Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been detained on the grounds of financing his election campaign

Sarkozy has been taken into custody in Nanterre at the request of the anti-corruption unit of the judicial police. Currently, he is being interrogated.

The investigation of possible violations in the financing of the 2007 presidential campaign was launched in 2013. He is suspected of illegally raising funds, including from former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and heiress of the L’Oreal empire Lillian Betancourt.

It is generally common knowledge that Gaddafi helped Sarkozy run his campaign – after which Sarkozy betrayed him, in his support for the Western coalition operation in Libya.

Libya’s former leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was killed by a French secret service agent, acting on the direct orders of France’s ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy, media reports out on Saturday have claimed.

According to sources quoted in UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, Sarkozy who ruled France from 2007 to 2012, sent secret service agents to infiltrate local gangs that were trying to locate Gaddafi as his regime collapsed in the wake of the Arab Spring.

The agent then shot Gaddafi in the head, the Daily Mail quoted a “well-placed sources in the North African country” as saying.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been taken into custody as part of an investigation into alleged funding in elections by ex-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Sarkozy is being questioned by magistrates regarding claims his campaign team accepted a 50 million euro ($62 million) donation from Gaddafi during the 2007 French elections, according to news reports.

His former associate, Alexandre Djouhri, was arrested in London and released on bail as part of the investigation weeks earlier.

Sarkozy had previously refused to respond to a summons for questioning in the case, AFP reported.

Former minister former minister Brice Hortefeux is also in custody and being questioned by investigators, Reuters reported.

The probe opened in 2013 following claims by Gaddafi and his son Saif that provided funds to Sarkozy’s election team.

Over 16 billion euros were located in four accounts opened for the Libyan Investment Authority and Libyan Foreign Investment Company.

Belgium discovered the disappearance of a significant part of these funds in the fall of 2017, when an investigation into money laundering sought to seize the 16 billion euros.

“It turned out that on the four accounts just over 5 billion euros remained.” Le Vif added.

According to the Belgian Ministry of Finance, Belgium did not take any decision to unfreeze these assets.

The investigation into billions of Gaddafi assets held in Belgium discovered big, regular outflows of stock dividends, bond income, and interest payments, the paper suggests.

The United States has stepped up air strikes against ISIL in Libya in recent months, concerned that the terrorist organisation is regrouping there after punishing defeats in Syria and Iraq.

From bases deep in the desert, ISIL continues to launch attacks, on Friday killing three members of the Libyan National Army at a checkpoint near the eastern town of Ajbabiya.

The threat from the insurgents has not gone unnoticed in Washington, where the head of the Pentagon's Africa Command, revealed earlier this week that there have been eight strikes against ISIL targets in central Libya since September, the first during President Donald Trump's administration.

"As terrorists flee from the Middle East because of our successful military efforts there, I'm concerned about other terrorist threats trying to establish operatives in Africa," Marine General Thomas Waldhauser told the House Armed Services Committee in the US capital.

Belgian authorities have discovered the disappearance of 10 billion euros of frozen Libyan assets kept in the Euroclear Bank during the period 2013 to 2017, according to the Le Vif weekly paper.

According to Le Vif magazine, these funds were controlled by the inner circle of ousted and killed Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.

Over 16 billion euros were located in four accounts opened for the Libyan Investment Authority and Libyan Foreign Investment Company.

The Belgian authorities found the disappearance of a significant part of these funds in the fall of 2017, when an investigation into money laundering sought to seize the 16 billion euros. It turned out that on the four accounts just over 5 billion euros remained.

In Libya, a dominant military figure stands out as a possible new leader of a unified country – that is, of course, if he wins at the polls – or even if he doesn’t. But can the UN or the West even organize an election?

Some seven months have passed since Libya’s two rival leaders met with the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. One is Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of the Government of National Accord, who lives in Tripoli and is supported by the UN and the West.

The other, Khalifa Haftar, is a military commander who controls Benghazi and can take credit for crushing Al Qaeda. The West considers him a maverick military type, however, who has little time for the tedious travails of diplomacy or democracy.

The United States has issued a new round of sanctions targeting oil smugglers in Libya aimed at blocking exploitation of natural resources that is driving instability, the US Treasury Department said on Monday.

In a statement, Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was sanctioning six people, 24 companies and seven vessels in a move that prohibits Americans from engaging with those targeted and freezes any related property under US jurisdictions.

The sanctions target people from Libya, Malta and Egypt for "involvement in the smuggling of petroleum products from Libya to Europe".

Issued under the authority of a 2016 executive order by then President Barack Obama, companies based in Italy, Libya and Malta are also targets, the statement said.

The fall of Gaddafi’s administration has created all of the country’s worst-case scenarios: Western embassies have all left, the South of the country has become a haven for terrorists, and the Northern coast a center of migrant trafficking. Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all closed their borders with Libya. This all occurs amidst a backdrop of widespread rape, assassinations and torture that complete the picture of a state that is failed to the bone.

The United Nations Libya mission demanded on Thursday the immediate surrender of Mahmoud al-Werfalli after fresh footage emerged of him personally carrying out summary executions.

The special forces commander, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes charges, served in the Al-Saiqa Brigade, an elite force of military strongman Khalifa Haftar’s so-called Libyan National Army (LNA).

A pair of car bombs were detonated in central Benghazi in Libya Tuesday, killing at least 33 and leaving more than 50 others wounded, per Reuters.

How it happened: The first bomb went off outside a mosque as attendees were leaving evening prayers. As ambulances and security officers arrived at the scene, a second bomb exploded about 10 minutes later across the street. It is not yet clear who is responsible for the attack.

After spending the last six years incarcerated by a militia in the wake of the systemic destruction of Libya by NATO-backed forces in 2011, the second son of slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, confirmed that he will run for president of Libya in 2018.

Through family spokesman Basem al-Hashimi al-Soul, Gaddafi confirmed to Egyptian television that he plans on running in what will likely be a tenuous election in the highly fragmented state.

What do you think of when you hear the name Colonel Gaddafi? Tyrant? Dictator? Terrorist? Well, a national citizen of Libya may disagree but we want you to decide.

For 41 years until his demise in October 2011, Muammar Gaddafi did some truly amazing things for his country and repeatedly tried to unite and empower the whole of Africa.

So despite what you’ve heard on the radio, seen in the media or on the TV, Gaddafi did some powerful things that are not characteristic of a “vicious dictator” as portrayed by the western media.

Here are ten things Gaddafi did for Libya that you may not know about…

A shocking expose on the refugee slave trade in Libya has become the story of the day as both mainstream and alternative outlets rush to cover the open-air slave markets where human beings are bought and sold for a few hundred American dollars.

How conditions in Libya became wretched enough to allow such conspicuous atrocities to take place has been absent from many mainstream accounts. Eugene Puryear and Sean Blackmon of Sputnik Radio's By Any Means Necessary asked Ben Norton, a progressive journalist with Alternet who is best known for his critiques of the mainstream media and US foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, to help fill in the blanks.

From becoming one of the major points in Africa from which migrants can attempt to cross over into Europe, Libya is now turning into a slave trade city thanks to the heavy flow of desperate people from other parts of the continent. A new investigation has revealed people are being sold as modern-day slaves for as little as £300 ($400).
According to CNN which exposed the racket, slave sales are conducted on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, Tripoli, where auctions take place for various types of manual labourers. In one case, a video was made available, which shows the sale of “big strong boys for farm work”.
An undercover operation revealed similar auctions where around a dozen people were sold in a matter of five to six minutes. “Does anybody need a digger? This is a digger, a big, strong man, he’ll dig,” an auctioneer calls out in one clip. “What am I bid, what am I bid?”

A new CNN investigation has uncovered a network of slave markets operating in warehouses in various cities across Libya six years after NATO-led intervention in the country toppled the government of Muammar Gaddafi in support of US and UK backed rebels. And not only did CNN confirm the presence of slave auctions where human beings are being sold for as little as $400 in "liberated" Libya, but CNN's crew was actually able to film a live auction in progress, while also gathering the testimonies of multiple victims.

Last October marked the sixth anniversary of the brutal assassination of Col. Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s adored architect of the “Jamahiriya” or state of the masses. The assassination was conducted by NATO-backed “rebels” fully loyal to the notion of waging jihad on the socialist Arab republic. Libya was Barack Obama’s war. The “first Black President” enthusiastically promoted lies about the Libyan leader in preparation for the invasion. He called Gaddafi a dictator, a strongman, and a mass murderer of his own people. US military forces collaborated with the media to spread rumors that Gaddafi had deployed soldiers armed with Viagra to rape women and children. Like the war on Afghanistan and Iraq, everything said about Gaddafi and Libya ended up being a lie. There were no massacres led by Gaddafi. In fact, NATO-backed “rebels” were found to have committed the most heinous crimes against the populace imaginable.

For all the talk about Paul Manafort's indictiment, one can't help but feel that there is a distinct undercurrent amid today's newsflow focusing on Hillary Clinton: from the resignation of one of the most powerful Democrats, Tony Podesta, who earlier today parted ways with the lobbying firm he founded after it became ensnared in the Mueller probe (and who is also brother of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta) to the sudden reemergence of the Benghazi attack narrative, one wonders if Trump is not preparing to launch a broadside attack on his former presidential challenger.

By analyzing the track record of U.S. District Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson, it looks like the fix was in when it comes to Paul Manafort’s case. Robinson appears to be sympathetic to Democrats, as she was appointed by former President Obama and previously donated to former President Bill Clinton’s campaign.

Robinson also “dismissed a lawsuit brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by relatives of victims of the 2012 Benghazi attack,” reports Fox News.

Let us start with an historical fact. Treason and betrayal by the highest levels is a common feature of history, whether it is Judas vs Jesus, Brutus vs Julius Caesar, Benedict Arnold, the Rosenbergs, Jonathan Pollard, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen. It is just a fact of life. It does happen.

Back in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for re-election, he authorized the transfer of highly sensitive technology to China. This technology had military applications and allowed China to close the gap in missile performance with the United States. The transfers were opposed and severely criticized by the Defense Department.

Six years ago today, the West took it upon itself to use NATO to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi — not for any humanitarian threat to civilians as had been repeatedly claimed — but because his planned roll-out of a new currency to be used across Africa posed a palpable existential threat to central banks at the heart of the Western financial and political system.

Long theorized to be the actual vehicle for Gaddafi’s downfall, the gold dinar-based, pan-African currency motive came to light in nascent 2016 in one of more than 3,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails released by the State Department — conveniently timed with the New Year’s holiday to abate outrage or repercussions.

I wish that the US and the Western governments take care of their people in need. Instead of legislating to help Puerto Rico, the Israeli occupied US Congress is trying to be an even more obedient "house slave" for the Zionist masters by imposing more penalties on Hizballah (Lebanon) and Iran and pushing for yet another devastating war (just like they did in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Libya). Bernard Levy, the Jewish Zionist instigator of the mayhem in Libya was in Northern Iraq building Zionist relationships with the Kurdish region and instigating for dividing Iraq like the Zionists did in Sudan. Other Zionists pour illegally acquired money in illegal Jewish settlements and the largest terrorist organization in the world - the Israeli army. Dividing the world and creating hatred and wars has been a key pillar of global Zionist machinery for decades*. It is the old colonial strategy of divide and conquer. As always many reject divisions while some fall into this trap.

Libya was bombed by the US government yesterday, but you wouldn’t know it because the media have been obsessed with the #TakeAKnee dispute between the president and the NFL. Trump may not even be aware that Libya was bombed under his authority, because he has put his trusty “Mad Dog” on a very long leash, in the hopes that he’ll be able to figure out how to clean up the mess in the Middle East.

On 22 September, the US conducted an airstrike on an ISIS camp in the desert valleys about 150 miles south-east of Sirte, reportedly killing 17 ISIS fighters and destroying 3 vehicles. US Africa Command (Africom) said the strikes were carried out by armed Reaper drones flying from a base in Sicily. Reda Eissa, a spokesman for the Government of National Accord’s (GNA) Misrata-led al-Bunyan al-Marsus (BM) coalition said he had no information about the airstrikes. Interestingly, the Libyan National Army (LNA) also said that it conducted airstrikes against ISIS targets near Sadada, west of Sirte, on the same day.

North Korea is building up a formidable nuclear arsenal in order to avoid the fate of Libya and Iraq, an American writer and retired professor says.

A North Korean statement that Libya’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program had made it vulnerable to military intervention by the West is being seen by analysts as an ominous reinforcement of the North’s refusal to end its own nuclear program.

Security at the State Department's Benghazi compound was so dire that another contractor was brought in to clean up the mess just two weeks before the 2012 terror attack – and was later pressured to keep quiet by a government bureaucrat under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to two men from the American security company.

Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, a large, Virginia-based security and private military contracting firm, told Breitbart News that the State Department approached the company less than two weeks before Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were brutally murdered.

Blue Mountain Group, the small Welsh security contractor to which the State Department initially awarded the contract over Torres’s bid earlier in the year, was allegedly failing on the job.

As aside, related in a different way- The US has been hit by two hurricanes and they are crying the blues and begging for money all over the place- But, clearly, priorities are very very skewed since the US obviously has multiple billions of dollars, accessible and ready to spend, to destroy other nations.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday he noticed “positive developments” that might help end the Libyan crisis after meeting with Libyan parties this week.

The Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Al Sarraj and Libyan National Army General Commander Khalifa Haftar both committed themselves to a conditional ceasefire agreement reached back in July in Paris and promised to work together as regards the forthcoming elections in 2018.

The U.S.-led aggressions against Iraq and Libya are two war crimes that keep on costing, with their grim examples of what happens to leaders who get rid of WMDs driving the scary showdown with North Korea, writes Robert Parry.

It is a popular meme in the U.S. media to say that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “crazy” as he undertakes to develop a nuclear bomb and a missile capacity to deliver it, but he is actually working from a cold logic dictated by the U.S. government’s aggressive wars and lack of integrity.

Indeed, the current North Korea crisis, which could end up killing millions of people, can be viewed as a follow-on disaster to President George W. Bush’s Iraq War and President Barack Obama’s Libyan intervention. Those wars came after the leaders of Iraq and Libya had dismantled their dangerous weapons programs, leaving their countries virtually powerless when the U.S. government chose to invade.

A local armed group in a Libyan coastal city west of the capital Tripoli has reportedly been halting refugee boats from setting out across the Mediterranean, leading to a rapid drop in the risky sea voyage over the past month.

The revelation sheds a new light into the sudden decline in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Italy, Reuters reported Monday citing multiple local sources in the city of Sabratha in Libya’s Zawiya district who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to the report, arrivals of refugees in Italy from North Africa -- the main route for migration to Europe this year -- fell by more than 50 percent in July compared to the same period last year, and August arrivals so far are down even further.

Still Spinning

A full year after the commencement of NATO’s campaign against Gaddafi, former NATO Ambassador Ivo Daalder and NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stravidis took to the pages of that reliable bellwether of establishment opinion, Foreign Affairs, to declare that “NATO’s operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention.”

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shortly before he was killed on Oct. 20, 2011, in Sirte, Libya.
According to Daalder and Stravidis, “the alliance responded rapidly to a deteriorating situation that threatened hundreds of thousands of civilians rebelling against an oppressive regime.”

In 2016, a Clinton campaign press release justifying the ill-starred intervention, claimed “Qadhafi and his regime made perfectly clear what their plans were for dealing with those who stood up against his reign, using disgusting language in urging his backers to cleanse the country of these rebels. This was a humanitarian crisis.”

Prominent Libyan military commander General Khalifa Haftar, who represents one of the major forces in the fractured country, has visited Moscow. He met top Russian officials, including the foreign and defense ministers.

Haftar is a powerful and largely independent figure in the ongoing civil conflict in the country. The veteran Libyan general, who lived for two decades in the United States, played a major role in toppling Muammar Gaddafi’s government in 2011.

A recent revelation, albeit quietly by choice, has been trickling under the popular western-dominated news radar. This under-reported, to the point of outright censored, exposé, has to do with Israel secretly providing weapons and military assistance to Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), one of the factions in the so-called Libyan Civil War.

Yet, despite recent reports establishing Israel as a supplier of war materiel and air power support to LNA-Haftar, there has not been a peep from either the United Nations or the Western media outlets. Here are a few excerpts from this highly significant revelation:

Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who controls the east of the Libya, has reportedly been receiving Israeli military aid following meetings with Israeli intelligence that were allegedly mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

Ironically, State Department officials at the time decided to search records voluntarily turned over by Hillary and some of her former aides from private servers, as well as records collected by the FBI during their investigations, but figured it wasn't necessary to search the one place where all official communications on such a topic should have been housed from the beginning: State Department servers.

For whatever reason, State has continually refused to conduct the search of its taxpayer funded servers going on two and a half years now. Luckily, some small bit of rational thought prevailed yesterday when a U.S. District Judge filed an order demanding a search of State Department records for any and all Benghazi-related emails be completed by September 22, 2017. Here is more from Politico:

A federal judge has ordered a search of the accounts of several Hillary Clinton aides, saying the State Department hadn’t done enough to try and track down emails sent pertaining to the Benghazi terrorist attack in 2012.

US District Court Judge Amit Mehta ordered the department to conduct a search of the accounts for three top aides, Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan.

The State Department never “searched the one records system over which it has always had control and that is almost certain to contain some responsive records,” Mehta wrote in the opinion.

He is referring to in-house emails sent and received via Hillary and her aides’ state.gov accounts.

More than six years after the US-led "liberation" of Libya, that North African country remains an open wound symbolizing the abject failure of US and European interventionist foreign policy.

The obsession of the US neocons, whether Democrat or Republican, for "regime change" and other frivolous foreign military interventions has been consistently and eloquently criticized by the likes of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and not least by former Congressman Ron Paul, to name but a handful.

Since our last Libya report of 27th July over a week ago, the ceasefire "brokered" by French President Macron at his Paris Summit with Libyan National Army head Khalifa Belqasim Haftar and UN-backed prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj is in reality nowhere to be found.

In February of 2011, shortly after the popular uprising erupted in Libya, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1970, which —among other things— forbids the export of war materiel to Libya. In June of this year, the United Nations accused Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of violating the embargo by providing secret military assistance to Haftar and the LNA. Now a new report in a British-based Arab news outlet claims that, in addition to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, Israel too is helping the LNA. Allegedly, Tel Aviv has given the LNA war materiel and air power support, with the help of the United Arab Emirates.

On August 3, the Italians government sent the frigate Commandante Borsini into Libyan territorial waters to stop refugees fleeing Libya for Europe. This violation of the sovereignty of Libya, a former Italian colony, aims to destroy refugee vessels and force refugees back into Libya, where the militias that have controlled the country ever since the devastating NATO war against Libya in 2011 detain them in appalling conditions.

The Italian parliament has approved a law allowing the Italian navy to trespass into Libyan waters under the pretext that they are helping the Libyan coast guard to arrest refugees. Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti even declared that the goal was to “reinforce Libyan sovereignty.” A large majority in parliament voted for the intervention, 328 to 113 in the lower house and 191 to 47 in the upper house.

FBI investigators recovered 30 emails from Hillary Clinton’s wiped server which discussed Benghazi, government lawyers said in federal court. The disclosure was made during a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta in a case involving a lawsuit filed by the watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Standing beside French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris this week, Khalifa Haftar, the most powerful military leader in eastern Libya, was smiling when he shook on a deal with the country's prime minister for a ceasefire and Spring elections.

But hours later and away from the diplomatic stage, Haftar exposed the reality of deep fractures in Libya's political landscape, saying any ceasefire was limited, he actually had no interest in elections and Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj's power-sharing council was in the grip of terrorists.

The French President Emmanual Macron has hosted the two most influential leaders in Libya in what is being called an attempt to re-unite the totally fractured failed state that has plagued Libyan politics since 2011 when the revolutionary leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown during a NATO invasion.

In reality, Macron is engaging in a big face-saving exercise on two fronts. Although the NATO war on Libya was largely authored and agitated for by Hillary Clinton, because of Barack Obama’s apparent reticence to associate himself with the kind of aggressive western war against a Muslim majority country that many at the time still associated with George W. Bush, French President Nicholas Sarkozy became the public cheerleader for the disastrous war, complete with a premature ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment in Tripoli along with then British Prime Minister David Cameron.

As chaos reigns in Libya, with competing authorities continuing to vie for power, the battle for Tripoli appears to have begun anew.

Clashes broke out earlier this week, in the east of the capital city, between forces loyal to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and those loyal to the National Guard of the Salvation Government (SG).

The capital is an important target for warring sides in the region, offering control over strategic assets such as the Libyan Central Bank, the air and sea ports in the city, as well as all other institutions.

The Garabulli region, where the clashes took place, is considered a strategic gateway into the city, and fighting there may have been intended to be the start of a wider battle.

Far-right activists from the Identitarian movement have charted a ship to fight illegal migration off the Libyan coast and to expose what they describe as alleged collaboration between European NGOs operating in the area and human traffickers.

A 40-meter-long ship called the C-Star, which was charted by the group, set sail from the African port of Djibouti on July 6 and is expected to take the far-right activists via the Sicilian port of Catania next week before reaching the relief zone of the Libyan coast.

It appears that Brussels is about to pin its hopes on Libyan National Army Gen. Khalifa Haftar, who has recently liberated Benghazi from Islamists, Radio Sputnik contributor Vladimir Bychkov noted. In contrast to other Libyan "leaders" Haftar has real power, he added.

Europe is seemingly weighing the pros and cons of siding with Libyan National Army Gen. Khalifa Haftar, Russian political analyst and Radio Sputnik contributor Vladimir Bychkov says.

US officials familiar with the situation say that the Trump Administration is likely to announce a dramatic “ramping up” of US involvement in Libya, appointing a new US ambassador, and setting up a permanent US military presence in the nation.

While the military operation appears primarily aimed at supporting the “unity government” in Tripoli, officials suggest it might also see some US troops deployed to war-torn Benghazi, currently under the control of a rival faction, with an eye toward eventually uniting the country under unity government rule.

The US officials say that the administration is happy with their increased involvement in Somalia, and is looking to replicate that sudden escalation in Libya, trying to carve out a permanent US presence in the country, and ensure that whoever ends up in power becomes a US client.

Field marshal Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA), has declared victory over his rivals in Benghazi during the nation's multifaceted civil war. Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, has been contested for three years by various factions vying for control of the beleaguered North African nation.

Appearing on television in a white military uniform, Haftar declared his faction's victory. "Your armed forces declare to you the liberation of Benghazi from terrorism, a full liberation and a victory of dignity against terrorism," he said.

Only land mines and bombs are left to be cleared, according to Haftar. Islamist militias and other rivals have been totally mopped up. Haftar added that the LNA "congratulates the Libyan people and thanks all the backing forces and neighboring who supported us."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has called for the immediate arrest of recently released Saif al-Islam, the second son of Muammar Gaddafi.

Through a statement, the Attorney at the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, said Saif al-Islam was to be arrested for crimes against humanity.

One of the 3,000 Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department on New Year’s Eve (where real news is sent to die quietly) has revealed evidence that NATO’s plot to overthrow Gaddafi was fueled by first their desire to quash the gold-backed African currency, and second the Libyan oil reserves.

Secret military assistance from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which violates United Nations sanctions, is helping Libya’s eastern-based rebels prevail in the civil war there, according to a new report. Libya has remained in a state of anarchy since 2011, when a popular uprising backed by the West and its allies led to the demise of the country’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Currently the strongest faction in the post-2011 Libyan Civil War is the eastern-based Tobruk-led Government, which is affiliated with the Libyan National Army (LNA). The commander of the LNA is Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, an old adversary of Colonel Gaddafi, who lived in the US under Washington’s protection for several decades before returning to Libya in 2011.

Evidence suggests that one of the London attackers, Rachid Redouane, was part of the broad UK-backed covert strategy to oust Syria’s Assad, following his similar role in Libya in 2011.

It is distinctly possible that Redouane was trained by Qatar special forces in Libya in 2011, as part of a broad UK-approved covert operation. Indeed, it is possible that this training was presided over by UK and US ‘liaison’ officers.

The analysis below is based on mainstream media sources, all in the public domain.

Evidence suggests that one London attacker, Rachid Redouane, was part of the broad UK-backed covert strategy to oust Syria’s Assad, following his similar role in Libya in 2011.

The Telegraph reports that London attacker Rachid Redouane fought in the 2011 British/NATO war against Qaddafi – as did Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber – and joined a militia which went on to send jihadist fighters to Syria. In Libya, he is believed to have fought with the Liwa al Ummah unit.[1]

Fighters say government operated 'open door' policy allowing them to join rebels, as authorities investigate background of Manchester bomber

The struggle against terrorism cannot be helped by Western governments playing fast and loose with dictators and authoritarian regimes in the way Britain has done with Libya