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Abdullah Douma / AFP - Getty Images
Libyan police officers stand on high alert Tuesday after a car, belonging to a police officer, exploded near the police station in Libya's eastern city of Benghazi.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- U.S. officials in Libya have begun to look for recruits for a commando force which they plan to train to fight militants, a former commander of Libyan rebels who toppled Moammar Gadhafi said Tuesday.
After a wave of anti-American violence in the Arab world in September during which the U.S. ambassador to Libya died in an Islamist militant attack, President Barack Obama took measures to improve the security of U.S. diplomatic installations in the region.
A team of about 10 Americans from the embassy in Tripoli visited a paramilitary base in the eastern city of Benghazi 10 days ago to interview and get to know potential recruits, according to militia commander Fathi al-Obeidi.
"The American team asked us for a tour of our base and we granted them permission to walk around freely," he told Reuters.
"They stood with many of our men taking down information. They asked them about their ages, backgrounds, their tribal loyalties. They wanted to know what kind of training they had received, if any," he added.
Terrorist groups in Libya tried to coalesce in month leading to consulate attack, officials say
The president pledges he will get to the bottom of the events that led to the death of a U.S. ambassador in Libya and calls Romney's criticisms of his actions following the attack "offensive."
The Pentagon declined comment on any recent visit by a U.S. delegation to Benghazi, referring queries to the State Department.
At the same time, it acknowledged a need to develop Libyan special operations forces.
"But a final decision on the program has not been made, and many details, like the ultimate size, composition and mission of the force are still to be determined," said Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel James Gregory.
'Everything can change'
Obeidi is a commander with Libya's Shield, an umbrella group for various armed militias that refused to join the official army after the war that ousted Gadhafi last year, saying it was still being run by Gadhafi loyalists.
Goran Tomasevic / REUTERS
An uprising in Libya ousts dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
He also helped a team of U.S. Marines in September lead a rescue effort that saved a group of Americans hiding in a safe house after an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens died.
Obeidi said the interviewers also took note of the types of uniforms the men were wearing and asked about their opinion on security in Libya.
Car bomb rocks Benghazi police station
He said that the team of American officials included the U.S. charge d'affaires Laurence Pope and the future head trainer of the Libyan special forces team.
"I've been asked to help pick about 400 of these young men between the ages of 19 and 25 to train for this force," he said. "They could be trained either in Libya or abroad."
Rebel fighters, civilian protesters storm Libya's parliament
The force may be required to fight jihadi militants like those accused in the September 11 assault on the consulate.
Gregory said only that U.S. officials in Libya would work with Libyans "to assess their needs and develop options for ways the U.S. can support them through this transitional period."
"Obviously, this is still a fluid environment and everything can change," he said.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says that the military responded quickly to events on the ground in Benghazi, but that the attack was over before the Pentagon really knew what was happening.
Obama moved after the September violence to beef up protection of U.S. diplomatic installations in the Arab world, sending in Marine contingents to several embassies and temporarily reducing the number of U.S. personnel at some posts.
The consulate assault became a highly politicized issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign, with Republican challenger Mitt Romney accusing Obama of taking weeks to acknowledge that the incident was a "terrorist" attack, rather than violence prompted by anger over an anti-Islam film.
It occurred during a wave of Muslim protest across the Arab world over the film produced in California, which also sparked violence against U.S. diplomatic missions in Tunisia and Egypt.
However, official emails obtained by Reuters showed that the White House and State Department were advised two hours after the consulate attack that an Islamist militant group had claimed responsibility.
Obama and other U.S. officials have acknowledged that the attack was a "terrorist" act by militants with suspected links to al-Qaida affiliates or sympathizers.
He also vowed to bring to justice those responsible for the Benghazi attack.
But Washington may struggle to decide whom to target. The increasingly diffuse nature of al-Qaida, its allies and sympathizers complicates the job of identifying precisely which individuals and groups were behind the attacks.
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Leave a Comment:
This how the Vietnam War started.
Will we never learn?
We know the Pentagon's answer:
ultimate size: as big as possible
mission of the force: to make money for the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
Here we go....Afghan security, part 2. I hope, at the very least, we learned not to give them ammo until our people are safely out of their gunsights.
We trained Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda how to fight the Russians, we trained the Zetas how to fight, we trained the RAF how to fight.... Yep all those worked out well for us.
You can't ask for a better guard than one that wants to kill you? Wouldn't this be more like paying off the enemy not to kill us than providing them with a job?
Arming an anti-militant force makers it a militant force, doesn't it?
Here we go again "marching into another quagmire" with eyes wide open! I think it is time for the US to "drop back 10 and punt". The ME is like a Demolition Derby of junk cars, why not wait and see what the outcome of all of the "Arab Spring" nonsense is over?
Wonderful thought, Jack. Unfortunately, presidents have been using "crises" on far shores for decades to hide their ineptness at domestic policy.
Roger that Bill, I was once a part of the "tip of the spear" for 24+ years, 69-93 - travelled to far away lands, visited new cultures and ....
Yeppers,
I was once an expert on Southeast Asian soils.
"Get paid to travel. Visit exiting places. Meet interesting people. Kill them."
Ah... here we go using mercenaries to to the jobs US soldiers used to perform. Have to make sure the well connected Washington war profiteers are fat and happy...
The Benghazi Mission (not a consulate) has been recruiting rebel fighters to go into Syria. This is the Liberal Media and the Obama's Administration chance to make it look like something they are "going to be doing" - when in fact - it is "What they have" been doing. Why do you think they put this issue on the back burner until after the election? Why do you think they are avoiding revealing the truth to the American people? Why do you think Hilary Clinton is ready to leave?
To be fair though, I don't think there's much they can do. The only way to fight militants is to get on the ground, kill them, and seize and hold territory and these dudes are too widely dispersed for that to be an option. And even if Obama wanted to do that sort of thing (which is a huge assumption in and of itself) most Americans have forgotten about September 11th and are ready to go back to their couches (which, ironically, is were most of them stayed for the last two wars.)
Training some indegenous commandos is good for doing a few targeted raids here and there, but its not going to alter the dyanmics of that country in any significant way. Same with drone strikes - good for killing a leader or two, but clearly they aren't making (Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, or Libya) anymore stable, anymore closer to becoming a viable nation state.
Your questions only make sense if we accept your unproven notion that this is a deception that has been going on for a long time.
I have seen no indication that we have been fighting in Syria or that our government wants to. I have no reason not to believe the President when he suggests that he wants to see a multilateral solution without the use of American military force. Nor have I seen a shred of evidence from people who INSIST that we are fighting that war, only for some reason Obama is hiding it.
Moammar Qaddafi considered the force that overthrew him to be 'militants', but the US is now interfering in Libya, and the 'militants' will simply shift their focus from the new government to the US. Why can't we just leave well enough alone?
Because we're already involved?
I mean, we want Libya to succeed. We also want it to be secure enough for us to have an embassy. So it makes perfect sense to help them with their glaring security issues.
The problem with leaving "well enough alone" is that the situation is not "well enough".
Lemme get this str8 cuz im trying to think this through. To free the people of Libya from Ghaddafi, we armed rebels. Now those same rebels that succeeded in killing Ghaddafi are persecuting their civilians & in order to help the unarmed civillians, we are gonna give them weapons? Why couldnt we do these extensive background checks & tribal loyalties to the Libyan weapons we first gave guns too? C'mon Obama, wat are u doing
Obama, show them your Nobel Peace Prize. How could a man with such good intentions bring such misery to the whole Arab world. You are an idealist. You see the world as it should be and not as it is. And because you don't see reality, you can't act rationally...and you are the boss.
It will take generations to clean up your mistakes.
Well,I guess in a couple of years or less we'll have another group of American trained fighters to fight.
QUOTE: "I've been asked to help pick about 400 of these young men between the ages of 19 and 25 to train for this force," he said. "They could be trained either in Libya or abroad."
It reminds me of that episode from Heller's "Catch 22," in which the Germans and Americans both agree to bomb their own airfields in order to save the fuel which might otherwise be spent on having to fly long distances to one another's airfields.
Why don't we simply blow up our own embassy in the future? That will save the cost of arming the Libyan militia.