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CIA Official Discussed Terrorism With Qadhafi
A top U.S. intelligence official traveled to Libya this month to discuss cooperation on counterterrorism, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, Nov. 9). CIA Deputy Director Vice Adm. Albert Calland and a few other agency officials met with Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi and his intelligence aide, Abdullah Sanusi, according to three sources. Qadhafi criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq and told Calland that Washington should focus on eliminating al-Qaeda and related terrorist groups. He also offered full assistance from Tripoli in that effort, the sources said. The CIA declined to comment on the trip, according to the Times. While Libya remains designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department, U.S. relations with the North African country have improved since Qadhafi’s 2003 decision to renounce terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Sanusi, however, is wanted in France for the bombing of a civilian aircraft over Africa in 1989. He was convicted in absentia and is prohibited from traveling to many European countries and the United States, a senior State Department official told the Times. “Sanusi at one time was Qadhafi’s closest confidant and hatchet man,” said Henry Schuler, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Libya in the mid-1960s. “He was especially powerful during the period when Libyan terrorism was at its peak.” Sanusi has also been connected to an alleged Libyan plot to kill former Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, who is now king (see GSN June 10, 2004), according to the Times (Ken Silverstein, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 17).
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