Along the front in eastern Libya, many rebels are aware that a tiny number of former Islamic militants have joined their ranks, writes Hala Jaber.
“I would say they represent 3% of the rebels, but they are battling for the same goal — to free Libya of the dictator,” said Mohammed, 30, a fighter and writer.
Most Libyans, he said, followed a moderate school of Islam, not a radical or militant version.
American intelligence has picked up only “flickers” of Al-Qaeda activity among the rebel groups, Admiral James Stavridis, Nato’s operations commander, told the Senate armed services committee in Washington last Tuesday. He admitted there was still no detailed picture of the emerging opposition.
The fears of some western intelligence agencies that Islamic extremists may be influencing the revolt have been fuelled by concern about militancy in the town of Darnah, east of Benghazi.
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Darnah, denounced by Muammar Gadaffi as an Al-Qaeda hotbed, sent about 300 men and youths to Iraq to wage jihad against the US-led occupation.
One resident who has taken up arms against Gadaffi is Mohammed Sufian al-Gummu, 20. He insists he is fighting to free Libya from its oppressive regime and not to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state.
Last summer, I met Gummu in Tripoli as his father — who was alleged to be a senior Al-Qaeda member — was released from Abu Salim prison in Tripoli as part of a reconciliation programme with Libya’s Islamists.
The release was supervised by Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, the dictator’s son, who presented Gummu Sr as an example of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who had renounced violence. Libyan officials claimed that Gummu had been a driver for Osama Bin Laden. He denied this.
He was transferred from Guantanamo to Libya in September 2007.
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Mohammed al-Gummu was shot in the leg as the rebels fought in Bin Jawad a few weeks ago. Others from Darnah were killed.
One of the rebel leaders from Darnah is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) that has long opposed Gadaffi, which was banned as an Al-Qaeda affiliate after the 2001 terrorist attacks in America. A former chemistry teacher, Hasadi is the only Islamist serving in Libya’s new transitional council.
He, too, denied claims of an Al-Qaeda presence among instigators of the revolution. “Gadaffi is trying to divide the people,” he told Al Jazeera. “He claims there is an Islamist emirate in Darnah and that I am its emir. He is taking advantage of the fact that I am a former political prisoner.”
Hasadi admits he was detained after going to fight in Afghanistan and was then held in Libya for five years.
According to Abdelhakim Belhadj, a former LIFG leader who was freed in Tripoli in March last year, the group broke with Al-Qaeda and was dissolved in 2009.
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