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By Libya Herald reporter
Malta, 17 February 2015:
On the fourth anniversary of the 17 February 2011 Libyan revolution, many are asking how . . .[restrict]did the country that had succeeded in having two universally acclaimed successful democratic elections descent to such a level of a lack of governance, weak institutions, a breakdown of security and a lack of law and order.
Many have asked where are Libya’s security agencies, including its nascent intelligence agency set up with much optimism back in 2012. How were domestic and foreign extremists able to make such advances in the country under the noses of Libya’s new intelligence agency?
Libya’s fledgling internal intelligence service was penetrated by ‘’radicals’’ from its formation and has subsequently split after the occupation of Tripoli by Libya Dawn forces, a well-placed source informed Libya Herald on strict condition of anonymity.
The source informed Libya Herald that while many members of the internal intelligence agency chose to remain in Tripoli and work with the GNC/Libya Dawn Tripoli administration, a number have left Tripoli and joined the official government in Tobruk, whilst others have had to ‘’flee’’ Tripoli in fear for their lives and seek ‘’safety’’ abroad, he claimed.
They were forced to flee, he explained, after the names of agents were exposed, and he warned his former colleagues to protect themselves against possible targeting by radicals.
The new nascent internal intelligence agency was being built on solid scientific foundations under Salam Al-Hassi, he added, but that it started to disintegrate as soon as Al-Hassi resigned in June 2014.
Al-Hassi had been appointed to head the newly created intelligence agency in February 2012 by the NTC.
The agency had started in 2013 to recruit new blood from all over Libya, mainly highly educated members with bachelors, masters and even PhD degrees. There was a move away from the tendency to recruit low educated personnel by the Qaddafi regime, the source.
Recruits were interviewed vigorously and methodically, the source said, with highly professional trainers from the US, UAE and Jordan, he revealed.
One of the units that was created within the agency was a ‘’counter terrorism/extremism’’ unit, he revealed.
However, the source felt that the intelligence service was doomed to failure from the start as it was ‘’penetrated by radicals’’ from within – right from the outset.
The agency and its members were being targeted in the lead-up to Hassi’s resignation, he added, pointing to the attack in May on the Tripoli agency.
In another incident, the intelligence chief in Benghazi, Colonel Ibrahim Sennussi was assassinated, two days after he had appeared on TV threatening to name names behind killings in the city.
In November 2014, the head of the Technical Department of the Agency, Colonel Mukhtar Al-Nayli, was assassinated by a hail of bullets by a number of unknown masked gunmen outside his home in Bu Sleem, Tripoli – all as part of a planned attack by radicals against agency members, the source said.
But even Al-Hassi was being targeted, as these so-called radicals started to call for his removal as head of the agency, before he resigned, the source added.
The whole agency was ‘’exposed’’ after Libya Dawn had occupied Tripoli and the list of agents was ‘’leaked’’. At least one former agency member, now has now fled abroad, was briefly kidnapped and questioned by these ‘‘radicals’’, the source informed Libya Herald.
He was squeezed for names and details about other agency members and their activities, the source said.
The source explained that the message that former agent wanted to send was that of a warning. He wanted his former colleagues to know that they had been exposed and that they should take steps to protect themselves in case they were targeted by these ‘’radicals’’, he explained.
Although quite clearly not the only cause, it is this fundamental built- in weakness of Libya’s ‘’penetrated’’ intelligence agency that has helped create an intelligence and therefore, a security vacuum that is now enabling very extreme forces to operate in Libya unchallenged, the source believes.
Yesterday, the House of Representatives’ (HoR) official spokesman Faraj Abuhashim announced that the HoR had accepted Salem Al-Hassi’s resignation and had appointed a replacement, which it did not name, to head Libya’s General Intelligence Agency. Abuhashim said the decision was as a result of the murder of the 21 Egyptians in Sirte. [/restrict]
