Libyans in Benghazi burning a United States flag in protest of the kidnapping of Anas al-Liby in Tripoli over the previous weekend. Benghazi is the birthplace of the counter-revolution., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
October 9, 2013
U.S. Officials Say Libya Approved Commando Raids
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Libyan government in recent weeks tacitly approved two American commando operations in its country, according to senior American officials, one to capture a senior militant from Al Qaeda and another to seize a militia leader suspected of carrying out the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi.
The Qaeda leader, Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was captured by American commandos in Tripoli on Saturday in a raid that the United States had hoped to keep secret, but that leaked out to the news media. The operation has been widely denounced by Libyan officials, who have called it a kidnapping and said they had played no role in it.
While American officials expected that the Libyan government would claim that it had known nothing about the operation, news of the raid has raised concerns that the suspect in the Benghazi attacks, Ahmed Abu Khattala, has now been tipped off that the United States has the ability to conduct an operation in Libya.
It is not clear why American military commanders did not conduct both operations simultaneously to avoid this problem. Some military commanders said conditions in Libya on Saturday may not have been opportune. But the backlash against a second raid could bring down the government of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, which has teetered on the brink of collapse and has little control over vast parts of the country, particularly in the eastern part near Benghazi.
George Little, the Defense Department spokesman, declined to comment on Tuesday. American officials said that although the Libyans had tacitly approved the Saturday raid, they had not played a role in the actual operation and had not been told in advance when it would happen.
Combined with the Navy SEAL mission in Somalia that also took place on Saturday, and that failed to capture a top leader of the Shabab militant group, the operation in Tripoli signals that the Obama administration is willing to take risky missions to confront a spreading terrorist threat in Africa.
“Africa is one of the places,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference on Tuesday, “that you’re seeing some of these groups gather. And we’re going to have to continue to go after them.”
Mr. Obama’s promise the day after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks in Benghazi, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans, and the lack of success so far, has led the Republicans to renew their criticism of the administration for its handling of the episode, as officials have made the case that Congress should authorize a military strike against Syria.
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and one of the fiercest critics of the administration’s handling of Benghazi, praised the capture of Mr. Ruqai, also known as, Abu Anas al-Libi. But he declined to speculate on future operations in Libya. “Under certain circumstances, they will go in,” Mr. McCain said in an interview. “The Benghazi thing was such a significant issue with the American people.”
More than half a dozen American diplomatic, military, law enforcement, intelligence and other administration officials were contacted for this article. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the matter and the prospect of future military operations.
The Libyans’ tacit approval is far more limited than the secret agreements the United States has had in recent years with the governments in Pakistan and Yemen. Under those arrangements, the United States has been given broader authority to carry out secret operations to kill militants, although Mr. Obama has since ordered those missions reined in.
The American drone campaign in Pakistan has long been denounced publicly by Pakistani civilian government officials, although American officials claim that Pakistani military and intelligence services allowed it.
At a news conference in Bali on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States regularly consults with the Libyan government “on a range of security and counterterrorism issues,” but that he would not “get into the specifics of our communications with a foreign government or in any kind of operation of this kind.”
Mr. Kerry said that the military operation to seize Mr. Ruqai was legal and that he hoped that the world understands that the United States “is going to do everything in its power that is legal and appropriate in order to enforce the law and protect our security.”
After months of lobbying by American officials, the Libyans consented “some time ago” — weeks or perhaps even months — to the United States operations, according to a senior American official. The Libyans, however, were not told beforehand about the raid on Saturday.
The Libyans’ consent marks a significant step forward for the Obama administration, which has been criticized by Congressional Republicans for moving too slowly to apprehend the Benghazi suspects.
In August, it was revealed that the United States had filed murder charges against Mr. Khattala, a prominent militia leader in Benghazi, in connection with the Benghazi attacks. Mr. Obama acknowledged the existence of the indictment, saying the administration was “intent on capturing those who carried out this attack, and we’re going to stay on it until we get them.”
The Pentagon has been preparing contingency plans for months in the event Mr. Obama orders a military operation. An unarmed American military surveillance drone has flown virtually every day over Benghazi gathering information. And the military’s top-secret Joint Special Operations Command has compiled “target packages” of detailed information about possible suspects, senior military and counterterrorism officials said.
Mr. Khattala has appeared to live his life normally in eastern Libya and has been interviewed by several news outlets. Last year, he said in an interview with The New York Times that he had arrived at the American compound in Benghazi as fighting broke out, but played no role in the attack, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed.
At the end of the siege, he said, he entered the compound to rescue Libyan guards who had been trapped in the firefight. Mr. Khattala said American leaders had used the Benghazi attack to play “with the emotions of the American people” in an effort to “gather votes for their elections.”
If the United States attempts to apprehend Mr. Khattala, it will most likely do so again without much, if any, help from the Libyan government. Military planners consider a raid in eastern Libya, which is dominated by militias, far more dangerous than one in Tripoli.
Libyan lawmakers and local leaders across the political spectrum have vowed for months that their new government would never countenance Western military action on Libyan soil for any reason. Almost all say that they still need evidence before concluding that any suspect in the Benghazi attack should be arrested or charged, and that in any event the case should be handled in a Libyan court — regardless of the feeble state of the country’s legal system.
Islamists, who make up a sizable portion of the militia leaders as well as of Libya’s transitional Parliament, often accuse Mr. Zeidan, who lived in Geneva as part of the exiled opposition to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, of collaborating too closely with the West or even flirting with the idea that the United Nations peacekeepers might prop up his government.
Mr. Zeidan, speaking to reporters in Rabat, Morocco, after meetings there on Tuesday, dismissed fears of any serious breach with the United States. “They helped us with our revolution,” Mr. Zeidan said. “Our relationship will not be affected by this event, which we will settle in the way that we need to.”
David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Cairo.
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