Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

his brother, to many different countries in the region including Ghana, Senegal, Morocco,
and Algeria. 372
Eventually he went to Saudi Arabia, where he joined jihadists fighting the Soviet-installed
government in Afghanistan. 373 He also may have spent some time in Syria studying engineering.
374 Eventually he became the head of the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan,
which pre-dated al Qaeda and was not known to be aligned with any particular group. 375
Various Islamist armed groups trained there, not just al Qaeda. While al-Libi has been
labeled both a senior LIFG member and a senior al Qaeda operative, the evidence suggests
that he was not a member of either armed group. 376 Some sources said that he strongly
disagreed with al Qaeda’s philosophy and did not like Bin Laden. 377 “For [al-Libi], his time
in Afghanistan was more about a man making his way in the world, making a living,” said
al-Libi’s brother el-Fakhri. “It wasn’t because he agreed with al Qaeda or their ideological
thoughts … absolutely not.” 378
372 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdul Aziz el-Fakhri, March 22, 2012.
373 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdul Aziz el-Fakhri, March 22, 2012.
374 Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris, (New York: Crown, 2006), p. 119.
375 Soufan, The Black Banners, p. 132 (“Khaldan predated al-Qaeda, having been established during the Afghan jihad
against the Soviets.… Khaldan was known to be an independent camp.”). See also Omar Nashiri (pseudonym), Inside the
Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p. 102-242.
376 “Neither [Khaldan’s] external emir, Abu Zubaydah, nor its internal emir, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Liby was a member of al-Qaeda
and these emirs prized their independence.” Soufan, The Black Banners, p. 132. At one point during his interrogation al-Libi
said he was a member of al Qaeda but later in 2004, he said he only said that so that his treatment by the Americans would
improve, which it did. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), “Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and
Links to Terrorism and How They Compare with Prewar Assessments,” September 8, 2006, (“SSCI – Sept. 8, 2006 Report”) p.
80. http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf (accessed June 2, 2012).
377 “Al-Libi was not a member of our group,” Shoroeiya, a senior LIFG member, said during a Human Rights Watch interview
in Tripoli, Libya, on March 18, 2012;
“[Al-Libi] told me specifically that he thought al Qaeda was bad for Islam, that he did not agree with their philosophy, and
that he especially did not agree with the attack on the US.” Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Mohammed
Bousidra, who was detained with al-Libi in the Foreign Intelligence Building (Bousidra in cell three and al-Libi in cell seven),
April 2, 2012; see also Human Rights Watch interview with Abdul Aziz el-Fakhri, March 22, 2012;
When members of an FBI team were interrogating al-Libi, before the CIA stepped in and before enhanced interrogation methods
were used, “it emerged that [al-Libi] hadn’t actually liked bin Laden, who had tried to force him to train only al-Qaeda fighters,
not all Muslims, which was his preference.” Jane Mayer, The Dark Side (New York: Anchor Books, 2009) p. 105.
378 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdul Aziz el-Fakhri, March 22, 2012;
“Al-Libi had very good relationships with all the groups. He was learning, teaching, and fighting and his mantra was to be
loyal to whoever he was working for, to the place where he was. For him it was a job.” Human Rights Watch telephone
interview with Bousidra, April 2, 2012.
121 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2012