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| This image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi. Gunmen in a three-car convoy seized Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the U.S. for more than a decade outside his house Saturday in the Libyan capital, his relatives said. |
A suspected Libyan
al-Qaida figure nabbed by U.S. special forces in a dramatic operation in
Tripoli was living freely in his homeland for the past two years, after
a trajectory that took him to Sudan, Afghanistan and Iran, where he had
been detained for years, his family said Sunday. The Libyan government
bristled at the raid, asking Washington to explain the "kidnapping."
The
swift Delta Force operation in the streets of the Libyan capital that
seized the militant known as Abu Anas al-Libi was one of two assaults
Saturday that showed an American determination to move directly against
terror suspects - even in two nations mired in chaos where the U.S. has
suffered deadly humiliations in the past.
Hours
before the Libya raid, a Navy SEAL team swam ashore in the East African
nation of Somalia and engaged in a fierce firefight, though it did not
capture its target, a leading militant in the al-Qaida-linked group that
carried out the recent Kenyan mall siege.
"We
hope that this makes clear that the United States of America will never
stop in the effort to hold those accountable who conduct acts of
terror," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday at an economic
summit in Indonesia. "Members of al-Qaida and other terrorist
organizations literally can run but they can't hide."
Nazih
Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Libi, was accused
by the U.S. of involvement in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed more than 220
people. He has been on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list since it
was introduced shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack, with a $5
million bounty on his head.
U.S. officials
depicted his capture as a significant blow against al-Qaida, which has
lost a string of key figures, including leader Osama bin Laden, killed
in a 2011 raid in Pakistan.
However, it was
unclear whether the 49-year-old al-Libi had a major role in the terror
organization - his alleged role in the 1998 attack was to scout one of
the targeted embassies - and there was no immediate word that he had
been involved in militant activities in Libya. His family and former
associates denied he was ever a member of al-Qaida and said he had not
been engaged in any activities since coming home in 2011.
But
the raid signaled a U.S. readiness to take action against militants in
Libya, where al-Qaida and other armed Islamic groups have gained an
increasingly powerful foothold since the 2011 ouster and killing of
dictator Moammar Gadhafi and have set up tied with a belt of radical
groups across North Africa and Egypt.
Libya's
central government remains weak, and armed militias - many of them made
up of Islamic militants - hold sway in many places around the country,
including in parts of the capital. Amid the turmoil, Libyan authorities
have been unable to move against militants, including those behind the
Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, in which the
U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed. Libyan security
officials themselves are regularly targeted by gunmen. The latest
victim, a military colonel, was gunned down in Benghazi on Sunday.
Several
dozen members of the Islamic group Ansar al-Sharia, which has links to
militias, protested on Sunday in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city,
denouncing al-Libi's abduction and criticizing the government. "Where
are the men of Tripoli while this is happening?" they chanted, waving
black Islamist flags.
Al-Libi's capture was a
bold strike in the Libyan capital. He had just parked his car outside
his Tripoli home, returning from dawn prayers Saturday, when 10
commandos in multiple vehicles surrounded him, his brother Nabih
al-Ruqai told the Associated Press. They smashed his car's window and
seized his gun before grabbing al-Libi and fleeing.
He
was swiftly spirited out of the country. U.S. Defense Department
spokesman George Little said he was being held "in a secure location
outside of Libya." He did not elaborate further.
In
a statement Sunday, the Libyan government said it asked the U.S. for
"clarifications" about what it called the "kidnapping," underlining that
its citizens should be tried in Libyan courts if accused of a crime. It
said it hoped its "strategic partnership" with Washington would not be
damaged by the incident.
Still, the relatively
soft-toned statement underlined the predicament of the Libyan
government. It is criticized by opponents at home over its ties with
Washington, but it is also reliant on security cooperation with the
Americans.
According to the federal indictment
of al-Libi in a New York court, American prosecutors say he helped the
African embassy bombings by scouting and photographing the embassy in
Nairobi in 1993. Al-Libi was a computer expert who studied electronic
and nuclear engineering at Tripoli University.
Al-Libi's
son Abdullah al-Ruqai told The Associated Press his father was a member
of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamic militant group that
waged a campaign of violence against Gadhafi's regime in the 1990s. Many
of the group's members - including al-Libi, were forced to flee the
country at the time. A faction of the group allied with al-Qaida, though
others in the group refused to.
Al-Libi is
believed to have spent time in Sudan in the 1990s, when bin Laden was
based there. In 1995, al-Libi later turned up in Britain, where he was
granted political asylum under unclear circumstances and lived in
Manchester. He was arrested by Scotland Yard in 1999, but released
because of lack of evidence and later fled Britain.
Abdullah
said the family then went to Afghanistan, where they spent a year and a
half until they fled into Iran, where they were held in custody for
seven years. Abdullah did not elaborate, but Iran jailed a number of
al-Qaida-linked figures who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 U.S.-led
invasion of that country.
The family returned
to Tripoli in 2010 under a rehabilitation program for Islamic militants
run by Gadhafi's son, and al-Libi himself returned in August 2011, amid
the uprising that toppled Gadhafi. Since then, al-Libi was not involved
with any groups.
"He would go from the house
to the mosque, and from the mosque to the house," Abdullah said. He said
his father had hired a lawyer and was trying to clear his name in
connection to the 1998 embassy attacks.
In the
earlier raid Saturday, the Navy SEAL team targeted a figure from the
al-Qaida-linked terrorist group al-Shabab. After landing on shore, the
team assaulted a beachside house in the town of Barawe and assaulted a
house. The team ran into fiercer resistance than expected, and after a
15 minutes to 20 minute firefight in which they inflicted some
casualties on the fighters, the unit's leader decided to abort the
mission and the Americans swam away, a U.S officials said. They spoke on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the
raid publicly.
The assault was carried out by
members of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that killed in Laden in his
Pakistan hideout in 2011, one senior U.S. military official said.
Little
confirmed that U.S. military personnel were involved in a
counterterrorism operation against a known al-Shabab terrorist in
Somalia, but did not provide details.
The
leader of al-Shabab, Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr, also known as Ahmed Godane,
claimed responsibility for the mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, a four-day
terrorist siege that began Sept. 21 and killed at least 67 people. A
Somali intelligence official said the al-Shabab leader was the U.S.
target.
The raid in Somalia came 20 years
after the "Black Hawk Down" battle in Mogadishu, when a mission to
capture Somali warlords in the capital went awry after militiamen shot
down two U.S. helicopters. Eighteen U.S. soldiers died in the battle,
which marked the beginning of the end of that U.S. military mission to
try to bring stability to the nation.
Since then, U.S. military intervention has been limited to missile attacks and lightning operations by special forces.
