You might be, like many, a little confused about the Benghazi assassination of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens regarding his killers and who they are. Confusion is quite understandable given the apparent media pointing in all different directions simultaneously. Perhaps we can clarify a little.
The media sold a false narrative beginning in Feb/March/April 2011 and continuing up to last week. They sold a story, a fabricated wishful thinking story, of moderate democracy on the rise in Egypt first, and then Libya later.
All subsequent media analysis runs through this filter first, and anything which does not align with the baseline of their narrative is dispatached because it just doesn’t fit their construct; nor do the current facts reconcile against prior media assertions. Hence, they are pointing in all directions simultaneously.
So let us reset, pause, focus on TRUTH and honestly explain for discussion.
In March 2011 the Egyptian military was in control of the governmental system of Egypt during the uprising now known as the “Arab Spring”. The media in the western world would have us believe that the Egyptian military was the conduit to a “Democratic” Egypt.
But that was NOT the case. The military in Egypt was the central branch of economic power for decades. They were a self-serving entity of omnipotent power, and the receivers of billions of dollars in U.S. aid and funding for almost 40 years. During the uprising in Egypt the media claimed the Egyptian Military was an arbitrary altruistic endeavor, protecting the ‘people’ of Egypt from a ruthless dictator.
Yet no one seemed to ever ask how the allegiance of said military was able to switch directions so fast from supporter of all things Mubarak to become his adversary and proponent of the democratic citizenry? A seemingly simple question, but one the media refused to engage.
The Muslim Brotherhood had been “banned” by law as an organized political party in Egypt for 30 years because it was the Muslim Brotherhood who assassinated Anwar Sadat, and contained radical islamist members bent on violence; such as Mohamed al-Zawahiri the brother of al-Qaeda’s new #1 Ayman Al Zawahiri.
When Mubarak was under fire in Egypt, and the military took over, one of the first things they did -in the interim period of crisis- was to let the Muslim Brotherhood legally reorganize; which eventually led to those previously being jailed being let out of prison.
You might remember the immediate assassination attempt on the figurehead Egyptian vice president, Omar Suleiman in Feb 2011. Suleiman was attempting to keep the power structure of Mubarak in place, he failed – The military leaders took control.
When the Brotherhood released Mohamed al-Zawahiri he stayed in Egypt to coordinate Islamist activity with the Brotherhood and the Salifists. His brother, Ayman, OBL’s #2 at the time, was in the border region of Afghanistan/Pakistan coordinating activity with the Taliban.
Lets “Pause” to explain the geographic ideology. Salafists are termed the hard-line ‘no holds barred’ most radical elements of the Islamic Jihad movement. Salafists are the Taliban, and ‘Taliban-like believers’ in Sharia-compliant Islam at all costs. Osama Bin Laden was a salafist, a Taliban member, and an al-Qaeda leader.
Salafists = Taliban = al-Qaeda same/same. Goal? = Islamic Caliphate
However, the softer face, or front, of the Salafists are the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the shirt and tie political crowd; but they are aligned in purpose with the salafists they just take a different approach when visible. Behind closed doors they are exactly the same. OBL = Salafist, Imam Rauf = Muslim Brotherhood.
Back to the explanation. When Mohamed al-Zawahiri was released from prison by the Brotherhood he quickly put a crew of ideologues back together to take advantage of the political vacuum created by Mubarak removal and the void in Egypt.
Mohamed gave his brother Ayman a courrier dispatched high five, and set about doing the same thing as bro, only on the western side, Egypt/Libya, while brother Ayman continued to battle the infidels, conduct terror activity, and lead the Taliban/Salafists in Afghanistan/Pakistan.
We jump to Libya and the uprising, starting where? Benghazi – Right next to Egypt, coincidence? – No way. Coordinated. Benghazi, on the Eastern side of Libya, has long been a radical islamist friendly place. It was the hotbed of anti-Gaddafi sentiment.
Why? Because Gaddafi and his pal Mubarak knew how dangerous these Salafists were, how much they hated the West, and they both (Gaddafi and Mubarak) squashed the pissant radicals whenever they squeaked too loud.
Subsequently, Gaddafi and Mubarak were rewarded well by the West for squishing the coachroaches. $$$$ and €€€€ !!!
Tripoli in Western Libya is more “westernized”, more cultural, more free, open and enjoys a better outlook. Benghazi is a dessert outpost – a Tribal town, far more fundamentally driven like the Afghanistan tribal regions.
Tripoli, along with Tunisa, is also the gateway to Europe. From Libya and Tunis you travel from the North African continent to Cyprus, Italy and Southern Europe. Gaddafi was the “GateKeeper”, and France/Italy/etc paid Daffy €5 billion each year to keep the border closed from the North African undesirables.
In return Daffy gave EU the heavy grade crude oil for their diesel driven autos.
When Mubarak was tossed, the jails opened and Mohamed al-Zawahiri on the loose, the Muslim Brotherhood began supplying arms to Benghazi rebels to start their own uprising. They did. Even the Egyptian Military got in on the action to support their Benghazi brothers.
Benghazi rebels, ideologically aligned with the Brotherhood, sympathetic to al-Qaeda, and of the same Taliban mindset began to take over Libya.
Mohamed called brother Ayman. Ayman dispatched Libyan nationals who were fighting with him, in the Taliban, along the Afghanistan border region, back to Libya to take out Gaddafi. Ayman sent al-Qaeda peeps to hook up with his brother Mohamed and construct a similarly minded terror network in Egypt/Libya. Hence you saw reports from foreign press about al-Qaeda operatives packed up in trucks from Afghanistan/Iraq and moving into Libya.
Rockets, surface to air missiles, MANPADS, chemical and biological weapons were all over Libya for the taking; and “take” they did, by the tens of thousands.
So when you see these media reports saying al-Qaeda in general, takes credit for, yet they do not take immediate credit for the actual undertaking, does it make sense now.
AQAP or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular is the Salafist faction under the leadership of Ayman Al Zawahiri, the pal of Osama Bin Laden.
The Salafist crew being lead by brother Mohamed al-Zawahiri in Egypt/Libya are “offshoots”, or like-minded cells of, but not officially coordinated with, AQAP.
So now when you read this report from CNN does it begin to make sense?
CNN – A pro-al Qaeda group responsible for a previous armed assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is the chief suspect in Tuesday’s attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, sources tracking militant Islamist groups in eastern Libya say.
They also note that the attack immediately followed a call from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri for revenge for the death in June of a senior Libyan member of the terror group Abu Yahya al-Libi.
The group suspected to be behind the assault — the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades — first surfaced in May when it claimed responsibility for an attack on the International Red Cross office in Benghazi.
The following month the group claimed responsibility for detonating an explosive device outside the U.S. Consulate and later released a video of that attack. (article)
That is who these guys are. In the video they are dragging Ambassador Stevens through a window of the safehouse.
Learn More about Mohamed Zawahiri
Zawahiri is not used to being a free man. In March, an Egyptian court overturned a death sentence for terrorism-related activities, and turned him loose for the first time since 1999. Much has changed in the intervening years, however, and Zawahiri sometimes feels lost in Egypt’s sprawling capital city. But as someone who is still committed to the idea of establishing an Islamic state governed by Islamic law, walking out of prison into a nascent democracy has been even more disorienting. “Islam has its own regulations and standards that have been successfully implemented for hundreds of years before .Western democracy and capitalism” emerged, he writes in his peace proposal. A true Islamic state would not leave matters of governance up to the masses.
A founding member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad — the radical group headed by his brother, Ayman, until its merger with al Qaeda in 1998 — the younger Zawahiri spent much of the late 1980s and early 1990s waging jihad in Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, and Afghanistan, where he fought against the Soviets as the organization’s military commander. An engineer and architect by training, he also spent time working for the Islamic International Relief Organization (IIRO) building schools and hospitals. The IIRO, based in Saudi Arabia, was later accused of links to militant Islamist groups, including al Qaeda, and was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States.
Zawahiri claims he last saw his older brother in Azerbaijan in 1996, before Ayman traveled to Afghanistan to join forces with Osama bin Laden. At that time, al Qaeda existed mostly as an idea — a vision of how to spread the word of Allah being discussed by less than 100 fighters. Within a few short years, however — following the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 — bin Laden was placed on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list and Western intelligence officials had begun to worry about al Qaeda. Ayman was later indicted for the 1998 bombings and the FBI has offered $25 million for his capture.
Being the brother of one of America’s most wanted has haunted Zawahiri ever since. In1999, security forces picked him up in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he had settled with his family and was working as an engineer for a construction company. He claims UAE authorities tortured him for four months — at the behest of the CIA — in an attempt to extract information about his brother. During that time, Zawahiri says, he offered to mediate between his brother and the West, something he believes could have prevented the Sept.11 attacks, but his overtures were rebuffed by UAE officials. In 1999, he was extradited to Egypt to face terrorism charges related to Sadat’s assassination and conspiracy to topple the regime — charges he denies and from which he was later acquitted upon appeal. (more)