Actually a bigger aspect to this story is *where* the training base is located.   Previously almost all reports were saying the East of Libya, Benghazi, Darna et al, were the Islamist/al-Qaeda strongholds.    The U.S. state dept had proclaimed that Western Libya was moderate and friendly to the West.
This media report contradicts the White House and State Dept. and puts al-Qaeda solidly on the outskirts of Tripoli.
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(Daily Beast)  A key jihadist leader and longtime member of al Qaeda has taken control of a secretive training facility set up by U.S. special operations forces on the Libyan coastline to help hunt down Islamic militants, according to local media reports, Jihadist web forums, and U.S. officials.
Libyan army soldiers stand on a building, destroyed in what the government said was a western missile attack, inside Bab Al-AziziyahIn the summer of 2012, American Green Berets began refurbishing a Libyan military base 27 kilometers west of Tripoli in order to hone the skills of Libya’s first Western-trained special operations counter-terrorism fighters. Less than two years later, that training camp is now being used by groups with direct links to al Qaeda to foment chaos in post-Qaddafi Libya.
Last week, the Libyan press reported that the camp (named “27” for the kilometer marker on the road between Tripoli and Tunis) was now under the command of Ibrahim Ali Abu Bakr Tantoush, a veteran associate of Osama bin Laden who was first designated as part of al Qaeda’s support network in 2002 by the United States and the United Nations. The report said he was heading a group of Salifist fighters from the former Libyan base.
In other words, Tantoush is now the chief of a training camp the U.S. and Libyan governments had hoped would train Libyan special operations forces to catch militants like Tantoush.  (read more)

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