The American media are reluctant to report what the French media have made clear: Al-Qaida has established a beachhead in Libya and fully intends to install Sharia law once government forces are overcome.
An April 19th article in the prominent French daily, Le Figaro, does not shy from chronicling the obvious. It highlights an interview that Al Qaida spokesman Saleh Abi Mohammad gave to the Saudi journal Al-Hayyat, which is published in London.
According to Abi Mohammad, Al Qaida is fighting alongside the Libyan rebels in numerous cities and, in the town of Dernah, has already formed with its allies an Islamic Council, “pour gouverner la ville en vertu de la sharia.”
When asked whether Al-Qaida welcomed foreign intervention, Abi Mohammad answered, (my translation), “It is always preferable to die like a martyr than to ask the help of the crusaders.” He believes that the rebels could have prevailed without assistance, and he does not consider foreign help as “positive.”
The French author of the article accurately sums up the Al Qaida message as “rather disturbing, one that we err in underestimating.”
By Jack Cashill
American Thinker
