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Libya Assassination Plot Launches U.S. Probe; IAEA Says Turkey, South Africa Aided Nuclear Program
Reports that Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi’s intelligence chiefs last year ordered the assassination of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah could severely damage the African nation’s efforts to re-enter the world community following the voluntary dismantlement of its WMD activities, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, June 4). Abdurahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim leader now jailed in Alexandria, Va., and Col. Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer in Saudi custody, gave separate statements detailing the covert effort. Alamoudi told U.S. authorities that Qadhafi approved the assassination plan. He said that in June 2003, Qadhafi told him, “I want the crown prince killed either through assassination or through a coup.” In August, Qadhafi followed up on the order by asking why he had not yet seen “heads flying” in the Saudi royal family, according to Alamoudi. The leader’s son said the accusation was “nonsense.” “I don’t know what [Ismael] is saying in custody, but I can guarantee that nobody asked him to create cells and assassinate people,” said Seif al-Islam el-Qadhafi. The statements by the two men have launched a U.S. investigation into the alleged plot. Officials said the accusations were one reason Libya has not been removed from the State Department’s list of states supporting terrorism, despite Qadhafi’s public renouncement of such activities as well as his abandonment of WMD development. “We are fully aware of Libya's significant past involvement with terrorism,” a senior U.S. official said yesterday. “Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi has pledged to end Libya’s ties with terrorism and cooperate with the United States and our allies in the war on terrorism. We continue to monitor closely Libya’s adherence to this pledge,” the official added. The enmity between Qadhafi and the Saudi royal family is long-standing, according to the Times. Qadhafi and Abdullah clashed at the Arab summit meeting before the Iraq war last year. During a public exchange of insults, Abdullah glared at Qadhafi and said, “Your lies precede you and your grave is in front of you.” If U.S., British and Saudi investigations conclude the Libyan plot existed, it would undermine Qadhafi’s pledge that he has abandoned terrorism, and international sanctions could be reinstated, according to the Times. A senior U.S. official said a “180-degree” shift in American policy on Libya could result if conclusive evidence of the plot were to emerge (Patrick Tyler, New York Times, June 9). Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency said suppliers from Turkey and South Africa were a crucial part of the network that provided Libya’s now-defunct nuclear weapons program with technology and expertise, the Financial Times reported. The agency investigation into the nuclear black market led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has included interviews with Libyan, Iranian and Pakistani scientists and officials. An intelligence officer close to the investigation of the Libyan program said yesterday that a container of Turkish-manufactured uranium enrichment components slipped through security when the ship carrying it was seized under the Proliferation Security Initiative. It was allowed to reach Tripoli in March because of the difficulties of searching the entire ship, according to the Times. “There were some containers on the [ship] about which the U.S. and the U.K. were certain. These were the ones that were taken off the ship. But there was one other — which was the one that got to Tripoli — about which we weren’t certain,” he said. The IAEA report also said Libyan engineers studied a set of equipment for 10,000 centrifuges “during a training visit to another African country.” Diplomats say that country was South Africa, according to the Times. The revelations indicate that the Khan network assembled sensitive components in countries with weak export-control regimes, thereby sidestepping tougher laws in other countries, according to Institute of Science and International Security President David Albright. He added that these components were assembled from less sensitive parts exported from European countries, indicating a need for European countries to tighten further their export-control regimes (Fidler/Huband, Financial Times, June 10).
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