The New American
The Western-backed overthrow of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi likely provided huge stocks of heavy weapons to terrorist groups and criminal organizations operating in the Sahel region of North Africa, the United Nations confirmed January 26 in a report. Among the groups benefiting from the arms are al-Qaeda and the deadly Islamic terror organization Boko Haram, which is currently on a killing spree in Nigeria.
The UN report explained that “due to the Libyan upheaval ... governments in the region are faced with the return of millions of economic migrants, the smuggling of weapons from Libyan stockpiles, terrorist activities, youth unemployment, trafficking in drugs and human beings, and a surge in criminality,” the international body summarized in a press release on its findings.
But the international body carefully ignored its own obvious role in creating the tragedy. The UN, of course, first called for the “no-fly zone” over Libya and all measures necessary to “protect civilians” in March of last year. Western powers including the U.S. government promptly interpreted the international resolution as a green light for military strikes and eventually regime change.
Almost incredibly, the UN and some of its member governments are now calling for even more international intervention. To deal with the fallout crisis created by the previous round of failed intervention, a collection of regimes in the region seeking to quash rebel groups joined forces with various UN officials to seize on last week’s report, demanding more support from the international body and the regional African Union (AU).
NATO and its Libyan “National Transitional Council (NTC)” ally on the ground — comprised mainly of known terror leaders, former Gadhafi officials, and assorted Islamic extremists — promised throughout the war to take steps to ensure that Gadhafi’s massive stockpile of military weaponry did not fall into the wrong hands. But it did — almost from the beginning.
As The New American reported throughout the war and the UN’s recent report confirmed once again, everything from machine guns and grenade launchers to anti-aircraft weapons, explosives, and even missiles have made their way out of Libya. Fears also exist about the possible proliferation of chemical agents or other Weapons of Mass Destruction Gadhafi may have hidden....[Full Article]
