THE GUANTÁNAMO FILES: Libyan travel detained rebels and Allied American of sorts

Today, Mr. Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the struggle of the rebel Libyan to exclude the colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi, was a leader of a group of ragtag fighters known as the Darnah Brigade for his hometown, this rundown port city of 100,000 people in the Northeast Libya. Former foe and prisoner of the United States is now an ally of sorts, a remarkable turnaround resulting displacement of American policies rather than any clear change in Mr. Qumu.

He was a tank driver in the Libyan army in the 1980s, when the Central Intelligence Agency has been spend billions in support of the religious militants, trying to lead the Soviet Afghanistan troops. Mr. Qumu settled in Afghanistan in the 1990s, just as Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedin were violently to return against their former benefactor, in the United States.

He was captured in Pakistan after September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, accused of being a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group activist and sent to Guantánamo - in part because of the information provided by the Government of Colonel Gaddafi.

"The Libyan Government believes detained a 'acts dangerous man with no qualms about committing terrorist activities,'" said the classified assessment 2005, obviously citing the conclusions of Libyan intelligence, which was obtained by the New York Times. ""He was known as one of the extremist Arab-Afghan commanders,""the Libyan information continues, referring to the Arab fighters who remained in Afghanistan after the anti-Soviet jihad."

In this evaluation of Guantánamo, the United States has been working closely with Colonel Gaddafi intelligence on terrorism. Now, the United States is a leader of the international coalition trying to oust Colonel Gaddafi-, vocals with air power the rebels, including Mr. Qumu.

Mr. classified Guantánamo evaluation Qumu says that he was suffering from "a non-specific personality disorder" and that he told - citing once more the Libyan Government as a source - a history of drug trafficking and drug abuse and charges of murder and assault in fact armed.

In 1993, the document says, Mr. Qumu escaped from a Libyan prison, escaped in Egypt and continued in Afghanistan, training at a camp run by Mr. bin Laden. At Guantánamo, Mr. Qumu denied having knowledge of terrorist activities. He said that he feared he would be returned to Libya, where he faces criminal charges and asked to go to other countries where "(United States) you can look at me," according to a summary hearing.

However, in 2007, he was sent to Guantánamo in Libya and released the following year in an amnesty for militants.

Colonel Gaddafi has cited claims about Mr. Qumu instructions past blame Al Qaeda for the Libyan uprising together. American officials nervously noted the presence of at least some former activists in the ranks of the rebels.

The walls of the buildings along the road in Darnah are decorated with slogans anti-Qathafi and usual pro-Western in English and Arabic found anywhere in the eastern Libya. But there are notable additions: "Non qaida" and "no to extremism."

Darnah has reason to be tense. The city has a long history of militancy, including a revolt against the domination of Colonel Gaddafi, led by Islamists in the 1990s, which led to a brutal repression. Activists here are credited from veteran Libyan Islamic Group, which later announced that he was to become affiliated with Al Qaeda, and that sends as Mr. Qumu militants to fight in Afghanistan.

Most famous, however, Darnah has to be more productive soil recruitment of the world for suicide bombers. An analysis of 600 bombers in Iraq by the Centre for combating terrorism at West Point concluded that 440 whose name is their 70 in a list of recruitment, 52 were of Darnah, most of any cityin Riyadh, Saudi saoudite40 times as populous, as the most important source following, sending 51.

In addition to Mr. Qumu, local residents say that the Darnah Brigade is headed by Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, another Libyan thought to be an activist who was Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban, when Al Qaeda had training camps.

Mr. Qumu did not for an interview, promised last week, but Mr. Hasadi did, lattice chiffonnés with a light beard and a lazy left eye, perpetually half closed. He denied that Mr. Qumu was in his group, recently renamed the Martyrs of Abu Salim Brigade, after a prison in Tripoli where 1 200 inmates were killed in 1996. Two of the sons of Mr. Qumu are in his brigade, he said.

"I don't know how to convince everyone that we are not Al Qaeda here", said Mr. Hasadi. "Our goal is to overthrow Qathafi", he added. "I know that you will never believe me, but it's true.".

For the moment, Western observers in Benghazi, the capital of rebels temporary 180 miles away, seem satisfied to accept those assurances. "We are worried Al Qaeda infiltration from outside than those Aboriginal" it said. "Most of them have a local action so that they are not as much as a threat to the West".

Rod Nordland declared in Darnah and Scott Shane of Washington. Kareem Fahim contributed reports from Benghazi in Libya.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 25, 2011

An earlier version of the legend of the image with this article incorrectly identified Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi as Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu.

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Libyan rebels advance; U.S. deploy UAVs

The rebels in the mountains of the West takes control of a border crossing in the town of Wazen after a battle of the morning which sent a small number of Libyan soldiers fleeing the border, the official Tunisian news agency reported. The said press agency 13 of Libyan soldiers, including a colonel and two commanders, had been arrested, while a spokesman for rebels in the eastern city of Benghazi says that more than 100 had requested asylum.

As the fighting in the mountains have intensified over the past two weeks, UN aid workers say that more than 14,000 refugees Libyan - many of them, the members of the Berber minority, which is rampant in the region - have fled the border evenwith all 6,000 per day recently, through a spokesman for the United Nations Human Rights Commission said.

While it is not known that the rebels may contain Wazen, their success is the first crack in a major in the control of Colonel Kadhafi in the Western region, since it crushed the uprisings that erupted in Tripoli and many other towns and villages across the Libya when the insurrection erupted two months ago. It opens the possibility of the rebels to import weapons or aid and provides the slightest break in the stalemate which had settled in the Libyan civil war in recent weeks.

In a gesture which seemed to be to put an end to this impasse, the Pentagon said Thursday that President Obama had authorized the use of drones predator armed against the forces of Colonel Gaddafi, which partly avoided the air strikes by miscegenation with the populations civil and operating from vehicles not marked.

The US Army used the predator, an aircraft equipped with Hellfire missiles, to achieve targets in urban and rural areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the Yemen.

In announcing the deployment, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates describes the addition of predators armed as "a modest contribution" to the attack on the NATO mission. But approval of Mr. Obama of their deployment appeared to be another sign of gaps in the ability of NATO to carry out complicated, extended combat without American support continuous and important missions.

These gaps have become more apparent as to the United States transferred the command of the mission of the Libya of NATO, April 4 when the American army intervened in a supporting role. Despite this move, the American planes have dropped a significant number of bombs, more than any other country of the alliance.

In Misurata, the city of port held the rebels where rebels pleaded for the weeks of such weapons has beaten a head by the forces of Qathafi, a rebel spokesman said Thursday that recent shipments of airstrikes and aid had allowed rebel fighters to take the offensive. The spokesman, Mohamed, whose full name was retained for the protection of his family, declared that the rebels killed more than 100 that Qathafi soldiers Thursday and 51 Wednesday, when also captured 40 others. "People celebrate in Misurata", he said, speaking on an Internet connection, because most telephone service and electricity to the city has been cut.

Among other advances, he said that the rebels had led away snipers who had terrorized civilians along the Central Tripoli Avenue of the city.? "There is a pattern of collapse among Qathafi troops in and around Misurata," he said.

In Eastern stronghold of the rebels of Benghazi, colonel Ahmed Bani, a spokesman for the military rebels, said veterans anti-Qathafi attacked crossing the western border to the Wazen on several occasions in the past before succeed Thursday. "It is a supply line which connects us to the Tunisia", he said, adding that the rebel forces in Wazen had been communicating with the direction of Benghazi.

So far, the air strikes of NATO forces Qathafi helped the rebels retain control of Benghazi and a handful of cities in Eastern, Western commercial port of Misurata and, according to some reports, the towns of Nalut and Zintan Mountain West. But Qathafi forces have maintained a strict control of the Libyan capital, Tripoli and maintained a fierce siege on Misurata and other rebel held towns and rebel leaders are complaining bitterly about the relative rarity of the air strikes of NATO in recent weeks.

While great attention has focused on the cities of major port of Benghazi and Misurata, mountainous western region which extends from near Nalut Wazen and Zintan a simmer with the opposition to Gaddafi. The Berbers have long worn there under the Qathafi Government, which has sought to deny their status as minority culturally distinct.

After the rebels took control of Benghazi on 20 February, residents of Nalut and Zintan joined other Tripoli, Misurata, Zawiyah, Zawarah, Sabratha and other cities in taking to the streets to burn police stations and headquarters of the local Colonel Gaddafi. "revolutionary committees". However, in the following weeks, its security recovery forces a firm grip on Tripoli and gradually resumed most of the other cities, leaving Zintan and Misurata as the main Western resistance centres.

Faras Kaya, a spokesman for the United Nations Human Rights Commission, said many fleeing to the camps described the escalation of fighting in the mountains around Zintan and Nalut over the past two weeks, as Qathafi forces fired artillery to cities and the rebels attached to the rear. "The Western mountainous region was besieged for a month," said Mr. Kaya. "What is clear is that they have fled because of the intensification of violence."

Approximately a quarter of a million refugees fled Libya in Tunisia in the course of the last two months, he said. Other main crossing near the Mediterranean, most of those fleeing were foreign workers, he said, but the 14,000 who have fled through Wazen were Libyan families.

The deployment of predators following a few weeks when rebels complained of the lack of support from NATO after United States handed over leadership of the NATO air campaign. In announcing the addition of the new weapon, Mr. Gates has suggested that the United States was filling a gap in the other arsenals of other allies, which have no drones similar attack.

"The President said that, when we have a few unique features, it is willing to use those", Mr. Gates said at a Pentagon press conference, suggesting that the predators provide "precision capability some."

David d. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo and Thom Shanker from Washington. Rod Nordland contributed reports of Benghazi (Libya) and Mona El Naggar in Cairo.

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As the Libyan rebel British aid, aid will divided force

The first question that will have to face the British is "whose army?".

That they find themselves informing a ragtag force rebel who cannot yet agree that his superior officer is, in the middle of feuding between the two generals accompanying disreputable baggage.

Dysfunction has been fully exposed here this week. "I control all over the world, the rebels and the forces of the regular army," one of the two, GEN Khalifa Hifter, said in an interview on Monday. "I am the Commander, and General Abdul Fattah Younes is Chief of staff." "His job is to support us in the field, and my job is to lead fighting".

Civilian leaders of the rebels, the National transition Council insisted that General Younes remains responsible for the army. "This is not true," an official close to the Council said Tuesday after learning the Hifter General claims. "General Younes is above him, it is certain and General Hifter is beneath him."

General Hifter clearly indicated that he considered General Younes as officer serving in a support or a logistics role, and he accused her explicitly to a string of humiliating pensions by rebels along the line of front seesawing between Brega and Ajdabiyamore recently, on Sunday, when seven rebels were killed in a counter-attack by Government forces who had transformed failed close.

"All what happened is the result of the command of Abdul Fattah Younes", he said. "That well why I came back to take charge, and in the next couple days I will be in charge of each unit, not a single unit." "I am ready to lead the forces now."

From the beginning, NATO military effort has been hampered by the disruption of the rebels and the lack of training, equipment and experience, who have left their unable to capitalize on the damage of air strikes of NATO to the forces of Colonel Gaddafi. The British mission aims to address these gaps, improve the Organization of the rebels, communications and logistics.

In recent weeks, as the forces of Colonel Gaddafi are adapted to aerial attacks, camouflage and blend with the civilian population, it became more difficult for NATO pilots to hit their targets without killing civilians - precisely so that the Organization of the UN sent it y to stop.

In the stalemate that ensued, as the Qathafi forces shell the rebel-held city of Misurata, killing hundreds of civilians, NATO credibility is suffering, with critics saying that it would weak and ineffectual research - especially compared to overwhelming attacks led by the United States in the first weeks of the air campaign.

Western powers have sought to rebel fighters out of the impasse, in the hope that they can be built into an effective fighting force. But the disorganization and infighting the continued direction of rebels is an obstacle. even countries which have expressed their support for the cause of the rebels are following orders of armaments, at least in part to concern about the disarray.

All doubt castings on the ability of Britain advisors to create one if military, effective rebel rebel leaders cannot stop fighting among themselves.

The first concrete report of weapons of the donor countries, reaching the rebels come Tuesday, but significantly, this expedition, 400 AK-47 rifles, moved step two generals claiming to be the leader of the rebels. Instead, they went directly to a civilian, Fawzi Bukatef, a petroleum engineer who was other civilian training.

Mr. Bukatef said that he had sent only 400 freshly volunteers armed to forward with new weapons, it had received anonymous donor - widely believed be Qatar, who freely acknowledged his intention to send weapons to the rebels. He knows that the two generals, he said and feels disappointed by the two.

"These guys are a problem for us on the front because we do not know who is responsible," said Mr. Bukatef. "They coordinate not between them, and I do not think that they like each other same."

Tuesday, a compromise of sorts was suggested by colonel Ahmed Bani, the Libyan official spokesman for the rebel forces. "They are both at the same level, and the two response to Omar Hariri, the Minister of defence", he said. But that promise little to resolve the situation.

General Hifter claims that its new authority on the forces on the ground came from the National Council of transition, and he said that it is not true that the Council had him withdraw military command after a controversial at the end of March and handed over the first meeting place to General YounesAncien Interior Minister colonel Gaddafi.

"It was only a wish on their part," he said.

An officer of high rank on his staff, said that civil servants have not dared to remove General Hifter. He said "if they thought as much to do, people would kill them."

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France sends troops to advise the Libyan rebels - CNN International

Will there be a Libya military intervention for humanitarian reasons?New: France sends troops to the rebels, UNICEF says 20 children were killed and many more wounded in MisrataOpposition spokesman: at least 27 people were killed in Misrata this weekA rebel spokesman said he did not want international veterans join military officers rebelsBritish will work with the Libyan opposition

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) - France will send a group of officers to the Libya to advise the rebels, the French Government said Wednesday, a day after Britain made a similar announcement.

Efforts to strengthen the rebellion come as main opposition organization the Libya pleaded for international military intervention.

Libyans are "being slaughtered every day" by the forces of leader Libyan Muammar al-Gaddafi, rebels Shamsiddin Abdulmolah Tuesday said CNN spokesman.

The High Commissioner of the United Nations in the human rights said Wednesday that some of the attacks of the Libyan Government on the siege of Misrata city may constitute international crimes.

Government spokesman French Fran?ois Baroin said the French troops being sent to the Libya will notify the National Council of transition from the rebels.

G?rard Longuet French Defence Minister exclude still send ground troops to fight alongside the rebels. "It's a real question that deserves an international debate", he said, adding, "We are working for the resolution of 1973," a reference to the United Nations resolution authorizing the action in Libya. "You cannot please everyone all the time," he said.

Britain said Tuesday that he sent a contingent of officers experienced in an advisory role to the stronghold of rebels in Benghazi. The team will work with the National Council of transition on how the opposition can improve military organisational structures, communications and logistics, said the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will also help the delivery of critical assistance.

"This deployment is fully under resolution 1973 both preparedness and its provision expressly excluding a force of foreign occupation on Libyan soil," said Foreign Secretary William Hague.

In Libya, increase aid appeals.

Aid agencies are afraid to go to such areas as Misrata, that is targeted by Gaddafi troops daily, militant opposition that Mohamed Ibrahim said. "Some of them, they come." But most of them, they come close... they hear the bombing and everything, and they go back, "he says.

At least 27 people were killed and 142 were injured this week, according to a spokesman of the opposition who wanted to be identified only as "Mohammed" for security reasons.

On Wednesday, the UNICEF - Agency for children of the Organization of the United - Nations said 20 children have been killed and "countless others wounded" in single Misrata.

Aid groups were trying to pull the desperate people of Misrata, which is hampered by the forces of Gaddafi on three sides.

The only way to escape is by port of the city - a witnesses in the region, said also was bombed by the forces of Gaddafi.

For those who have left behind, witnesses said, the disastrous situation continues to deteriorate. The city is still without water, electricity and telecommunications, Mohammed said Tuesday. "Bombing has moved out of the industrial areas to residential areas, and it is still in progress."

Rebel spokesman Abdulmolah said that the National Council of transition the opposition does not oppose a humanitarian mission on the ground.

"Something must be done so that we can stop the bloodshed of our people," he said.

But "we don't want any military presence foreign or any veterans international with our rebels," he added.

NATO is leading an international military operation which includes targeting military resources of Gaddafi with airstrikes.

NATO said that the operation has destroyed seven bunkers of munitions in the area of Tripoli and equipment in other parts of the country this week.

NATO attacked three regime battle tanks and an artillery piece mounted on vehicle in and around Misrata Tuesday, spokesman for the British Army major-General John Lorimer said Wednesday.

Abdulmolah said the NATO strikes may also prevent more destruction in eastern Libya, particularly near Benghazi.

"We have received reports that Gaddafi forces were mobilizing their troops and their systems of missile mobile/rockets of Brega to Ajdabiya bomb Benghazi." They were the strikes of NATO stopped by (Tuesday), "he says.

But he said that the opposition wants weapons and "technical assistance", "because we are faced with a ruthless tyrant who wants to kill his own people, simply because they asked for freedom and liberty." CNN Saad Abedine, Andreena Narayan, Reza Sayah, Yousuf Basil and Ben Wedeman contributed to this report.

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Fighting persisted in the city besieged for Libyan

Delegates of Arab and African nations and NATO offered support to the Libyan rebels at a Summit in Qatar.The bombings also stops a ship that was to evacuate the mooring in Misrata "there is a continuation of heavy artillery fire.""," the resident saidU.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Gaddafi forces targeting food warehouses

(CNN) - Muammar Gaddafi of forces continues violent bombings in Western Libyan city Misrata Thursday destroying a factory containers and the cargo of cement, a resident said.

The report of shelling comes a day after an international leader warned that Gaddafi was destroyed crucial supplies in warehouses in Misrata in an effort to starve the people to submit in the besieged city.

"There is a resumption of heavy shelling on the road leading to the port from the sea by the forces, Gaddafi and the port of Misrata using tanks" said a resident who wanted to be identified only as Abdlsalam, for reasons of security.

Rebels receive funding pledge

"I couldn't hear NATO aircraft today", he added.

The bombing stopped a ship that was to evacuate people from entering the port, said Abdlsalam.

CNN could not independently of this report confirm.

On Wednesday US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and one speaks of Libyan leader rebel on the number of victims of intense fighting in Misrata took on residents.

Misrata was particularly vulnerable to the current fighting, said the spokesman for rebels Shamsiddin Abdulmolah. Gaddafi tanks were pounding the city, where several people were killed Wednesday, Abdulmolah said.

At least 10 people were killed and 30 wounded, a doctor said Tuesday CNN.

Clinton, stated that Gaddafi forces have reportedly destroyed the critical food supply warehouses in Misrata and cut water and power to the city "in" an attempt apparent hunger (residents) into submission.

Snipers have taken to target residents of Misrata obtain medical care, she said.

Also delegates Wednesday Arab and African nations and offered NATO support for the Libyan rebels at a Summit in the Qatar indicating they were trying to find ways to get money and humanitarian aid in Libya.

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