Convicted jihadi on London Libyan embassy staff


A recent article in The Times throws an interesting light on the British state’s approach to ‘fighting terrorism’ (David Brown and Richard Spencer, ‘Terror chief Ismail Kamoka works for Libyan embassy’, Times, 24 June 2017).

After Libya had been reduced to rubble by NATO and its leader had been tortured and murdered by Islamist terror gangs supported by the West, it degenerated from a country enjoying the highest Human Development Index in Africa into barbaric chaos. The various proxy Islamist forces which had been amply funded by imperialism to overthrow Gaddafi now transformed the country into a hotbed of Islamist violence, carving up Libya into rival tribalist fiefdoms and exporting terrorism on an international scale. So long as this was targeted mostly at Syria, the West was happy enough, contenting itself with lining up a shadow government in Libya in the hopes of exerting a degree of control over the mayhem. But now with the chaos worsening and ‘blowback’ reaching all the way to the Manchester Arena, even such august apologists for imperialism as the London Times feel obliged to hint at some of the ways in which the chickens are coming home to roost.

The Times article points the finger at one Ismail Kamoka who, it reveals, is employed at the London embassy of the Tripoli ‘government’, which is to say, of the stooge government currently being backed by imperialism and the UN. This is remarkable because it turns out that Kamoka was jailed in the UK in 2007 for three years and nine months, having been found guilty of providing £20,000 a year to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), including “the wider Islamic jihad” outside Libya which he helped along by the provision of fake passports.

In 2005 the al-Qaeda-linked LIFG had been banned in Britain, hence Kamoka’s conviction. But this did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the imperialists and their tame media, not to mention the Stop the War Coalition, for the counter-revolution when it kicked off in 2011, a counter-revolution that was egged on by the West and in which the LIFG played a significant role.

The Times admits that the “recognised government in Tripoli” (i.e. the stooge government upon which imperialism relies to advance its interests) “is backed by a variety of militias and political organisations that came to prominence in the 2011 war, some with strong affiliations to Islamists” – a “variety” which most certainly includes the al-Qaeda-linked LIFG.

So it is that Kamoka, a convicted fundraiser for the LIFG, currently finds himself employed on the embassy staff by the UN and British-backed Tripoli ‘government’. And, according to the Times, the LIFG is linked to Salman Abedi, who killed 22 people in the suicide attack on Manchester Arena. Their relatives are due an explanation, as are the millions of Libyans who have seen forty years of progressive development go up in smoke, and their country turned into a terrorist holiday camp, all in the name of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.