Report: Al Qaeda Has Established Network in Libya

By Newsroom America Staff at 8 Oct 2012

(Newsroom America) -- The al Qaeda terrorist organization has established a core network of operatives in Libya with the aim of destabilizing and eventually taking over the government there, a report said Monday.

The group plans to operate its network while hiding under a new name in order to remain covert, the Washington Free Beacon reported, citing a Pentagon document.

"Al Qaeda has established a core network in Libya, but it remains clandestine and refrains from using the al Qaeda name," the document said, according to the website, which posted a copy online.

The report, prepared by the Library of Congress and the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program, a unit under the assistant defense secretary for special operations, says the terrorist group poses “a significant threat to the state-building process in Libya.”

The 54-page document also says the group responsible for the 9/11 attacks is “seeking to create an al Qaeda clandestine network in Libya that could be activated in the future to destabilize the government and/or to offer logistical support to al Qaeda’s activities in North Africa and the Sahel” — which is the Sahara desert region stretching across northern Africa.

The report is dated August 2012, which is before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed.

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