that were built by the Ottomans in Libya and Gaza.

The Turkish government is planning to restore an Ottoman mosque in Libya, a Turkish company executive said on Saturday.

Hilmi Özkazanç, an executive with Nurol Construction, said Turkey is planning to start renovating the Murad Agha Mosque in the town of Tajura near the Libyan capital of Tripoli. “We will come to Tajura again next week to see what we have to do to the mosque,” Özkazanç told an Anatolia correspondent.

Özkazanç said restoration would probably begin by the end of this year.

Özkazanç visited Tajura together with Turkey’s Ambassador to Libya Ali Kemal Aydın. During the visit Aydın said, “The Libyan people will establish a country that will be a model for the region, and we will help them.”

The Murad Agha Mosque was constructed in Tajura approximately 16 kilometers east of Tripoli in 1552 by Agha -- one of the three commanders who joined the conquest of Tripoli Province during the Ottoman era. Agha later served as governor of the province. The mosque has 48 marble columns topped by a series of arches that support the vaults.

During his visit to Libya in September, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited the mosque together with Mustafa Abd al-Jalil, the chairman of Libya’s National Transitional Council, and addressed people who gathered around the mosque to see him.

The administration of Palestine’s Gaza City has requested assistance from Turkey in the construction of several mosques after they were destroyed or severely damaged in the 2008-2009 Gaza War, the Anatolia news agency reported last week. According to a report released by government officials in Gaza, there is an urgent need for mosques in the city due to rapid population growth and also because most mosques were damaged during the Gaza War, which broke down the infrastructure of the coastal city.

During the war, 34 mosques were destroyed. Another 161 were damaged and need to be renovated. The cost of such renovation projects has pushed officials in Gaza to seek outside assistance.

The reconstruction of the 34 destroyed mosques will cost nearly $15 million, which exceeds the means of the city administration, especially at a time when economic sanctions imposed by Israel have begun to be felt. Thus, city officials have turned to Turkey, asking for help. Gazan officials said they presented a project to Turkey that includes the construction of 15 new Ottoman-style mosques and the repair of those damaged in the war....

They're not in it for just a little Sharia. They're in it for the package deal. Even Imam Rauf knows that Sharia does not lend itself to selective compartmentalization. "Islamists want new Libya based on Shariah law," from the Associated Press, November 28:

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Dozens of Libyan imams and other religious leaders have demanded the country's constitution be based on Islamic Shariah law and have also urged the transitional government to get weapons out of the hands of former rebels. Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council, said last month that Shariah law would be the main source of legislation in the new Libya.

But he stressed it would reflect a moderate Islam. Other leaders said the matter is still to be decided.

"Moderate" is relative. "Moderate" is less extreme than the next guy, and therefore depends on the point of reference. This highly successful pattern of deceit depends on generalities and half-truths.

The 250 Muslim leaders met in Tripoli on Monday for a conference organized by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. They were seeking a common voice on pressing issues for Libya.

They urged leaders to deal with tribal tensions and disarm the ex-rebels who toppled Moammar Gadhafi, calling them "mujahedeen."

The Great Libyan Jihadist Garage Sale ships long-distance. "Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels," by Ruth Shurlock for the Telegraph, November 25:

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya's new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested "assistance" from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.

"There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria," said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see."

The Telegraph has also learned that preliminary discussions about arms supplies took place when members of the Syrian National Council [SNC] – the country's main opposition movement – visited Libya earlier this month.

"The Libyans are offering money, training and weapons to the Syrian National Council," added Wisam Taris, a human rights campaigner with links to the SNC.

The disclosure came as rebels raided an air force base outside the city of Homs and killed six pilots, according to a statement by the country's military.

Last month, Libya's interim government became the first in the world to recognise Syria's opposition movement as the country's "legitimate authority".

Large shipments of weapons have not yet been sent, said activists, mainly because of logistical difficulties. But proposals for a "buffer zone" inside Syria, monitored by the Arab League, or the likely emergence of an area inside the country controlled entirely by rebels could solve this problem.

"The [Libyan] council's offer is serious," said Mr Taris. Turkey, which has denounced President Assad's regime, is already sheltering about 7,000 Syrian opposition activists, including the leader of the Free Syrian Army, the nascent rebel movement, in a "safe zone" along Turkey's border with Syria.

Sources in the Libyan town of Misurata suggested that some weapons may already have been sent. Some smugglers were caught selling small arms to Syrian buyers in Misurata, said a man who trafficked guns to Libya's rebels during the country's civil war.

Post-conflict Libya is awash with arms, many of them taken from the vast military stores maintained by Col Mummar Gaddafi's regime. Kalashnikov assault rifles, modern missiles and even tanks found their way into Libya.

Libyans feel closely aligned to the Syrian cause, said Hameda al-Mageri, from the Tripoli Military Council. "Bashar sent Gaddafi weapons when he was fighting us. There are hundreds of people who want to go to fight in Syria, or help in other ways if they can."

But Libyan officials deny the claims. "This is what you hear in the street," said Ramadan Zarmoh, the leader of the Misurata military council. "Officially there is none of this. I would never send any fighters to fight outside the country."....

War is deceit: "The stockpile’s existence violates Gaddafi’s promises in 2004 to the United States, Britain and the United Nations to declare and begin destruction of all of Libya’s chemical arms."

That raises two questions: what else haven't we found in Libya, and what might Iran pass to its proxy jihad groups? "Iran may have sent Libya shells for chemical weapons," by R. Jeffrey Smith, and Joby Warrick and Colum Lynch for the Washington Post, November 20:

The Obama administration is investigating whether Iran supplied the Libyan government of Moammar Gaddafi with hundreds of special artillery shells for chemical weapons that Libya kept secret for decades, U.S. officials said.

The shells, which Libya filled with highly toxic mustard agent, were uncovered in recent weeks by revolutionary fighters at two sites in central Libya. Both are under heavy guard and round-the-clock surveillance by drones, U.S. and Libyan officials said.

The discovery of the shells has prompted a probe, led by U.S. intelligence, into how the Libyans obtained them; several sources said early suspicion had fallen on Iran. “We are pretty sure we know” the shells were custom-designed and produced in Iran for Libya, said a senior U.S. official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the accusation.

A U.S. official with access to classified information confirmed that there were “serious concerns” that Iran had provided the shells, albeit some years ago. In recent weeks, U.N. inspectors have released new information indicating that Iran has the capability to develop a nuclear bomb, a charge Iranian officials have long rejected. Confirmed evidence of Iran’s provision of the specialized shells may exacerbate international tensions over the country’s alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Mohammed Javad Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader and the brother of Iran’s former negotiator on nuclear issues, denied the allegation. “I believe such comments are being fabricated by the U.S. to complete their project of Iranophobia in the region and all through the world. Surely this is another baseless story for demonizing [the] Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said in an e-mail.

The stockpile’s existence violates Gaddafi’s promises in 2004 to the United States, Britain and the United Nations to declare and begin destruction of all of Libya’s chemical arms, and it raises new questions about the ability of the world’s most powerful nations to police such pledges in tightly closed societies.

Gaddafi’s government was “sitting on stuff that was not secure, and the world did not know about it,” a third U.S. official said. “There were no seals and no inventories” by international inspectors, the official added.

During the recent civil conflict, some foreign powers and Libyan rebels worried that Gaddafi might use chemical weapons, but they were aware only of a previously declared stockpile of mustard agent in bulk storage at a remote desert site. They were unaware of the filled artillery shells, which posed a much greater threat....

This is what Barack Obama sent American forces to establish in Libya.

I tried to tell you. "Muslim Brotherhood goes public with first conference in Libya," from Reuters, November 18:

The Muslim Brotherhood has held its first public conference on Libyan soil after being banned for decades, and used the platform to set a moderate tone, calling for a broad national reconstruction effort.

As Libya emerges from a bloody civil war, many observers believe the next elections could pit religious political groups against secular parties, with better-organized Islamists such as the Brotherhood having a tactical advantage.

Speaking nine months to the day after the start of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi that eventually ended his 42-year rule, Libyan Muslim Brotherhood leader Suleiman Abdelkader praised the rebellion on Thursday and called on Libya’s factions to unite....

The slickly organized event was heavy in revolutionary references, with the stage draped in the new national colors and speeches given by guest speakers from Tunisian moderate [sic] Islamist party Ennahda and Syria’s banned Muslim Brotherhood.

"Muammar Gaddafi's beating, abuse and ultimate death in the custody of former rebel fighters was an embarrassment to the previous transitional government. Officials in Tripoli said they were determined to handle his son's case with more order."

"Gaddafi's son captured, scared and without fight," by Marie-Louise Gumuchian for Reuters, November 19:

ZINTAN, Libya (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has been captured, scared and with just a few thousand dollars, in the Libyan desert by fighters who vowed to hold him in the mountain town of Zintan until there was a government to hand him over to.

The fighters claimed his capture as gunfire and car horns expressed jubilation across Libya at the seizure of the British-educated 39-year-old who a year ago was set for a dynastic succession to rule the oil-producing desert state.

Saif al-Islam, who vowed to die fighting but was taken without firing a shot, was arrested overnight, officials said, and he was not injured during his seizure -- unlike his father, who was killed a month ago on Sunday after being captured in his home town.

"At the beginning he was very scared. He thought we would kill him," Ahmed Ammar, one of his captors, told Reuters.

Among other things, probably.

Saif al-Islam told Reuters that he was okay and that his hand was bandaged due to wounds sustained in a NATO air strike a month ago. Asked by Reuters on the Soviet-made cargo plane which flew him to the town of Zintan if he was feeling all right, Gaddafi said simply: "Yes."

The Zintan fighters, who make up one of the powerful militia factions holding ultimate power in a country still without a government, said they planned to keep him in Zintan, until they could hand him over to the authorities.

Prime minister-designate Abdurrahim El-Keib is scheduled to form a government by Tuesday, and the fate of Saif al-Islam will be an early test of its authority. Libyans want to try him at home before, possibly, handing him over to the International Criminal Court which accuses him of crimes against humanity.

The European Union urged Libyan authorities to ensure Saif al-Islam was brought to justice in cooperation with the ICC whose prosecutor is heading for Libya soon to discuss where and how the legal process will take place....

Qatar was part of the coalition to support the NTC in ousting Gaddafi, sending six fighter jets. They seem to have to missed the memo that this is all about "democracy." "Libya UN envoy says Qatar arming Islamists," from Reuters, November 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

TANGIER, Morocco Nov 18 (Reuters) - Libya's U.N. envoy Mohammed Abdel Rahman Shalgam on Friday urged Qatar to stop meddling in his country's domestic affairs, accusing the fellow Arab nation of providing funds and weapons to Libyan Islamists.

"There are facts on the ground, they (Qatar) give money to some parties, the Islamist parties. They give money and weapons and they try to meddle in issues that do not concern them and we reject that," Shalgam told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in the Moroccan city Tangier.

"The Qatari state is still providing assistance to some (Libyan) parties and they are giving them money and we reject this totally," he added.

"These are all troubling signs for all those who wanted a secular Libya." I tried to tell you. "Libya’s Islamists Ransack Mosque Graves in Power Struggle," by Christopher Stephen for Bloomberg, November 17 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Libyan gunmen broke into the Saif al-Nasr mosque in Tripoli early on Nov. 8, smashed open a wooden sarcophagus and removed the remains of Saif al-Nasr, a scholar who died 155 years ago, and a former imam, Hammad Zwai.

“These bodies have been moved to a Muslim cemetery,” announced graffiti on the walls, explaining the disapproval by some Islamists of the Sufi Muslim tradition of burying scholars and teachers in mosques to honor them.

Muslims pushing for a strict intepretation of Islamic law are jostling for power in the chaos that has gripped Libya since the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, the third North African leader after those in Egypt and Tunisia to fall in the Arab Spring.

Last month protesters holding signs proclaiming “We Are Here to Purify the Honor of Tripoli” forced the early closure of the capital’s first fashion show since Qaddafi’s 42-year rule in Tripoli ended in August.

“I was scared; I wiped off my makeup and went home,” said Jasmin Abdul Aziz, a 22-year-old student who was one of five models at the event and once paraded a $5,000 dress studded with diamonds in a Qaddafi-era fashion show. “Before, we would wear shorts in the streets. Now, look around you, nobody does.”

The man responsible for maintaining security in the city is Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the head of the Tripoli Military Council and former Guantanamo Bay inmate. The council doesn’t regard the mosque break-ins as a crime and is awaiting the formation of a religious council to rule on the matter, according to his deputy, Mohammed Goaider.

‘Not A Crime’

“It is not a crime, but it is not the right time for the bodies to be removed,” Goaider said in an interview. If the religious council issues a fatwa, an Islamic religious edict, demanding the removal of the bodies, security units will do the work, he said.

Belhaj was the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which opposed Qaddafi in the 1990s and is listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. After joining the Taliban in Aghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was captured and held by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 before being sent to Libya, where he spent seven years in a prison until his release last year.

“We are 99 percent Muslim,” said Emhemmed Ghula of the February 17th Coalition, a prominent political group that supports Belhaj. “Our country is a conservative country.”

‘Troubling Signs’

Tripoli is still controlled by a patchwork of militias, with the National Transitional Council unable to impose its authority over regional military bodies such as the Tripoli Military Council.

“These are all troubling signs for all those who wanted a secular Libya,” Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said in a phone interview. “Libya is a conservative country, so some amount of that is to be expected, but desecrating graves and closing down fashion shows encroaches on freedoms.”

The NTC says a new constitution, which will be drafted by a panel elected by June, must have Islamic law, or Sharia, as its “principal” source.

Acting Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib is due to present his Cabinet on Nov. 20 to the NTC. Among the groups vying for posts are the Freedom, Justice and Development party, which says it is modelled on the moderate Islamic AKP party that has governed Turkey since November 2002, and the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, which says it is secular.

Women Fearful

“The civil state that we yearn for, there is no conflict with that and Sharia as the source of legislation,” NTC spokesman Abdel Hafez Ghoga told reporters on Nov. 15.

How Sharia will be interpreted remains uncertain until the constitution is drafted, and in the meantime tensions between secular and Islamist groups are surfacing in all spheres.

“We are still in the midst of Libya thrashing out its new institutions,” Joshi said. “There will be a long period of instability in which these things will continue. As long as it can remain peaceful, it’s OK.”

At a five-day conference being held in Tripoli’s Radisson Blu Al Mahary Hotel, women’s groups from across the country voiced fears about their rights.

“If they apply Sharia, everything will be good. It is a system to organize society,” Aya Blaou, a Tripoli medical student, said in an interview. “What I am afraid about is that Sharia rules are used against us.”

Civilian Administration

Belhaj’s supporters insist that Islam must be respected, and say that they support democracy.

“Those who break these stones, they are following al- Qaeda,” said Mohammed Abdulla, one of several armed uniformed fighters guarding the mosque. “We will not let them in.”

Women in Tripoli are feeling the heaviest burden to conform. They have been under pressure to dress conservatively since Qaddafi’s downfall, Abdul Aziz said.

She blamed Belhaj and his insistence on a strict interpretation of Islam, and warned that violence may break out if he continued the policy.

“The young people will not allow it,” she said. “We have to have a new revolution.”

We'll see.

"...The corresponding line in the original version of the song runs instead, “We will bring back the purity of Islam to al-Quds,” i.e. Jerusalem."

Many in the West have upheld democracy in Libya as the supreme goal, but it is a means to an end, and the end is Sharia. "The Libyan Revolution: Democracy or ‘Purity of Islam’?" by John Rosenthal for the National Review Online, November 15:

Mustafa Abdul Jalil’s announcement last month that Islamic sharia would form the basic source of legislation in the new Libya, and that all laws contradicting the sharia were immediately null and void, came as a surprise for Western observers. Given that the chair of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) wears the sign of his piety on his forehead in the form of the darkened “prayer bump” or zabibah created through vigorous prostration during prayer, it probably should not have.

See the original article, linked above, for many links to supporting content.

Western observers had always been determined to see the anti-Qaddafi rebellion in Libya as a “democracy movement.” They were encouraged to do so by English-language NTC statements replete with soothing — if not indeed downright soporific — boilerplate that had undoubtedly been composed with the aid of Western advisers or PR agencies. But from the very start of the rebellion, clear evidence was available that the most fervent opponents of Qaddafi rejected his rule not as undemocratic, but, above all, as un-Islamic.

The anti-Qaddafi revolution is sometimes known as the “February 17th” revolution in honor of the February 17, 2011, protests in Benghazi that are widely credited with instigating the uprising. The date of those protests, incidentally, was chosen to commemorate protests in Benghazi five years earlier that were sparked by the famous “Mohammed cartoons”: the Islamist source of outrage par excellence. [...]

The 2011 protests were sponsored by a London-based umbrella group named the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO). On February 15, just two days before the protests, the NCLO website posted an Arabic-language text titled “Qaddafi: Islam’s Enemy No. 1.” (A Google cache of the Arabic text is available ... An online commentator named Andy Stone was the first to draw attention to the document.)

The text, of which an English translation is available here, amounts to an indictment of Qaddafi for a long list of alleged crimes against Islamic orthodoxy. It ends with a rhetorical question: “Have you heard of any tyrant who has done to Islam and its people what the criminal Qaddafi has done?” The list of charges includes Qaddafi’s discouraging women from wearing the traditional Islamic “veil,” his suggestion that Jews and Christians should be allowed to visit Mecca, and, perhaps most importantly, his rejection of the sunna.

Setting aside the sunna would get rid of some embarrassing passages that still result in abuses today. But it would also pose a problem for interpretation of the Qur'an, and rituals. It would also leave the problematic content of the Qur'an where supremacism, warfare, women's rights, and cruel and unusual punishments are concerned.

The sunna are the traditional Muslim practices that derive not from the Koran, but rather from accounts of Mohammed’s acts and teachings: the so-called hadith. The term “Sunni Islam” refers to the sunna, and strict fidelity to the sunna is at the heart of contemporary fundamentalist movements in Islam. It is hardly surprising that an Arab leader who rejects the sunna would be regarded as a very great heretic indeed. Toppling Qaddafi had long been a goal of Islamic militant groups, including al-Qaeda and the local Libyan al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). [...]

Further evidence of the Islamic and/or Islamist wellspring of the revolution is available on the German-language web of the Misrata-based pro-rebellion organization Wefaq Libya. The video collection of Wefaq Libya German includes a clip of Qaddafi nonchalantly removing a woman’s face-covering or niqab and another of an outraged Tripoli resident berating Qaddafi for having (implicitly) compared himself to Mohammed. “You dog! You Jew!” the man screams.

Perhaps most significant, however, is a video with German subtitles dated July 14. The clip shows a group of rebels, arms in hand, singing a jihadist anthem in which they pledge “to bring back the purity of Islam to Tripoli.” “We will take up our fight with them,” the men sing:

We will go in groups to stop them
We will bring back the purity of Islam to Tripoli
After all our humiliations, after all our humiliations.

As the remainder of the video makes clear, the corresponding line in the original version of the song runs instead, “We will bring back the purity of Islam to al-Quds,” i.e. Jerusalem.

The costs of the Great Libyan Jihadist Garage Sale continue to spread. Just the other day, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb affirmed that it had acquired part of Gaddafi's former arsenal.

"Israel rushes airliner defenses as Libya leaks SAMs," by Dan Williams for Reuters, November 11:

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel has accelerated the installation of anti-missile defenses on its airliners, a security official said on Friday, seeing an enhanced risk of attack by militants using looted Libyan arms.

Jets flown by El Al and two other Israeli carriers are being equipped with a locally made system known as C-Music that uses a laser to "blind" heat-seeking missiles, the official said, giving a 2013 target for fitting most of the fleet.

As a stop-gap, Israel is adapting air force counter-measures for use aboard civilian planes, said the official, who declined to elaborate on the technologies involved, or to be identified.

"We have long been aware of the threat and were ahead of the rest of the world in preparing for it. Libya has meant government orders to step things up even further," the official said, citing intelligence assessments that chaos during the North African nation's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi allowed trafficking of Libyan shoulder-fired missiles to Palestinians and al Qaeda-linked groups in the Egyptian Sinai.

Israel began deploying another system, "Flight Guard," on El Al after al Qaeda tried to shoot down a planeload of Israeli tourists in Kenya in 2002. Flight Guard's use of diversionary flares set off safety concerns abroad and the Israelis turned to C-Music, manufactured by Elbit Systems Ltd..

According to the Israeli official, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is covering the $1 million to $1.5 million that it costs to fit C-Music to each plane.

The bathtub-sized pods, built into the planes' bodies, increase drag in flight, meaning "a few million (dollars) a year" in extra fuel expenses, the official said, adding that this, too, would be borne by the government.

Israel's main international gateway, Ben-Gurion Airport, is 10 km (6 miles) from the occupied West Bank where, along with the Islamist-ruled Gaza Strip, Palestinians want a state.

The Israeli official said he had no information indicating the presence of anti-aircraft missiles in the West Bank -- unlike in Gaza, which has seen an influx of smuggled weaponry from Egypt since Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers in 2005.

The official said Netanyahu had, in closed-door discussions, described C-Music as a way to help reassure the Israeli public about security should the government one day return occupied land to the Palestinians under a peace agreement.

Asked for confirmation, Netanyahu's spokesman, Mark Regev, quoted him as saying that "in any possible peace deal there have to be effective security arrangements that can deal with a range of security threats, including shoulder-fired missiles."

Israel also wants to protect traffic to its small airport in the Red Sea resort of Eilat, which abuts Jordan and Egypt, where Islamist militants have operated in the past. Armed infiltrators killed eight Israelis on the Egyptian border on August 18.

Thank you, Sheikh Obvious: we and a few million other people figured as much. Al-Qaeda was in an ideal position to be a major beneficiary of the Great Libyan Jihadist Garage Sale.

"Al-Qaeda's North Africa branch says got Libya weapons," from Agence France-Presse, November 9:

Al-Qaeda's North Africa franchise acknowledged it had acquired part of slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi's arsenal, in comments by one of its leaders quoted Wednesday.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, believed to be one of the leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), made the remarks to Mauritanian news agency ANI, which has carried interviews and statements from the group in the past.

"We have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world," said Belmokhtar, an Algerian national.

Early on, some officials were puzzled why al-Qaeda was cheering on the various revolutions breaking out in Africa and the Mideast.

"As for our acquisition of Libyan armament, that is an absolutely natural thing," he said, without elaborating on the nature of the weapons purportedly acquired.

Officials and experts have expressed concern that part of Kadhafi's considerable stock of weapons could end up in the hands of AQIM, which has bases in the Sahel and currently holds several foreign hostages.

According to several experts, AQIM has acquired surface-to-air missiles which could pose a threat to flights over the region.

Belmokhtar also claimed a level of ideological convergence existed between his movement and the Islamist rebels who eventually toppled Kadhafi last month and became Libya's new rulers.

"We did not fight , alongside them in the field against the Kadhafi forces," he said. "But young Islamists, jihadis... were the ones spearheading the revolution in Libya."

The National Transitional Council now in charge of Libya owes its victory over Kadhafi's 42-year rule partly to Western military backing and claims to seek the establishment of a moderate Islamic administration.

We Tried to Tell You, Part MCXLVIII. "Al Qaeda plants its flag in Libya," by Sherif Elhelwa for Vice, October 28:

It was here at the courthouse in Benghazi where the first spark of the Libyan revolution ignited. It’s the symbolic seat of the revolution; post-Gaddafi Libya’s equivalent of Egypt’s Tahrir Square. And it was here, in the tumultuous months of civil war, that the ragtag rebel forces established their provisional government and primitive, yet effective, media center from which to tell foreign journalists about their “fight for freedom.”

But according to multiple eyewitnesses—myself included—one can now see both the Libyan rebel flag and the flag of al Qaeda fluttering atop Benghazi’s courthouse.

According to one Benghazi resident, Islamists driving brand-new SUVs and waving the black al Qaeda flag drive the city’s streets at night shouting, "Islamiya, Islamiya! No East, nor West," a reference to previous worries that the country would be bifurcated between Gaddafi opponents in the east and the pro-Gaddafi elements in the west.

Earlier this week, I went to the Benghazi courthouse and confirmed the rumors: an al Qaeda flag was clearly visible; its Arabic script declaring that “there is no God but Allah” and a full moon underneath. When I tried to take pictures, a Salafi-looking guard, wearing a green camouflage outfit, rushed towards me and demanded to know what I was doing. My response was straightforward: I was taking a picture of the flag. He gave me an intimidating look and hissed, "Whomever speaks ill of this flag, we will cut off his tongue. I recommend that you don't publish these. You will bring trouble to yourself.”

He followed me inside the courthouse, but luckily my driver Khaled was close by, and interceded on my behalf. According to Khaled, the guard had angrily threatened to harm me. When I again engaged him in conversation, he told me "this flag is the true flag of Islam," and was unresponsive when I argued with him that historically Islam has never been represented by a single flag. The guard claimed repeatedly that there is no al Qaeda in Libya, and that the flag flying atop the courthouse is “dark black,” while the al Qaeda flag is charcoal black. To many locals, it’s a distinction without a difference. One man approached me with a friendly warning: "I recommend that you leave now; [the Islamist fighters] could be watching you."

But none of this should be surprising. In Tripoli, Abdelhakim Belhaj, a well-known al Qaeda fighter and founder of the notorious Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), is now leading the rebel “military counsel” in Tripoli. A few weeks ago, Belhaj ordered his fighters to take command of the Tripoli airport, then controlled by a group of Zintan fighters, a brigade of Berber Libyans who helped liberate the capital from Gaddafi loyalists. A few days later, Belhaj gave a speech emphasizing that his actions had the blessings of Libya’s National Transitional Counsel (NTC), who appointed him to the leadership of Tripoli’s military command.

According to a Libyan who didn't want to be named, a special military group inside the NTC is calling on Salafi fighters with military backgrounds to join a special group fighting in the rebellion. "There will be special benefits if you join whether you die in battle, or when you return home,” including monthly salaries. (One NTC source told me that Belhaj’s fighters are the only rebel fighters who receive a monthly salary.)

In a recent speech heralding the new beginning of post-Gaddafi Libya, Moustafa Abdeljalil, the head of the NTC, declared the country an “Islamic state, and sharia law is the source of all our laws." It was indeed an odd declaration for a leader celebrating his country’s liberation, leading many to wonder: Who are Abdeljalil and the NTC trying to appease?

It isn’t uncommon to discover rebels with radical backgrounds. In an off-the-record interview, one NTC member spoke casually of his past, explaining that the Gaddafi regime blacklisted him from the country for his ties to LIFG. He told me of his close association with Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the infamous “blind cleric” jailed for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who he helped ferry across the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan during the mujahedeen fight against the Soviet Union.

The war to rid the country of the Gaddafi dictatorship might have ended, but the battle for control of post-revolutionary Libya has only just begun. And it will surprise few that assorted radicals, jihadists, Salafists, and LIFG veterans are attempting to fill the power vacuum and replace one dictatorship with another.

The ultimate goal on many sides is, of course, the caliphate, but even if that is achieved, it will risk collapsing on itself in infighting over the implementation of Sharia and sufficient displays of piety to secure the right to rule, save for a tyrant with the right combination of personality cult and iron fist to hold it together. That would be the struggle for one caliph's lifetime, to say nothing of his successor. The entire territory will be plunged into material and intellectual poverty, as its establishment blames outsiders and conspiracies, and seeks wealth to appropriate from the outside because it will have destroyed the means of generating its own.

There has been a notable double standard in the mainstream media's coverage of stories of brutality and possible war crimes committed by the forces of Libya's National Transitional Council. As videos circulated of a bloodied Gaddafi being beaten about the head with a shoe, and then of his corpse, the trope went something like this:

"Some viewers may find these images coming out of Libya disturbing. But others say the Libyan people have suffered so long that it's only understandable that they want to vent their rage."

Swap out "Libya" for some other country, and "the Libyan people" for some other party, and the double standard becomes evident. Or, compare the coverage of the Navy SEALs' raid against bin Laden, or even the coverage of Saddam Hussein's execution, and there is an acceptance (and even approval) of bloodlust in Gaddafi's demise not seen elsewhere.

Dictator or no dictator, the video (find it on YouTube, if you can stomach it) of Gaddafi being sodomized with a weapon is horrifying, recalling Peter Hitchens' misgivings once again: "It looks to me pretty much like a football crowd armed with AK-47s and bazookas, with the added ingredient of Islamic militancy. Why am I expected to like it?"

And then there's the sodomy. Bill Maher, to his credit, does not take an "anything but Islam" approach to his religious satire, and considers the proverbial elephant in the room below. A quiet subculture of homosexuality is a social phenomenon widely acknowledged within Islamic countries, inextricably tied to the strict segregation of men and women, with an undercurrent of pious misogyny.

"Maher: Gadhafi sodomy video suggests homosexuality has become sexuality in Islamic culture," by Jeff Poor for The Daily Caller, October 29:

HBO host Bill Maher has been no friend of religion over the years. But unlike many of the secular left in America, his attacks haven’t been just on Christianity, but he’s been critical of Islam as well.

And on the Friday night broadcast of his “Real Time” program, Maher drew another conclusion about the Muslim culture, using a video that has been circulating of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi ultimate demise.

“Alright, let me ask you this because I alluded to it during the monologue and I’m not going to show the footage,” he said. “We could but we’re talking about the fact that as soon as they caught Gadhafi they stuck something up his ass.”

Based on that and how that particular culture strictly interprets Shariah law in the treatment of women, Maher concluded that homosexuality has become sexuality.

“Now Groucho Marx said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” Maher continued. “And sometimes a stick up your ass is just a stick up your ass. But don’t these people have issues? I mean, when the first thing you do is stick something up the guy’s ass, I feel like it says something about you as a culture -- the men in that culture. When you segregate the women and you cover them up and homosexuality becomes sexuality.”

TRIPOLI, Libya — It was just a passing reference to marriage in a leader’s soberly delivered speech, but all week it has unsettled women here as well as allies abroad.

In announcing the success of the Libyan revolution and calling for a new, more pious nation, the head of the interim government, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, also seemed to clear the way for unrestricted polygamy in a Muslim country where it has been limited and rare for decades.

It looked like a sizable step backward for women at a moment when much here — institutions, laws, social relations — is still in play after the end of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s 42 years of authoritarian rule.

"A sizable step backwards"? Is Islam not grand, noble, pure, etc. etc.? Is even the New York Times becoming Islamophobic?

In his speech, Mr. Abdel-Jalil declared that a Qaddafi-era law that placed restrictions on multiple marriages, which is a tenet of Islamic law, or Shariah, would be done away with. The law, which stated that a first wife had to give permission before others were added, for instance, had kept polygamy rare here.

“This law is contrary to Shariah and must be stopped,” Mr. Abdel-Jalil told the crowd, vowing that the new government would adhere more faithfully to Shariah. The next day he reiterated the point to reporters at a news conference: “Shariah allows polygamy,” he said. Mr. Abdel-Jalil is known for his piety.

I tried to tell you. "Benghazi men insist on sharia in new Libya," from AFP, October 28:

More than 200 men from Benghazi staged a demonstration on Friday insisting that Islamic sharia law must be the basis of legislation in newly liberated Libya.

"The Koran is the basis, and our constitution must be based on sharia," shouted the men as they gathered in Freedom Square, the site of the initial protests against the now slain Moammar Qaddafi's 42-year rule....

"We are a Muslim country and our constitution must reflect our religious beliefs. There is nothing above our religious beliefs," said Ahmad al-Moghrabi, a prayer leader at a local Benghazi mosque, who was among 200-300 people who rallied in support of sharia.

And just watch for the dividends that will come in from that billion: oppression of women (polygamy has already been legalized in Libya), oppression of non-Muslims (a Jew who returned to Libya after decades in exile has already been harassed and deported), the denial of free speech and the freedom of conscience, and more virulent anti-Americanism than Gaddafi ever imagined. A bargain!

"Obama on Libya: 'We led from the front,'" by Jamie Klatell for The Hill, October 26 (thanks to Wimpy):

President Obama said Tuesday the often-repeated idea that the U.S. led from behind in the ouster of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi was incorrect.

"We led from the front," Obama said in a pre-taped interview for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." "We introduced the resolution in the United Nations that allowed us to protect civilians in Libya when Gadhafi was threatening to slaughter them. It was our extraordinary men and women in uniform, our pilots who took out their air defense systems, set up a no-fly zone."...

Because his administration was "able to organize the international community," Obama told Leno, operations in Libya "only cost us a billion dollars" and no U.S. troops were killed or injured....

I tried to tell you -- in Human Events this morning:

Muammar Gaddafi is dead, and Barack Obama’s partisans are hailing the Brave New Libya as a triumph for his administration. Speaking about the Libyan revolution in March, Obama hailed “the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny,” saying now they have done it. It may, in fact, give him a boost in the polls, bolstering his manufactured image as a fearless anti-terror crusader, bagger of bin Laden, al-Awlaki, and now Gaddafi. But much less likely is the possibility that the end of Gaddafi’s regime will actually secure the rights of peaceful assembly and free speech for Libyans, or be any benefit to the United States.

This is hard for many people to believe. After all, Gaddafi has been waging war against the U.S. for so long that it was fully 25 years ago that Ronald Reagan​ dubbed him the “madman of the Middle East.” But following in Gaddafi’s wake is likely to be a Sharia regime that will be even more virulent in its anti-Americanism than he was—and much better connected internationally.

Supporters of Obama’s intervention in Libya generally assumed that the forces that were revolting against the Gaddafi regime were secular and oriented toward Western values. When Gaddafi was captured and killed, the victors were chanting “Allahu Akbar.” This is a common enough chant in Muslim countries, especially on such occasions, but in this case it was emblematic of the imminent replacement of Gaddafi’s bizarre Islamosocialist cult of personality with a straight Sharia regime populated by al-Qaeda elements.

It is likely that the new America-backed regime will compete with the Gaddafi regime in its hatred for America and the West, and become noted for being even more anti-American than he was. David Gerbi was one of the many who believed the mainstream media news stories about plucky Libyan revolutionaries fighting for freedom against a repressive regime. Gerbi, a Libyan Jew who had lived in exile in Italy for decades, took people like Barack Obama at their word and believed that what was happening in Libya was a wonderful throwing-off of oppression and reaffirmation of human rights. He decided to return to Libya to rebuild the synagogue in Tripoli, a once-grand structure that had been used as a garbage dump during the Gaddafi regime.

But when Gerbi arrived in the new Libya, he was in for a rude awakening. Demonstrators outside the synagogue revealed to him the brutal truth behind all the fog of political correctness: Carrying signs with inscriptions such as, “There is no place for Jews in Libya,” they made it abundantly clear that they believed that his attempt to rebuild the synagogue was yet another plot of the Zionism they detested, and the enlightened democratic revolutionaries called for Gerbi's deportation. Gerbi ultimately returned to Rome.

Gerbi’s case was not isolated. Islamic law mandates a humiliating second-class status for Jews that, among other discriminatory regulations, forbids them to repair old houses of worship or build new ones. And Islamic law is going to be the foundation of post-Gaddafi Libyan society. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of Libya’s Transitional National Council, declared before a jubilant crowd in Tripoli in September that Sharia would henceforth be the “main source” for Libyan law. Likewise Sheikh Abdel Ghani Abu Ghrass, a popular imam in Libya, who told a crowd of thousands in Tripoli, “We must underline the Islamic character of the new Libyan state,” and that Libya “should be governed in conformity with Sharia.” Libya’s new draft constitution declares: “Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence [Sharia].”

There is more.

So, are the Libyans who would resist Sharia law racists, or are they Islamophobes? After all, no one can ever have legitimate concerns about the contents of Sharia law and the intentions of its backers. "Sharia law declaration raises concerns in new Libya," by Simon Martelli for Agence France-Presse, October 24:

The announcement that Islamic sharia law will be the basis of legislation in newly liberated Libya has raised concerns, especially among women, despite Islamists insisting moderation will prevail.

Interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Sunday, during his speech to the nation in Benghazi to formally declare the country's liberation from the ousted regime of Moammer Kadhafi, that sharia would be Libya's principal law.

"Any law that violates sharia is null and void legally," he said, citing as an example the law on marriage passed during the slain dictator's 42-year tenure that imposed restrictions on polygamy, which is permitted in Islam.

"The law of divorce and marriage... This law is contrary to sharia and it is stopped," Abdel Jalil said.

His comments have provoked criticism and calls for restraint both in Libya and in Europe, amid fears that the Arab Spring may give rise to a potentially intolerant Islamist resurgence.

Many Libyans awaiting Sunday's historic speech expressed surprise at the decision by the National Transitional Council leader to mention the role of sharia law in the new country before addressing such important issues as security and education.

"It's shocking and insulting to state, after thousands of Libyans have paid for freedom with their lives, that the priority of the new leadership is to allow men to marry in secret," said Rim, 40, a Libyan feminist who requested anonymity.

"We did not slay Goliath so that we now live under the Inquisition," she told AFP.

Interesting mixture of metaphors.

In his speech, Abdel Jalil also announced the introduction of Islamic banking in Libya in keeping with sharia which prohibits the earning of interest, or riba in Arabic, that is considered a form of usury.

Adelrahman al-Shatr, one of the founders of the centre-right Party of National Solidarity, launched just last week, said it was premature for the NTC leader to speak about the policies of the new state.

"It is a subject that should be discussed with the different political groups and with the Libyan people," he said.

"These declarations create feelings of pain and bitterness among women who sacrificed so many martyrs," in the eight-month battle against Kadhafi loyalists, he added.

Women can divorce under Sharia, but the terms are far less favorable.

"By abolishing the marriage law, women lose the right to keep the family home if they divorce. It is a disaster for Libyan women."

Western leaders also responded swiftly to Abdel Jalil's comments, with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton saying on Monday Libya's introduction of sharia law must respect human rights and democratic principles.

Abdel Jalil, a respected former justice minister of Kadhafi who distanced himself from the old regime, is seen as a pious man and a Sufi follower of Islam who is at odds with extremism.

He has already said that the new Libya would not adopt any extremist ideology, and sought to reassure the international community by stating on Monday that Libyans were moderate Muslims.

"Moderate." "Extreme." Relative to what?

Nevertheless, Libya's Islamists are a rising force in the country's political arena, some of whom, such as Abdelhakim Belhaj, the founder of the Al-Qaeda linked but now-disbanded Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), are expected to hold prominent positions.

After suffering decades of persecution by Kadhafi, they are also working hard to present themselves as proponents of tolerant, democratic values and policies.

As defined by and within the limits of Sharia.

"The rules and laws (in new Libya) should take Islam as a basic reference," Islamist leader Sheikh Ali Sallabi, a supporter of Belhaj, told AFP.

He insisted that freedom, justice, equality and respect for human dignity should be enshrined in the new constitution, along with the peaceful rotation of power.

As defined by and within the limits of Sharia.

"We believe in the rights of others to show their programmes to the people, and to let the people decide," said Sallabi, who was jailed for eight years during the 1980s in Tripoli's notorious Abu Salim prison.

"We also believe in the freedom of the press and the right to self expression. We believe that our religion accommodates these rights," he added.

As defined by and within the limits of Sharia.

Over the weekend on Pajamas Media (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I discussed how Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Laden — even Obama — are not causes but symptoms of their societies:

What a myopic view the Western media and its array of "experts" have concerning the so-called "Arab Spring" — a myopia that naturally metastasizes among the general public.

Consider the Libyan crisis. As usual, the focus is entirely on the individual, on the tangible — the now dead Gaddafi — whom all the blame can be heaped upon, while the existentialist elephant in the room, the real mover and shaker, the spirit of the age behind all these uprisings, is never acknowledged.

So another Arab dictator has been eliminated, and the talking heads are abuzz: some, whose knowledge of the world and reality is chronically limited to their own experience, naively cry "democracy!" (even as those who butchered Gaddafi were crying "Allahu Akbar!"); others cautiously include the usual boilerplate caveats in their analyses, which otherwise remain parochial.

Either way, as many interpret events in Libya, they project their own values and notions of right and wrong, good and bad — most notably by portraying the Arab uprisings as positive signs of democracy — thereby demonstrating, yet again, their inability to comprehend Islam's distinct civilization, let alone the Closing of the Muslim Mind.

I am reminded of an especially pertinent observation by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:

The discovery of truth is prevented most effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, nor directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice [in this case, by the Western conviction that all people want a secular, liberal democracy], which as a pseudo a priori stands in the path of truth and is then like a contrary wind driving a ship away from land, so that sail and rudder [reality and those who present it] labor in vain.

Indeed, 19th century Germans, such as Hegel, understood that world events, far from being inextricably tied to individual leaders, were products of the Zeitgeist, defined as: "The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation … the spirit, attitude, or general outlook of a specific time or period … the general atmosphere of a place or situation and the effect that it has on people."...

But Islamic law is swiftly returning to Libya. "Libya - Mufti:'Gaddafi an infidel,no Islamic funeral," from ANSAmed, October 24 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - ROME, OCTOBER 24 - The Grand Mufti of Libya, Assadiq al-Ghiriani, has stated that Colonel Gaddafi was an ''infidel'' and for this reason ''prayers should not be spoken over his body'' in mosques, as is foreseen by Islamic funeral rites, the website of Egyptian daily Al Ahram reports.

According to the Mufti, it is, however, possible to bury the former dictator in a Muslim cemetery, but his body should be washed by family members only: ''the only people who can pray for his soul''. In the view of the Grand Mufti, the mortal remains of Colonel Gaddafi should be buried in an unknown place, in order to avoid fomenting divisions between Libyans by ''making his tomb a place of pilgrimage''.

But a different line of thought dominates at Cairo's Ad Alzhar [sic]: it is ''overdone'' to call Mohammar Gaddafi an atheist and so he should be granted a burial according to Muslim rites in a normal cemetery. It should be ''God who judges him,'' said Abdel Moeti Bayoumi, of the Research Academy of Al Azhar, the most important theological centre of the Sunni creed. (ANSAmed).

Libya's new regime in two swift strokes contradicts the Western Islamic apologists who claim that there is no contradiction between Islamic law and American law. "Libya's liberation: interim ruler unveils more radical than expected plans for Islamic law," by Richard Spencer in the Telegraph, October 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Libya's interim leader outlined more radical plans to introduce Islamic law than expected as he declared the official liberation of the country.

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact [sic] president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source".

But that formulation can be interpreted in many ways - it was also the basis of Egypt's largely secular constitution under President Hosni Mubarak, and remains so after his fall.

Mr Abdul-Jalil went further, specifically lifting immediately, by decree, one law from Col. Gaddafi's era that he said was in conflict with Sharia - that banning polygamy.

In a blow to those who hoped to see Libya's economy integrate further into the western world, he announced that in future bank regulations would ban the charging of interest, in line with Sharia. "Interest creates disease and hatred among people," he said.

Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, and other Muslim countries, have pioneered the development of Sharia-compliant banks which charge fees rather than interest for loans but they normally run alongside western-style banks.

In the first instance, interest on low-value loans would be waived altogether, he said.

Libya is already the most conservative state in north Africa, banning the sale of alcohol.

C'mon, Spence. That's not a "conservative" thing. Lots of conservatives drink alcohol. Call things by their right names.

Mr Abdul-Jalil's decision - made in advance of the introduction of any democratic process - will please the Islamists who have played a strong role in opposition to Col Gaddafi's rule and in the uprising but worry the many young liberal Libyans who, while usually observant Muslims, take their political cues from the West.

I tried to tell you.

I tried to tell you. "Libya's transitional leader declares liberation," from AP, October 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Libya's transitional leader declared his country's liberation on Sunday, three days after the hated dictator Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed.

He called on Libyans to show "patience, honesty and tolerance" and eschew hatred as they embark on rebuilding the country at the end of an 8-month civil war.

The transitional government leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil set out a vision for the post-Gadhafi future with an Islamist tint, saying that Islamic Sharia law would be the "basic source" of legislation in the country and that existing laws that contradict the teachings of Islam would be nullified. In a gesture that showed his own piety, he urged Libyans not to express their joy by firing in the air, but rather to chant "Allahu Akbar," or God is Great. He then stepped aside and knelt to offer a brief prayer of thanks.

"This revolution was looked after by God to achieve victory," he told the crowd at the declaration ceremony in the eastern city of Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising against Gadhafi began. He thanked those who fell in the fight against Gadhafi's forces. "This revolution began peacefully to demand the minimum of legitimate rights, but it was met by excessive violence."

Abdul-Jalil said new banks would be set up to follow the Islamic banking system, which bans charging interest. For the time being, he said interest would be canceled from any personal loans already taken out less than 10,000 Libyan dinars (about $7,500)....

No further obstacles remain to a hardline Sharia regime in Libya. "Gaddafi killed as Libya's revolt claims hometown," by Rania El Gamal and Tim Gaynor for Reuters, October 20:

SIRTE, Libya | Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:09am EDT

(Reuters) - Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya's interim rulers said.

His killing, which came swiftly after his capture near Sirte, is the most dramatic single development in the Arab Spring revolts that have unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and threatened the grip on power of the leaders of Syria and Yemen.

"He (Gaddafi) was also hit in his head," National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died."

Mlegta told Reuters earlier that Gaddafi, who was in his late 60s, was captured and wounded in both legs at dawn on Thursday as he tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. He said he had been taken away by an ambulance.

There was no independent confirmation of his remarks.

An anti-Gaddafi fighter said Gaddafi had been found hiding in a hole in the ground and had said "Don't shoot, don't shoot" to the men who grabbed him....

The "pro-democracy" protesters thought they were demonizing him by drawing a Star of David on his picture

The chant is emblematic of the replacement of Gaddafi's bizarre Islamosocialist cult of personality with a straight Sharia regime populated by al-Qaeda elements. It is likely that the new America-backed regime will compete with the Gaddafi regime in its hatred for America and the West, and become noted for being even more anti-American than he was.

"Gaddafi captured and wounded near Sirte: NTC official," by Rania El Gamal for Reuters, October 20:

SIRTE, Libya | Thu Oct 20, 2011 7:50am EDT

(Reuters) - Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was captured and wounded in both legs near his hometown of Sirte at dawn on Thursday, National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid said.

Majid reported the capture after Libyan interim government fighters took the town on Thursday, extinguishing the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the former leader and ending a two-month siege.

"He's captured. He's wounded in both legs ... He's been taken away by ambulance," the senior NTC military official told Reuters by telephone.

Gaddafi was trying to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked, Majid said. The head of Gaddafi's armed forces Abu Bakr Younus Jabr had been killed during the capture of the Libyan ex-leader, he added....

In the capital Tripoli, sounds of gun shots were heard and people cheered in the street: "God is Great, God is Great, Gaddafi has been captured."

Wherever Sharia law experiences a revival, tolerance decreases, and harassment and violence increase.

As much as it is a frequent target, particularly of Salafist Muslim movements, Sufism is not the peaceful alternative to violent jihad and subjugation of non-Muslims that it is often advertised to be. Rather, its adherents are persecuted as they are accused of being purveyors of innovations (bida) over what Muhammad practiced and for their reverence for shrines and graves of their forebears, denounced as idolatry (shirk).

A few months ago, how many supporters of the Libyan uprising believed this couldn't happen there? We tried to tell you.

"Islamic hard-liners attack rival shrines in Libya," by Kim Gamel for the Associated Press, October 13:

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Islamic hard-liners have attacked about a half-dozen shrines in and around Tripoli belonging to Muslim sects whose practices they see as sacrilegious, raising religious tensions as Libya struggles to define its identity after Moammar Gadhafi's ouster.

The vandalism has drawn concern at the highest levels as Libya's new rulers seek to reassure the international community that extremists will not gain influence in the North African nation.

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the governing National Transitional Council, reacted with alarm to reports that graves were being desecrated and appealed to a top Muslim cleric, al-Sadek al-Gheriani, to issue a fatwa, or religious ruling, on the issue.

He also called for restraint. "I ask those destroying these mosques to stop doing that because this is not the time to do that," Abdul-Jalil said Tuesday at a news conference. "What they did is not on the side of the revolution."

The campaign appears to be aimed mainly at shrines revered by Sufis, a mystical order whose members often pray over the tombs of revered saints and ask for blessings or intervention to bring success, marriage or other desired outcomes. Hard-line Sunnis deem the practice offensive because they consider worshipping over graves to be idolatry.

In one case, witnesses said dozens of armed, bearded men wearing military uniforms ransacked a Sufi shrine in Tripoli this week, burning relics and carrying away the remains of two imams, or prayer leaders, for reburial elsewhere.

The assailants arrived in pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons and stormed the gate to the compound housing the shrine, then dug up the two imams, identified as Abdul-Rahman al-Masri and Salem Abu Seif, and took the remains to be buried in a cemetery, according to the witnesses.

Many residents in the Al-Masri neighborhood welcomed the attack, accusing worshippers at the shrine of practicing "black magic." Sufism is a mystical tradition in Islam. The order says its mission is to live a simple life of contemplation and prayer but followers are frequently targeted by extremists.

Witnesses offered conflicting details, with some saying the attackers were heavily armed and came from other parts of the city and others saying it was a small group of unarmed locals.

Abdul-Hamid al-Sunni, one of the residents, said the presence of the bodies had prevented people from the neighborhood from praying there. He claimed it was a small group of some 20 people that exhumed the bodies.

He said residents had long wanted to get rid of the graves and he presented a petition signed by 120 people supporting the action, which began about 11 p.m. Sunday.

Dirt and rocks were piled high around the empty graves that had been dug in the floor of the white and light blue building in Tripoli's al-Masri neighborhood. Blackened piles of ash and pieces of pottery were in the courtyard outside after the attackers burned relics and other items from the shrine, which sits next to a Quranic school in the same compound.

"We need to build a new school here, a Quranic school, and we need to build a mosque and we need to build a small hospital for the area," al-Sunni said....

Islamic conquest in a nutshell: "Unfortunately there is one thing standing between me and that property: the rightful owners." - Hedy Headley Lamarr, Blazing Saddles

No, they aren't really there, but they're better reading than what he's got

That should be easy enough for his colleagues to bring about. "Al-Qaida chief urges Islamic rule in Libya," from AP, October 12 (thanks to EH):

CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaida's new leader called on Libyan fighters who overthrew Moammar Gadhafi to set up an Islamic state and urged Algerians to revolt against their longtime president in a new Internet video posted on Wednesday.

Ayman al-Zawahri warned Libyan revolutionaries to protect their gains against "Western plots," claiming NATO will demand they give up their Islamic faith as the country sets up a new government.

"The first thing NATO will ask you to do, is to give up your Islam and not to implement Islamic Sharia law," al-Zawahri said "They want the nonreligious and the atheists who don't accept Sharia to rule the Islamic world."

The 13-minute video entitled "And the defeats of Americans continue" was released by al-Qaida's media arm and surfaced on militant websites. It shows al-Zawahri, wearing a white robe and turban, sitting against a green backdrop.

Al-Zawahri, who is Egyptian, also urged Algerians to revolt against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and follow the examples of Arab uprisings that toppled the autocratic rulers in Egypt and Tunisia.

"Why don't you revolt against your tyranny, Algerian lions," al-Zawahri asked.

Al-Qaida has long opposed the regimes of autocratic Arab leaders the terror group views as godless, corrupt and too closely allied with the United States, and has called for the establishment of Islamic rule to replace their regimes.

However, the Arab Spring uprisings have largely been driven by those calling for freedom, human rights and democracy....

Bridge for sale!

More glories of the Arab Spring

David Gerbi believed the news stories about a flowering of Western values in Libya. He took the mainstream media at its word, and people like Barack Obama at their word, that what was happening in Libya was a wonderful throwing-off of oppression and reaffirmation of human rights. But when he got there, he discovered the brutal truth behind all the fog of political correctness: "There is no place for Jews in Libya."

More on this story. "Following calls for deportation, Gerbi to return to Rome," by Lisa Palmieri-Billig for the Jerusalem Post, October 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A few hundred angry protesters gathered in central Tripoli on the eve of Yom Kippur on Friday, calling for the deportation of a Libyan Jew who has been trying to reopen a synagogue sealed since ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi expelled the country’s Jewish community in 1967.

The protesters carried signs reading, “There is no place for the Jews in Libya,” and “We don’t have a place for Zionism.”

The crowds tried to storm Italian Libyan Jewish psychoanalyst David Gerbi’s Corinthia Hotel in central Tripoli. There was also a demonstration in Benghazi in the east of the country.

According to Gerbi, the crowd wanted to forcibly remove him from the hotel.

“They were impeded by hotel and Libyan security and government officials,” he said.

Gerbi said that National Security Adviser Abdel Karim Bazama, rebel leader Mustafa Saghezli, Interior Minister Ahmed Dharat and Justice Minister Muhammad Allaghi were among the government officials present at the hotel.

“The Tripoli crowd dispersed after Allaghi warned that any use of force on the part of the protesters would immediately result in strong international condemnation,” Gerbi said.

“He [Allaghi] reassured them the ‘problem’ would be resolved within 48 hours.”

The demonstrations were ignited by an attempt by Dr.Gerbi to clean the debris and pray in Tripoli’s abandoned Dar Bishi Synagogue. Dr. Gerbi had joined the National Transitional Council (NTC) rebel group last spring, first as a volunteer at the Benghazi Psychiatric Hospital and then joining and helping the rebels themselves.

“This incident has served to expose the dangerous reality simmering beneath the surface,” he said.

“I want to contribute to, not obstruct, the building of a new democratic and pluralistic Libya. It is sad and absurd that my mere presence in Libya, should set off so much hostility and I regret this,” Gerbi said.

“However,” he continued, “what happened reveals the extent of Gaddafi’s anti-Semitic conditioning of an entire generation, those in their forties and fifties. Forty-two years of lies, of hate propaganda falsely accusing Jews of having been paid off to abandon the country in 1967, of having robbed Palestinians of their homes and of planning to colonize Libya.”

“Fortunately, the older generation still recalls warm friendships with former Jewish neighbors,” Gerbi said, “and I will continue to work to restore a 2,300-year-old coexistence and advocate active roles in the NTC for Libyan Jews, for the Libyan Amazigh population, for women and all ethnic and religious minorities.”...

It's not Gaddafi, Gerbi, it's Islam. The "warm friendships" of which you speak were forged when Libya was under strong Western influence. Now that is long gone.

Remember at the end of August, when Tripoli was falling and Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi took a timely turn for the worse? He was portrayed as "comatose" and the rebels refused to extradite him; after all, he was supposedly very, very near death.

It's a miracle. In what appears to be a new interview, he's conscious, coherent, and talking, and says his role was "exaggerated," even as the National Transitional Council gives mixed signals on how much it will cooperate in further investigations.

"Megrahi says his Lockerbie role exaggerated," by Mahmoud al-Ghirbani for Reuters, October 3:

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, said his role in the attack had been exaggerated and the truth about what really happened would emerge soon.

Megrahi, released from a Scottish prison two years ago because he was suffering from terminal cancer, spoke to Reuters from a bed at his Tripoli home. Looking frail and his breathing labored, he said he had only a few months, at most, to live.

"The facts (about the Lockerbie bombing) will become clear one day and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced," he told Reuters Television over the pinging of medical monitors.

Everyone's impressed by the "machine that goes 'ping!'"

"The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months."

Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of bombing Pan Am flight 103 as it flew to New York from London on December 21, 1988. All 259 people aboard the aircraft were killed and 11 others on the ground in the Scottish town of Lockerbie also died from falling wreckage.

His release on compassionate grounds angered many relatives of the victims, 189 of whom were American, and the Obama administration criticized the decision. A number of U.S. politicians have pressed for his extradition to the U.S.

The United States said on Monday it still believed Megrahi should be behind bars.

"He does seem to have made a miraculous recovery...he never should have been let out of jail," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. "We continue to believe that the right place for Megrahi is behind bars and we will continue to make that case to the Libyans."

Megrahi, who had served as an intelligence agent during the rule of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, denied any role in suspected human rights abuses in his home country.

"All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans," he said." I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone in my life."...

The Great Libyan Jihadist Garage Sale continues. Of all things, a Human Rights Watch official below is reportedly miffed at Obama's decision not to put ground troops into Libya, blaming it for allowing this situation to materialize. "Free for all: Up to 20,000 anti-aircraft missiles stolen in Libya," by Neal Munro for the Daily Caller, September 27:

A survey of weapon depots in Libya shows that up to 20,000 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles are now missing, partly because President Barack Obama has refused to send troops to guard the weapons depots, according to a left-of-center advocate.

“We were quite disappointed after talking to administration officials … that nothing more was done, even about the [storage] facilities in Tripoli, which are unsecured now,” said Peter Bouckaert, director of emergencies at left-of-centre group Human Rights Watch.

‘“The major impediment [to action] is that the administration doesn’t want ‘boots on the ground,’” he said.

“If these weapons get into the wrong hands, any civilian aircraft operating in the region will be threatened,” said Bouckaert, who has just returned from a visit to Libya. The missing missiles are Russian-made SA-7s and SA-16s: Shoulder-launched missiles that can home into the hot exhaust trails from civilian and military jets. The SA-16 is only five feet long and weighs just 24 pounds.

A few of those types of missiles were used by al-Qaida’s allies in Iraq. Al-Qaida’s allies in Yemen have also showcased their possession of a number of the missiles.

In the last few weeks, Bouckaert said, administration officials have met to discuss the threat. “This has moved sharply up on Obama’s agenda,” partly because the administration-backed National Transitional Council can’t guard the weapons depots, he said.

“European intelligence agencies are also very concerned about these missiles, and they’ve been in contact with me,” he added. The European intelligence agencies “have a larger capacity on the ground [in Libya] because they’re not operating under the same restrictions that President Obama has placed himself in,” Bouckaert explained.

Obama sent aircraft and missiles to help the rebel tribes push back the heavily-armed army, but has consistently refused to send U.S ground troops to win land battle or to protect the fledgling democratic government once dictator Muammar Gaddafi fled the Libyan capital of Tripoli in August. When Obama announced the U.S. intervention on March 18, he was explicit: “The United States is not going to deploy ground troops into Libya.”

“The problem is that the missiles are already out of the storage facilities and in the hand of unknown people,” Bouckaert said. “Libya has thousands of miles of unsecured desert borders to Chad, Mali and Algeria,” where an al-Qaida subgroup now operates, he said.

The al-Qaida subgroup is called al-Qaida in the Maghreb.

The missing missiles and other weaponry has gotten relatively little publicity, despite the danger posed to the U.S. and European and African countries. In October 2004, in contrast, the New York Times ignited a political scandal just days before the 2004 presidential election by publishing a front-page report claiming that a few hundred tons of explosives had been stolen by gunmen from the Iraq’s al Qa’qaa storage facility.

“I was in Iraq in 2003 and the amount of weaponry floating around in Libya is much greater than the anything we saw in Iraq,“ said Bouckaert.

This is the same NTC which refused to extradite Megrahi, who took a timely turn for the worse by the end of August as Tripoli fell, at which time he was said to be "comatose and near death."

These are but signs of things to come in future dealings with the NTC, whose members have developed selective amnesia about how they were able to take over. "Libya's NTC says Lockerbie case closed," by William Maclean, Peter Griffiths, Stephen Addison, and Michael Holden for Reuters, September 26:

LONDON (Reuters) - The investigation into the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound airliner over Lockerbie in Scotland is closed and Tripoli will not release more evidence that could lead to others being charged, Libya's interim leaders said on Monday.

The British Foreign Office, however, said the investigation into the bombing "remains open."

Scottish prosecutors had asked Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) to give them access to papers or witnesses that could implicate more suspects, possibly including deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Libya's interim justice minister Mohammed al-Alagi turned them down, telling reporters: "The case is closed."

But the Foreign Office in London said it had talked with the NTC late on Monday and it had promised continued cooperation.

"NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil has already assured the prime minister that the Libyan authorities will cooperate with the UK in this and other ongoing investigations," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

"Having spoken with the NTC this evening, we understand that this remains the case. The police investigation into the Lockerbie bombing remains open and the police should follow the evidence wherever it leads them."

Former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing in 2001 and sent to a Scottish prison to serve a life sentence. The Scottish government released him and sent him back to Libya on compassionate grounds in 2009 because he had cancer and was thought to have only months to live.

The medical case was a sham. Libyan authorities were shopping around for a bad prognosis. There were energy deals at stake, and Gadhafi threatened jihad if Megrahi died in Scotland.

His release and return to a hero's welcome in Libya angered many in Britain and the United States, home to most of the victims.

Pamela Dix, whose brother Peter was among those killed in the attack, told Reuters in an emailed statement: "Suggesting that the Lockerbie case is closed is ludicrous.

"I am not surprised that the new interim government might want to avoid getting involved, but this is a miserable attempt to avoid a perfectly reasonable request for any information or evidence that there might be in Libya. Perhaps there is nothing."

No one at Scotland's public prosecution service was available to comment on the Libyan minister's statement. A spokesman earlier said Scotland had asked the NTC to supply "any documentary evidence and witnesses which could assist in the ongoing inquiries."

"Lockerbie remains an open enquiry concerning the involvement of others with Mr Megrahi in the murder of 270 people," the spokeswoman said before the Libyan statement....

"Mustafa Abdul Jalil...told cheering crowds in Tripoli that Islamic shariah law would be the 'main source' of legislation in the new Libya." -- the Telegraph, September 12

"President Obama Praises Libya's Political Transition," by Michele Kelemen for NPR, September 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

President Obama met Libya's interim leader Tuesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and held up the country as a model of what the U.N. can do to protect civilians from atrocities.

Obama also pledged continued support and encouraged Libya's new leaders to keep their promises to forge a just, democratic society....

Obama met with the chairman of Libya's Transitional National Council, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, who is again asking for access to billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets. Abdul-Jalil also reassured the countries gathered at the U.N. that he's given Libyans clear orders not to seek retribution against Gadhafi's supporters.

"The Libyan authorities will bring to justice all accused of the Gadhafi regime before a just trial, and we will work for the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation over the coming period," he said.

"The entire world is watching you," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who took the lead in supporting rebels in Libya. He told Tuesday's meeting at the U.N. that he has faith in the country's new leadership. British Foreign Secretary William Hague echoed that, saying the time is up for Gadhafi and his supporters....

"When asked whether there are men inside the NTC that are affiliated with terrorist groups, the senior defense official admitted, 'Yeah, probably'."

We tried to tell you. More on this story. "Libya the new terrorist haven?," by Chris Lawrence for CNN, September 14:

Terrorist groups are trying to set up for a long-term presence in Libya, a senior defense official said Wednesday, but American intelligence is not showing a mass movement into the country.

The official, who gave a briefing to reporters at the Pentagon on the condition that the official not be identified, said the fall of Moammar Gadhafi has unleashed some groups that were constrained during the Libyan leader's regime.

The official said terrorist groups "are playing it safe in the short term, but are trying to set up a footprint and network internally for the long haul." The official said terrorist groups now have more freedom to operate within Libya, and "we're concerned about it."

Because some of the terrorist groups were clearly anti-Ghadafi, the Gadhafi regime put its military and intelligence resources into clamping down on the groups, the official said. Now the regime has collapsed, and the NTC is more concerned with dealing with the remnants of that regime than keeping an eye on militant groups.

The official suggested that the United States is seeing some movement into Libya by outside militants, but "in the dozens," not on a large scale.

One reason for the militants' current low profile is the NATO presence.

"It is in their interest to keep a low profile. Any perception of them being active will only draw the kind of attention they don't want while they try to establish these networks" in Libya, the official said.

There is little current danger of the National Transitional Council being co-opted by militants, the official said, noting TNC leaders have gone to great lengths to dissociate themselves from extremists.

They are talking a good game, deftly wielding emotionally loaded platitudes and buzzwords, though their success depends on leaving un-examined the particulars of where "moderation" ends and "extremism" begins.

But when asked whether there are men inside the NTC that are affiliated with terrorist groups, the senior defense official admitted, "Yeah, probably."

We tried to tell you. With another Wilsonian adventure well underway, our political establishment learned nothing in Iraq about trusting the thin veneer of a moderate, tolerant society that peeled off like cheap car window tinting as soon as the regime fell. Western governments proceeded on a rank oversimplification of "good" and "bad" sides in Libya, funding what was believed to be the former without questioning or investigation.

As reported below, there is Sharia at every turn, and the West hopes against hope for the Paper Sharia of academic exercises to emerge: Sharia as advertised, as opposed to Sharia as observed.

Coming soon: buyer's remorse. "Libya could fall into hands of extremists, Nato warns," by Thomas Harding, Ruth Sherlock, and Richard Spencer for the Telegraph, September 12:

Libya is in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists if a stable government is not rapidly established, Nato’s secretary-general warned last night. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Islamic extremists would “try to exploit” any weaknesses created as the country tried to rebuild after four decades of Col Muammar Gaddafi’s rule.

The solution should not be to throw money blindly at people who seem to tell them what they want to hear.

Mr Rasmussen was speaking amid growing evidence of splits in the rebel leadership in Tripoli. His words will cast a damper over the euphoria sweeping Tripoli in the wake of the revolution.

His warning came as the head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, told cheering crowds in Tripoli that Islamic shariah law would be the “main source” of legislation in the new Libya.

Mr Jalil, who only arrived in his new capital on Saturday, made his first public speech in Martyrs’ Square - once Col Gaddafi’s “Green Square” - last night.

“We are a Muslim people, for a moderate Islam, and we will stay on this road,” he said. His formulation suggested that Libya would follow neighbours such as Egypt in allowing room for secular freedoms.

Whose Egypt? Mubarak's? Life was still miserable for non-Muslims under his government, which was still an Islamic state with Sharia as the basis of legislation. Egypt's future character is not entirely settled, but the secularists are outmanned and outgunned by outfits like the Muslim Brotherhood, who are leading the charge to ramrod an even more stridently Islamic state through via the next constitution.

Ultimately, the promises are benign-sounding generalities. Sharia will determine the specifics.

But there are already signs that the rebel leadership is split over a variety of issues including the future role of the Islamist militias which played a significant part in the revolution.

Mahmoud Jibril, the interim Libyan prime minister, also arrived in Tripoli at the end of last week after complaints that he had been too busy travelling the world to lead his own revolution. On Sunday night he was forced to announce that his first government reshuffle would take place in seven to ten days.

Asked if Nato was worried that a delay in setting up a fully fledged new government increased the risk of extremists taking control, Mr Rasmussen said: “We cannot exclude the possibility that extremists will try to exploit a situation and take advantage of a power vacuum.”...