{"id":15295,"date":"2012-11-09T21:07:23","date_gmt":"2012-11-10T02:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=15295"},"modified":"2012-11-09T21:07:23","modified_gmt":"2012-11-10T02:07:23","slug":"how-us-ambassador-chris-stevens-may-have-been-linked-to-jihadist-rebels-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/11\/how-us-ambassador-chris-stevens-may-have-been-linked-to-jihadist-rebels-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by Michael Kelley<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The official position is that the US has<\/span>\u00a0refused to allow<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0heavy weapons into Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there’s growing evidence that U.S. agents\u2014particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens\u2014were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March 2011 Stevens<\/span>\u00a0became<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0the official U.S. liaison to the<\/span>\u00a0al-Qaeda-linked<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group\u2014a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters<\/span>\u00a0reportedly<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0participating in the attack that took Stevens’ life.<\/span><\/p>\n

In November 2011<\/span>\u00a0The\u00a0<\/span><\/a>Telegraph<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey” in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month<\/span>\u00a0The Times of London reported<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0that a Libyan ship “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria \u2026 has docked in Turkey.” The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included<\/span>\u00a0SA-7<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those heavy weapons are most likely from<\/span>\u00a0Muammar Gaddafi’s stock<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles\u2014the bulk of them SA-7s\u2014that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc.<\/span>\u00a0Reuters reports<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to<\/span>\u00a0shoot down<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ship’s captain was\u00a0“a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organization called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support,” which was presumably established by the new government.<\/span><\/p>\n

That means that Ambassador Stevens had only one person\u2014Belhadj\u2014between himself and the Benghazi man who brought heavy weapons to Syria.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, we know that<\/span>\u00a0jihadists are the best fighters<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0in the Syrian opposition, but where did they come from?<\/span><\/p>\n

Last week<\/span>\u00a0The Telegraph reported<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0that a FSA commander called them “Libyans” when he explained that the FSA doesn’t “want these extremist people here.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And if the new Libyan government was sending\u00a0seasoned Islamic fighters\u00a0and 400 tons of\u00a0heavy weapons\u00a0to Syria through<\/span>\u00a0a port in southern Turkey<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u2014a deal brokered by Stevens’ primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution\u2014then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore there was\u00a0a<\/span>\u00a0CIA post in Benghazi<\/span><\/a><\/span>, located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as “a base for, among other things,\u00a0collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles<\/strong>” … and that its security features “were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And we know that the CIA has been<\/span>\u00a0funneling weapons to the rebels<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0in southern Turkey. The question is whether the CIA has been involved in handing out the heavy weapons from Libya.<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, the connection between Benghazi and the rise of jihadists in Syria is stronger than has been officially acknowledged.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Michael Kelley The official position is that the US has\u00a0refused to allow\u00a0heavy weapons into Syria. But there’s growing evidence that U.S. agents\u2014particularly murdered ambassador..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,21,84,189,97],"tags":[228,330,197,226,242,345,277,284],"class_list":["post-15295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-international","category-statements","category-us-military","category-us-news","tag-colonialism","tag-former-eastern-bloc","tag-imperialism","tag-imperialist-war","tag-libya","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-syria","tag-turkey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/syria_15295_2b6f4.jpg?fit=620%2C465&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}