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Blame Hillary and Obama: Tons of Uranium Concentrate Missing From Libya

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Some 2.5 tons of natural uranium stored in a site in war-torn Libya have gone missing, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Thursday, raising safety and proliferation concerns.

Natural uranium can’t immediately be used for energy production or bomb fuel, as the enrichment process typically requires the metal to be converted into a gas, then later spun in centrifuges to reach the levels needed. However, each ton of natural uranium — if obtained by a group with the technological means and resources — can be refined to 5.6 kilograms of weapons-grade material over time, experts say. That makes finding the missing metal important for nonproliferation experts.

In a statement, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, informed member states Wednesday about the missing uranium. . .

Tuesday, “agency safeguards inspectors found that 10 drums containing approximately 2.5 tons of natural uranium in the form of uranium ore concentrate were not present as previously declared at a location in the state of Libya,” the IAEA said. . .

While inspectors removed the last of the enriched uranium from Libya in 2009, the yellowcake remained behind, with the U.N. in 2013 estimating some 6,400 barrels of it were stored at Sabha. American officials had worried Iran could try to purchase the uranium from Libya, something Qadhafi’s top civilian nuclear official tried to reassure the U.S. about, according to a 2009 diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks. (Read more from “Blame Hillary and Obama: Tons of Uranium Concentrate Missing From Libya” HERE)

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Libya Says to Probe ‘Slave Auction’ Footage

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Libya will investigate alleged slave trading in the country, the internationally recognised government announced Sunday, following the release of video footage appearing to show migrants being auctioned off.

Chaos-ridden Libya has long been a major transit hub for migrants trying to reach Europe, and many of them have fallen prey to serious abuse in the North African country at the hands of traffickers and others.

US television network CNN aired the footage last week of an apparent live auction in Libya where black men are presented to North African buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Metig said his UN-backed Government of National Accord would investigate the allegations, in a statement posted Sunday on the Facebook page of the GNA’s press office.

Metig said he would instruct the formation of a “commission to investigate these reports in order to apprehend and bring those responsible to justice”, the statement added. (Read more from “Libya Says to Probe ‘Slave Auction’ Footage” HERE)

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Hillary Declares ‘We Did Not Lose a Single American’ in Libya

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Hillary Clinton is taking heat for saying that, in Libya, she “put together a coalition that included NATO, included the Arab League, and we were able to save lives. We did not lose a single American in that action.” She made this claim during Wednesday’s presidential forum on NBC.

Some would beg to differ, citing the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

Politifact investigated Hillary Clinton’s claim, and while deeming it “narrowly accurate,” acknowledges that it is also “so narrowly framed as to be misleading.”

Clinton is correct when she says that no Americans died in the coalition effort to oust Moammar Gadhafi over seven months in 2011, but the direct result of that coalition was a power vacuum in Libya that Islamic extremists have taken advantage of. Ted Bromund, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, told Politifact, “In the forum, Clinton used ‘a very narrow definition, one custom-built to define away any of the larger problems with the Libyan intervention.’”

Exactly. Four Americans died in Libya — including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens — as a result of the power vacuum created under NATO while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. It’s misleading for Hillary Clinton to ignore these deaths when claiming no American lives were lost in Libya. (For more from the author of “Hillary Declares ‘We Did Not Lose a Single American’ in Libya” please click HERE)

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Is This Hillary’s New Libya Narrative?

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Lanny Davis, trusted Clinton surrogate and advisor, told Washington’s WMAL radio station Thursday that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is not to blame for Libya’s current state of affairs because the U.S. role was under a joint NATO operation.

Davis’s comments may indicate the Clinton campaign intends to blame Libya’s failed state on NATO and President Barack Obama, to absolve her significant role in pushing for the intervention in 2011. Clinton was a strong advocate of military force against NATO in 2011. Sidney Blumenthal, a trusted Clinton confidant and Davis friend, even emailed Clinton in 2011 counseling her, “this is an historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it.”

When WMAL radio hosts asked Davis about Clinton’s complicity in the Obama administration’s withdrawal from Iraq, Davis retorted “that was Obama’s policy.” Davis’s comments may indicate the Clinton campaign intends to drastically play down Clinton’s role in the effects of Obama’s foreign policy, while simultaneously taking credit for the office of Secretary of State.

Davis’s comments portrayed the Libyan intervention as one that NATO, with France in the lead, would pursue regardless of a U.S. role in the operation. Washington committed significant U.S. assets to the operation, and was critical in bringing the fall of Libyan dictator Colonel Gadhafi. A New York Times report from February 2016, examining the U.S. decision-making process in Libya, revealed that Clinton was the key to Obama’s decision to intervene. (Read more from “Is This Hillary’s New Libya Narrative?” HERE)

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US Airstrike ‘Likely’ Killed Al Qaeda Leader in Libya

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The U.S. military launched an airstrike that targeted and “likely” killed the Al Qaeda leader behind the attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013 that killed 35 hostages, including three Americans, a senior defense official told Fox News Sunday.

Libyan government and U.S. officials say warplanes targeted Mokhtar BelMokhtar and several others in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. The U.S. filed terrorism charges against BelMokhtar last year in connection with the Algeria attack. Officials have said they believe he remained a threat to U.S. and Western interests.

The Libyan government in a statement said that the strike came after consultation with the U.S. so that America could take action against a terror leader there.

One government official in Libya said an airstrike in Ajdabiya hit a group believed to be affiliated with Ansar al-Shariah, and that it killed five and injured more. He said the group that was injured got into clashes with the Libyan military that guarded the hospital there, leading to hours of fighting. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters . . .

The charges filed against Belmokhtar by federal law enforcement officials in Manhattan included conspiring to support Al Qaeda and use of a weapon of mass destruction. Additional charges of conspiring to take hostages and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence carry a maximum penalty of death. (Read more from “US Airstrike ‘Likely’ Killed Al Qaeda Leader in Libya” HERE)

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Obama’s Libyan Strategy Creates Another Civil War

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Hani Amara

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Hani Amara

President Barack Obama’s Libyan strategy is imploding, just in time for the second anniversary of the Sept. 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans.

The fast-growing crisis may force Obama to align the U.S. with an emerging semi-secular, mostly-Arab coalition that includes military officers formerly loyal to the dictator he ousted in 2011.

That coalition is rallying Arab clans against an aggressive al-Qaida style jihadi army that includes many ethnic groups in Libya, including Berbers and the descendants of a Turkish occupation starting in the 1500s.

“It is creeping up on us… It is going to be like a new Afghanistan,” said Ibrahim Omar, one of the semi-secular leaders form Libya’s western region, said an Aug. 24 report by the New York Times.

“Tripoli, the capital and the main prize, has become a battleground,” said the NYT.

Read more from this story HERE.

How the West Rode in to Save Libya, then Abandoned it to its Fate

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Photo Credit: EPA

Photo Credit: EPA

In the early hours of Saturday morning, under the cover of the Mediterranean darkness, US warships quietly moved into place off the North African coast. We can’t say how many, but among them were a destroyer, the USS Ross, and a guided-missile cruiser, the USS Vella Gulf.

At about the same time, three F16 fighter jets took off from Aviano Air Base in Italy and headed south, along with two MV-22 Osprey transport planes carrying a full complement of rapid reaction force marines from another US base in Italy, Sigonella. Surveillance drones circled overhead, and in support flew a KC-135 airborne refuelling tanker from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. As often happens, Britain played a small but loyal part in this American military adventure.

Anyone of my generation thinks they know what happens next: a savage retaliatory raid, perhaps, against a terror-supporting dictator; a precision strike to warn some pariah state of the consequences of ignoring the West’s collective will; or a small country invaded, its regime removed, as per Panama or Grenada all those years ago.

But times have changed; how they have changed. This was no show of strength by the most fearsome, overwhelming arsenal the world has ever seen. This was panic. The American might was in place to protect the evacuation to Tunisia of the 78 staff of the American embassy in Libya, along with the 80 “heavily armed” marines who are supposed to guard them but are not enough, apparently, to keep them safe from the militias and crazies currently roaming the country. In the Pentagon, the cheers were not for a brave victory but for an ignominious escape.

No one wants to leave diplomats in danger, of course, and better an organised exit than the hurried 1975 airlift from Saigon. But that was at the end of a long and bitter war against the Communist Menace. On this occasion, the decision to abandon an important Western ally was taken after the embassy found itself too close to battles between a bunch of guys who fully merit that epithet so often used to describe them: ragtag.

Read more from this story HERE.

Libyan Warplanes Strike Islamist Militias in Benghazi

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORIBy Reuters.

Libyan warplanes bombed militia bases in Benghazi on Wednesday as part of a renegade former general’s campaign to purge the chaotic North African state of Islamist militants, witnesses and officials said.

Two jets attacked a base belonging to the February 17 brigade, one of the Islamist-leaning armed groups operating in Benghazi, and an Ansar al-Sharia militant base in the west of the city, a Reuters witness and an air force official said.

The attacks are part of a campaign by irregular forces loyal to former Libyan army general Khalifa Haftar who earlier this month launched operations against Islamist militants he says the weak central government has failed to control.

“Our forces are bombing the February 17 battalion base and Ansar al-Sharia base in Quarsha,” Mohamed Hejazi, a spokesman for Haftar, told Reuters.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APAmericans Urged to Leave Libya After Group Linked to Benghazi Attack Threatens U.S.

By Patrick Goodenough.

The State Department on Tuesday warned American citizens not to travel to Libya and urged those there to leave immediately.

The embassy in Tripoli has not been evacuated, although the administration began positioning military assets in Sicily last week to carry out a potential emergency extraction if deemed necessary. The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan moved into the Mediterranean Sea.

“This is a portion of a special purpose Marine Air-Guard task force crisis response that’s moved to a naval air station in Sicily,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing. “This positioning was done in the event these resources are needed in the future.”

“We continue to review the situation and address embassy security needs,” Psaki said.

The travel warning said the staffing at the embassy has been limited, “due to security concerns,” and that the mission could offer only “very limited emergency services to U.S. citizens.”

Read more from this story HERE.

DHS Plan: Let Libyans Train Here for ‘Flight Operations,’ ‘Nuclear-Related Fields’

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Photo Credit: APA draft regulation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would lift a 30-year-ban on Libyan nationals coming to the United States to work or train in “aviation maintenance, flight operations, or nuclear-related fields.”

The 11-page proposed rule was obtained by Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).

In a statement on his congressional website, Rep. Chaffetz said that the draft final regulation could take effect without prior notice and comment. The congressmen say the prohibition was put in place in the 1980s after the wave of terrorist incidents involving Libyans.

“The administration justifies lifting this ban by claiming that the United States’ relationship with Libya has been ‘normalized,’” the statement said.

But the congressmen also say, “the terror threat continues and numerous news reports document recent terror-related stories coming from Libya. And just over a year ago the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was attacked, which resulted in the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Libya Demands Explanation for ‘Kidnapping’ of Citizen by US Forces

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Photo Credit: US Navy/AlamyLibya has demanded an explanation for the “kidnapping” of one of its citizens by American special forces, hours after a separate US military raid on a terrorist target in Somalia ended in apparent failure and retreat.

In Tripoli the US Army’s Delta force seized alleged al-Qaida leader Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Abu Anas al-Liby and wanted for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 220 people.

The New York Times reported that Liby was being held in military custody and interrogated on board a navy ship, the USS Antonio, in the Mediterranean.

But US Navy Seals suffered a major setback when they launched an amphibious assault to capture an Islamist militant leader said to be Ahmed Godane, described as Africa’s most wanted man and the architect of last month’s attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya. The elite Seals were beaten back by heavy fire and apparently abandoned equipment that the Somali militants photographed and posted on the internet.

As dramatic details of Saturday’s twin operations emerged, US Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that terrorists “can run but they can’t hide” , but faced growing questions about America’s military reach in Africa and the consequences of unilateral aggression.

Read more from this story HERE.