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Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

By Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham

5:00PM GMT 25 Mar 2011

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi

admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in

eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he

said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not

terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good

Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-

Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone

and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then

smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion"

in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan".

He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being

released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of

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Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against 'the foreign invasion' in Afghanistan  Photo: AFP

 

 

 

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the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan

troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the

United States military's West Point academy has said the two share an

"increasingly co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by

allied forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the

second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the

Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of "the stage

of Islam" in the country.

British Islamists have also backed the rebellion, with the former head of

the banned al-Muhajiroun proclaiming that the call for "Islam, the Shariah

and jihad from Libya" had "shaken the enemies of Islam and the Muslims

more than the tsunami that Allah sent against their friends, the

Japanese".

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