Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Did The U.S. Get The Right Man When They Seized Anas al-Liby Last Week In Libya?

Photo: Justice: Senior al-Qaeda figure Abu Anas al-Libi has been brought to New York to face terror charges after being captured in Libya

Did The U.S. Make A Mistake In Seizing Anas al-Liby? -- Jamie Dettmer, Daily Beast

The U.S. government has painted Abu Anas al-Liby, snatched in a raid in Tripoli, as the al-Qaeda mastermind behind the 1998 embassy bombings. But his family tells Jamie Dettmer that America made a huge mistake.

For Americans, he is a monster, a major al-Qaeda leader who had a hand in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 224 civilians and—until U.S. Special Forces snatched him off the streets of Tripoli last week—a veteran terrorist tasked with uniting jihadists not just in Libya but across the arc of North Africa.

Sitting down, though, with his wife of 22 years and three sons in their cramped apartment, on the elevated ground floor of a small apartment building in a middle-class district in the Libyan capital on Saturday evening, I heard a different story that didn't fit the bogeyman portrait drawn by American officials.

And it is one that prompts the question: has the U.S. got the right man?

Read more ....

My Comment: Anas al-Liby is going to be arraigned tomorrow in a New York City court room .... and I suspect that more information will be released in the weeks and month ahead.

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