See, Obama is tough on terrorists!
The Benghazi terrorism suspect Abu Khattala has been captured in a secret raid and is on his way to the US.
So, that’s one terrorist captured, five Taliban kingpins released from Gitmo, and an enormous army of other Islamicist terrorists triumphantly marching through an Iraq we abandoned. Sorry if I don’t think the math looks all that good for the administration.
And yes, I do question the timing of this arrest. All previous reports I had seen agreed with this one from the Times a month after the attack, which stated he was hiding in plain sight. Even today’s WaPo article announcing his capture by the US makes it clear that this has been the case:
Failure to make arrests in the Benghazi case was seen as an enormous frustration for the FBI and a subject of sharp criticism from lawmakers. Within weeks of the attacks, and sporadically thereafter, Abu Khattala was interviewed by American reporters in the open in Benghazi, where he said he did not participate in the initial assault on the Benghazi compound but came on the scene as it was ending.
I don’t think his apprehension at this point in time is any coincidence. He is most useful right now to the administration in terms of PR. And I guess he wasn’t any spontaneous demonstrator complaining about a video, was he?
This is an interesting fact which illustrates that nasty dictators such as Libya’s Gaddafi have their uses:
Believed to be in his 40s, Abu Khattala was imprisoned for many years by the Gaddafi regime for his Islamist views.
Others believed to have been involved in the Benghazi attack are being sought. One of them, Bin Qumu, “was released [in 2007] from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent to Libya, where he was detained. Gaddafi’s government released him in 2008.”
That’s not Obama releasing him, that’s the Bush administration and then Gaddafi. I wonder why. Although I have yet to find a single article that gives the details as to the reason Bin Qumu was released, there is no question that Bush was under intense pressure from the moment of Guantanamo’s establishment to free its inmates.
At any rate, Bin Qumu has quite a history. Quite a history. Before he was implicated in the Benghazi killings, the NY Times pointed out his checkered past and the fact that in the fight against Gaddafi he had supposedly become our ally (protect your neck while you read the article or you might get whiplash trying to follow Bin Qumu’s twistings and turnings):
Today [April 24, 2011], Mr. Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the Libyan rebels’ fight to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, reportedly a leader of a ragtag band of fighters known as the Darnah Brigade…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.
Remarkable indeed.
He was a tank driver in the Libyan Army in the 1980s, when the Central Intelligence Agency 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 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 Guanté¡namo ”” 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…
When that Guanté¡namo assessment was written, the United States was working closely with Colonel Qaddafi’s intelligence service against terrorism. Now [April 2011], the United States is a leader of the international coalition trying to oust Colonel Qaddafi ”” and is backing with air power the rebels, including Mr. Qumu.
The classified Guanté¡namo assessment of Mr. Qumu claims that he suffered from “a non-specific personality disorder” and recounted ”” again citing the Libyan government as its source ”” a history of drug addiction and drug dealing and accusations of murder and armed assault.
In 1993, the document asserts, Mr. Qumu escaped from a Libyan prison, fled to Egypt and went on to Afghanistan, training at a camp run by Mr. bin Laden. At Guanté¡namo, Mr. Qumu denied knowledge of terrorist activities. He said he feared being returned to Libya, where he faced criminal charges, and asked to go to some other country where “You (the United States) can watch me,” according to a hearing summary.
Nonetheless, in 2007, he was sent from Guanté¡namo to Libya and released the next year in an amnesty for militants…
Mr. Qumu did not turn up for a promised interview last week, but Mr. Hasadi did…He denied that Mr. Qumu was in his group…Two of Mr. Qumu’s sons are in his brigade, he said.
“I don’t know how to convince everyone that we are not Al Qaeda here,” Mr. Hasadi said. “Our aim is to topple Qaddafi,” he added. “I know that you will never believe me, but it is true.”
For now, Western observers in Benghazi, the temporary rebel capital 180 miles from here, seem content to accept those assurances. “We’re more worried about Al Qaeda infiltration from outside than the indigenous ones” one said. “Most of them have a local agenda so they don’t present as much as a threat to the West.”
Reading that, you can see some of the reasons the Obama administration was so eager to ascribe the Benghazi murders to a nameless crowd whipped to frenzy by a video.
You can also see how incredibly difficult the task of fighting Islamic terrorists is whether an administration seems committed to the task or not. Shape-shifters.
The situation keeps presenting us with the dilemma of which bad-but-perhaps-less-bad guy to back against the other. And staying out of it doesn’t make them any less intent to harm us. After all, we weren’t doing all that much against them back in September of 2001, and you know where that got us.
Word has it that obama and schumer and others think they can bomb them into submission, or drone them into submission (flying drones, not their voices).
the problem is that bombing them into submission has been tried several times, and does not work, you need troops on the ground
the second problem is that everyone is dressed the same, who do you hit?
bottom line:
either obama declares martial law before the end of his term or what will happen?
we are getting to the point where so much crap is piling up as to the conspiracies, and illegal acts, the back room deals, the deals with other states, and lots of other external things…
what is the only play left?
Business as usual? not likely…
a nice list of things would help, spanning from rising prices and no money for the poor… and on and on
if he does NOT do something, then there will be very little to prevent more coming out and more and more and so on.
can the US population take the personal hit to their selves if they find out they been duped and to such a level that other states were involved and over the situation?
the fit is hiting the shan, and they are praying that some wackos do something before they have to…
It’s like they had him in prison and then just popped him out when they needed a PR boost.
Democrats always do the things that they accuse Republicans of doing.
Recall the rumor from the Left that George Bush had secretly captured Bin Laden and he was going to announce his capture right before the 2004 elections? Yeah, I also question the timing when this guy has been out in plain sight since the attack.
“You can also see how incredibly difficult the task of fighting Islamic terrorists is whether an administration seems committed to the task or not. Shape-shifters.”
The task is only “incredibly difficult” because first, we refuse to identify the enemy and secondly, because of “Just War Doctrine”.
Mighty Interesting Timing, Your Infantile Majesty.
Ohhh…And remember that a CNN Newsie interviewed this scumbag butcher pretty soon after Benghazi?? So, it took American Intel nearly 21-months…?? Yep, I’m morbidly fascinated by your Iraq Crisis hammering your head and this bull***t capture. Uhh-Huhhhh..??
The myriad problems of dealing with fourth generation warfare (terrorism and sabotage by non-state actors) are magnified by our lawyers turning warfare into lawfare. Illegal combatants are defined as: combatants with no uniform, no attachment to a sovereign state, who attack primarily non-military targets. By the rules of the Geneva Convention they can be tried by a military tribunal in the field and executed on the spot.
The way Obama and company want to bring these people to the CONUS and give them a full blown trial while providing them rights they don’t qualify for, is madness. Fourth generation warfare is designed to take advantage of lawfare. The jihadis are laughing at what to them is unbelievable. Why give an enemy an even break? They sure as heck don’t.
Guys like this is why we started Gitmo. At this stage he’ll love gitmo … PLEASE send him to the super prison that they have to pipe the daylight into.
This is another BHO squirrel, another tid bit for the MSM to gush over and distract attention away from the scandal du jour. Soon their operatives will be bringing tens of thousands of sex slave children from latin america into the country… oh wait, they already tried that…. next there will isolated man made disasters and work place violence incidents at shopping malls and little league baseball games. These people are capable of anything and beyond that anything any of us can imagine.
O’Keefe had videos of ACORN helping pimps move in underaged children for sex and profit.
So the Left is diping into that economic trove, given that Hollywood seems to have run out of willing (adult) actors and actresses to molest. They got to groom an entire new generation for the Allens.
Perhaps they picked him up because they did not want the select committee on Benghazi talking to him.
This may simply be an attempt to buy time for the Obama regime. By “suddenly” getting this guy into custody, they now have an excuse to stall the select committee by claiming they have “new evidence” that needs to be reviewed by the “proper authorities” before it is disclosed to the committee. That, naturally, will take some time as the prisoner is confined somewhere and debriefed/interrogated.
That could take several months as these al-Qaeda types are very resistant to CIA interrogations…
In the meantime, the select committee will just have to wait until the Obama regime concludes this phase of its own investigation into Bengazhi, by which time, they will have found a new “lead” they will just have to pursue, don’t ya know…
A commenter on Belmont cited the following link which ties pretty much all of this Benghazi mess together.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/06/18/cia-operation-zero-footprint-qatar-benghazi-and-the-connection-to-ahmed-abu-khattala-is-the-real-motive-for-the-obama-administrations-recent-arrest/
Hangtown Bob, an interesting link. What I get out of it is that the administration (CIA, Nat’l Security Council, and State Dept.) hatched a plan to take down the tyrants – Gadaffi, and Assad.
It appears that they thought they could control the process, but didn’t count on the treachery so common in the Muslim world. They armed the “rebels” believing they could control them. Then the “rebels” double-crossed them.
Am I getting this right? If true, it seems pretty naé¯ve. Especially considering that Petraeus has worked with the Muslims a lot and should be aware that you can’t buy their loyalty, only rent it for a short time.
Some are theorizing that there was a subplot to kidnap Ambassador Stevens and hold him for a trade for some terrorists, which went terribly wrong. The question still remains – why was Stevens there to meet a Turkish diplomat? What did they talk about?
The Bowe Bergdahl trade makes one think there are secret talks going on where demands are being made and the administration is hoping they can meet the demands in return for some good behavior by the Islamists. Again, I just don’t think even the Obama crowd are that naé¯ve.
They may have what they think is a grand plan, but I tend to chalk it up to stupidity/political scheming. Consider that Hagel thought the Bowe trade news was going to be met with big applause when he announced it at Bagrum Air Base. Au contraire. The announcement was met with stony silence. The political scheme didn’t work!
Especially considering that Petraeus has worked with the Muslims a lot and should be aware that you can’t buy their loyalty, only rent it for a short time.
Petraeus had his mail accounts hacked or NSA spied on, so the Regime had a blackmail on him. Then he quit, and that dissolved. He probably quit because the Regime was clearing arming the rebels because they wanted AQ to win and Qaddafi, a former US ally, to die.