Abdelhakim Belhadj The Mask Behind The Many Men

In Anglo-American Nation Building Projects, decades of underhanded double dealing of CIA, DIA, MI5, MI6, NATO Intelligence Services, et al. often have the effect that persons that have been convenient assets, are being maneuvered into places of power and public attention. When public attention results in investigative journalism, an asset can become a public relations liability. No other recent case demonstrates it as obviously as that of Abdelhakim Belhadj, aka Hasidi, aka Abu Abdulla al-Saddiq, aka… :”Who is the mask behind the many men”.                                    by Dr. Christof Lehmann

Latest since the assassination of General Younis it has become obvious that there are deep crevasses behind the Hollywood charade of Libyan Freedom Fighters and “A” National Transitional Counsel of Libya, which not so long ago declared that it would “bring democracy to Libya within 20 months“. Today a representative for the Libyan Democratic Party, DPL, Sabri Malik, called on Chairman of the NTC or TNC Jibril to stand down, asking the U.N. for support in “building democracy” in Libya. Jibril, does not seem to have any with to step down, and neither has Jalil. Among the many contenders for power, there is a man with enough names to put a name on every position in the Executive Office of the NTC, lately most known as the Commander of the Tripoli Military Counsel, Abdelhakim Belhadj; and many strings are pulled to maneuver the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, former CIA Prisoner, murderer of U.S. Troops in Iraq, Taliban Fighter in Afghanistan into the central position of power in Libya. With Jibril stating that the bloody battle for Libya is far from being over,  it is somehow understandable, that both Belhadj, and with him a majority of those who are risking their lives for the NATO Al Qaeda Revolution feel, that he has a greater stake to claim than the CIA and MI6 Chicken Hawks Jalil and Jibril. So who is this contender for President in the richest North African Nation, and what does his position imply for himself, Libya, and the world.

Abdelhakim Belhadj was born in 1966 in Souq al Jum´aa area, Tripoli´s Old City. It was impossible to find information about his birth name, and with the many changes of Alia, who knows if he remembers it himself. Nothing is publicly known about his childhood and youth, but he earned a degree in civil engineering at Tripoli´s Al Fateh University. He came under the scope of Libyan Police when he joined a radicalized Islamic group that was reportedly arrested and dismantled by Libyan Police. Belhadj was not charged and released. Belhadj was one of the many young, idealistic men who were inspired by the image of the religious freedom fighter, which the U.S.A. carefully nurtured since 1979, to the degree that it had created the recruitment potential for an insurgency into Afghanistan and the subversion of the USSR-backed Afghan Government in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

In 1992, after his first brushes with Libyan Police Authorities, the year that the Mujahedeen had taken control over Kabul, he left Libya via Egypt and traveled to Afghanistan, where he joined the Taliban, and Mujahedeen which was then heavily financed and supported by the CIA, the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence ISI, and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan, in a permanent state of low intensity conflict with India over Kashmir, in which the USA is playing an underhanded role, was seeking influence in Afghanistan for acquiring a strategic “hinterland” for the case of a war with India. At that time, Abdelhakim Belhadj was known as Abu Abdulla al-Sadiq.

It is uncertain if Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq became a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, LIFG, before he left for Afghanistan, or if he got into contact with and became a member of it already in Libya. Many leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which fought an insurgency in Libya, were fled to Afghanistan after a failed attempt to assassinate Muammar Ghadafi and a rigorous counterinsurgency by Libyan Military, Police and Intelligence Services. The failed assassination af Muammar Ghadafi with the help of the LIFG was a plot, that was conceived and supported by the British MI6.

During his period in Afghanistan Belhadj aka al-Sadiq rose in the ranks of the LIFG that was decimated in 1998, and he was introduced to both Taleban leader Mullah Omar, and the CIA Asset and later CIA Patsie Osama bin Laden. The Saudi multi billionaire son Osama bin Laden worked for both the the CIA and Saudi Intelligence Services, largely functioning as head of a coordination or logistics office for young Arab, Asian and European Jihadi, who wanted to fight a holy war. First against the USSR, and later “seemingly” against the USA. Most of of these young Jihadi joined “The Network” without knowing that they were indirectly and at least in part working for both the CIA and other western intelligence services. How these constructs are created, facilitated and applied by rouge intelligence networks is excellently documented by historian Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley.  This network was to become known as Al Qaeda, and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group became the Libyan Al Qaeda outfit. Even after the Al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya Al Qaeda continued to function as recruitment and logistics department for a secret U.S. and NATO Army of Mercenaries. Al Qaeda fighters played a crucial role in the subversion of Serbia and the separation of Kosovo from Serbia. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA / UCK) was heavily supplied with U.S. and German weapons, money, and heavily supported by this secret NATO Army of Jihadi´s, which was responsible for countless massacres on Serbs and the most serious of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide.

The terror attacks on the World Trade Center Complex and the Pentagon marked the initiation of what was marketed as ” The War on Terror“. Little was it known then, that the highest levels of U.S. Intelligence Services as well as the highest levels of G.W. Bush´s White House Administration had detailed advanced knowledge about the impeding attacks. Among many other excellent documentations on this subject, “Extreme Prejudice” by then CIA Asset, life long peace activist, womens rights advocate and 9/11 whistleblower Susan Lindaueris of extreme value, because it describes her own work at the Libyan and Iraqí embassy

Susan Lindauer Extreme Prejudice

to the U.N. her contacts to key White House Officials in undeniable detail. Lindauer describes among other how she was ordered to threaten U.N. Ambassadors of Iraq and Libya to cooperate “or to have their countries bombed back to the stone age“. Little was it known then, that the initiating spark of “the war on terror” was heavily financed by among other Saudi Arabia, that the department that could have investigated the 2.3 trillion USD that Donald Rumsfeld announced “missing” on 10 September, was the one that was destroyed by “something“, no one knew that 9/11 was planned from at least 1998, and that the perpetrators sat inside the White House, Saudi Palaces, Command Bunkers, Israeli Intelligence and Corporations, but certainly not in a cave in Afghanistan. Something went wrong for Bin Laden, for Abdelhakim Belhadj, and many others; in all their success they had been double crossed and threefold betrayed. Thats how it is to become “the patsie”, when a war game suddenly turns so hot that it burns you before you even know what is happening.

Nothing of that was yet known. Even without the threats of annihilation, or the “ you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists” the world was in a state of chock, and sympathy and empathy was outpouring to the USA from even the most unlikely of places, organizations, nations and their leaders. “What a chock to find out that either you are with the terrorists or you are with Bush you are with the terrorists.”

Even Muammar Ghadafi, right after PFLP-GC founder Ahmed Jibril the most prefered scapegoat for all evil that befalls the USA, even Ghadafi showed more cooperativeness than most would have expected. In 2002 an arrest warrant for Abdelhakim Belhadj was issued by the Libyan Police. In the arrest warrant it is alleged that he had close ties to Al Qaeda and Mullah Omar. Belhadj also had a personal relationship to bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan. Armed with a U.N. Resolution that violated the U.N. Charter, NATO embarked on it´s second neo-colonial project, Afghanistan. When Afghanistan became too hot to be safe, the remaining LIFG leaders went to different locations in Europe and South East Asia. Belhadj also operated in Iraq, fighting the U.S. Occupation there. With respect to the current NATO lead subversion in Libya, where Belhadj operates as commander of the LIFG aka Al Qaeda, and most recently re named to Tripoli Military Counsel, it is most interesting that Bengazi and Derna are the two cities that have supplied the greatest per capita amount of Al Qaeda fighters to Iraq, that Libya and the LIFG have per capita contributed with more Al Qaeda fighters than even Saudi Arabia.

Since the MI6 had close ties to the LIFG, latest since they conspired to assassinate Ghadafi, and since the Al Qaeda outfit in Kabul was CIA´s recruiting office for mercenaries, who knowingly or unknowingly fought in the interest of the USA, Belhadj was tracked by both the CIA and MI6. At a convenient time in 2004, he was arrested together with his pregnant wife at Kuala Lumpur Airport in Malaysia and was extradited on the same plane to Bangkok.In Bangkok Belhadj was held in a covert and illegal CIA prison from where he was released to Libya where he spent seven years in the company of other LIFG members and other political prisoners. Many of them, like him self, victims of CIA´s MI6´s et al. double dealings.

Was it not for the fact that he is known for personally having murdered U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq; was it not for the fact that he has supervised the massacre on thousands of black Libyans and black migrant workers in Libya during the recent NATO  organized insurgency and under his command as chief of the Tripoli Military Counsel; in other words, was it not for the fact that he has committed the most serious war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of genocide, and that he rightfully belongs delivered to the Office of the Special Prosecutor in The Haag, one might even be tending to buy into the recently propagated narrative that he is a poor victim of torture, of cruel and inhumane punishment from the U.S.A. and that he simply is a “freedom fighter” who fought for a just cause, and who is fighting for a just cause now, as the Commander Chief of the New Libyan Army. One “must” ask especially the U.S.-American Administration and it´s Commander in Chief Obama, if he wants to blow hot air into a balloon, while keeping the dust of U.S. double dealing archives hidden in his mouth. Either – Or ! Remember ?

Either the US fought unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Belhadj was fighting for a good cause, which by no means justifies the supervision of a massacre of tens of thousand of black Libyans; Or the US fought just, though absolutely criminally illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in which case Belhadj resisted the good guys. Right ?  Or am I getting something wrong here. Right! The US fought illegal wars, and Belhadj is a bad guy. You see, the problem with social constructionism is that is only works as long as you don´t pay any attention.

Fact is, that Libya and the world around him, and not least Abdelhakim Belhadj himself have to deal with him, his past, his present, his future, and after the life he has lead, the experiences he has had, his necessarily extremely complex mind. He has to deal with the fact that he has been maneuvering him self, and has been maneuvered into a position where he is a potential candidate for the Presidency or a Prime Minister post in Northern Africa´s riches nation.

There are other persons, great persons, who have undergone such transitions. Yassir Arafat for one. Though he never was tortured, though he never committed massacres at the scale Belhadj has recently committed, he was denounced as a terrorist, and became a President. Only, he never could really slip that nature of the “fighter”. In his case, there was something to fight for that was, and is a worthy cause.

A person like Joshua Nkomo who experienced torture on his own body mind and soul, like Abdelhakim Belhadj, was a difficult case already in terms of fulfilling the function of an all embracing P.M. who would work with the opposition for the best of his country, rather than double dealing against it.  The case of a Nelson Mandela, forgive me, after 27 years of imprisonment, cruel and dehumanizing treatment is difficult too, and only the fact that he is one of the greatest human beings that has walked this earth allowed him to transform his suffering into something that was constructive and re-conciliating for his nation and his people, and not least for himself. However, non of these men was being tortured by the very same “system“, system in a psychological sense, that has helped them to gain a position ……………………………………….    of power and rehabilitation, at least not overtly.

In the case of Abdelhakim Belhadj we have to deal with a potential state leader, and under any circumstance a person with extremely strong influence, who must have an intense love hate relationship to many of the constructions, systems and persons that are tied into the mental fabric of the experiences that dominated the last two decades of his life.  The recent PR effort by Al Jazeera et al., an exercise in applied social constructionism,  is indicating that he is an image problem for the NTC, US, EU, and NATO – and he is aware of that too. More love/hate.

Even though the PR will bolster his ego, it also makes him aware of the fact that he is a problem. Dialectical Problem. Dialectical Problems are hard to bear for unstable personalities. The most likely result of those dialectics and dilemma is that he will become more double dealing, will restrain himself in public, and vent his anger and frustrated aggression the more when it is not seen, wittnessed, or by covert activities.

Just try to be emphatic about how insecure he must be feeling – how much he needs to have control after being tortured, after knowing that the hand that has betrayed and abused him, and used him is the hand that is feeding him now, now where he is at the pinnacle of possibilities. Poor Libyans, poor political and military rivals, poor Libyans who are under suspicion of opposing him. He “must” have an intense need to control in order to feel somewhat safe!! That makes him very hard to work with – it´s a ring that is reenforcing it´s own dynamics.

It´s absolutely not unthinkable that he will be targetted – not right now, but after the NTC is more consolidated and the country more stable, if that ever happens as long as 95 % of it´s population oppose the occupation and everything that comes with it. French, British, US, NATO,Israel,..any of the services that back any of his colleagues or rivals could be the culprit. Alternatively, if he makes it, and he either goes to the very top, or the top of a sub system like the military, it is not unlikely that he will continue to be used as operative for covert militant activities – false flags or similar.

If so, he would be the one to doublecross the ones who make use of his services if he can get away with getting revenge. Imagine a false flag going awry because some DIA, CIA, MI5, MI6 spooks think he could be useful. That´s Him – That´s The Mask Behind The Many Men – Abdelhakim Belhadj.

Dr. Christof Lehmann

24.09.2011