Wikileaks reveals form Gitmo inmate leader of major faction of rebels in Libya.

[timofey]

Wikileaks, the gift that just keeps giving.

From the New York Times:



THE GUANTÁNAMO FILES

Libyan, Once a Detainee, Is Now a U.S. Ally of Sorts

By ROD NORDLAND and SCOTT SHANE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/scott_shane/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

Published: April 24, 2011

DARNAH, Libya — For more than five years, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu (http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/557) was a prisoner at the Guantánamo Bay prison, judged “a probable member of Al Qaeda (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda/index.html?inline=nyt-org)” by the analysts there. They concluded in a newly disclosed 2005 assessment that his release would represent a “medium to high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies.”

Enlarge This Image
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/04/25/world/africa/25libyans1/25libyans1-articleInline.jpg
Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi is a rebel fighter in Libya.

The Guantánamo Files

These articles are based on a huge trove of secret documents leaked last year to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks and made available to The New York Times by another source on the condition of anonymity.




Today, Mr. Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the Libyan rebels’ fight to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/q/muammar_el_qaddafi/index.html?inline=nyt-per), reportedly a leader of a ragtag band of fighters known as the Darnah Brigade for his birthplace, this shabby port town of 100,000 people in northeast Libya. The former enemy and prisoner of the United States is now an ally of sorts, a remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Mr. Qumu.
He was a tank driver in the Libyan Army in the 1980s, when the Central Intelligence Agency (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org) was spending billions to support religious militants trying to drive Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. Mr. Qumu moved to Afghanistan in the early 1990s, just as Osama bin Laden (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/osama_bin_laden/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and other former mujahedeen were violently turning against their former benefactor, the United States.
He was captured in Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, accused of being a member of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and sent to Guantánamo — in part because of information provided by Colonel Qaddafi’s government.
“The Libyan Government considers detainee a ‘dangerous man with no qualms about committing terrorist acts,’ ” says the classified 2005 assessment, evidently quoting Libyan intelligence findings, which was obtained by The New York Times. “ ‘He was known as one of the extremist commanders of the Afghan Arabs,’ ” the Libyan information continues, referring to Arab fighters who remained in Afghanistan after the anti-Soviet jihad

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/world/guantanamo-files-libyan-detainee-now-us-ally-of-sorts.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

[RadioRaheem84]

Afghanistan cira 1979 all over again.

[Triple A]

Afghanistan cira 1979 all over again.

Last time US helped rebels in that part of the globe they ended up with Bin Laden and a war in Afeganisthan.

[Threetune]

“medium to high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies.”

Any idea why they let him out when other who are said to be just “homeless”, for instance, are still in there?

[The Vegan Marxist]

The gist of the Guantanamo Bay leaked papers by Wikileaks: hundreds of innocent prisoners are still being held against their will in Gitmo, while the knowingly not-so-innocent prisoners are instead hired to do the dirty work for the U.S. +allies.