Report: British special forces train Libyan troops
LONDON -- Some of Britain's most elite soldiers have been training Libyan forces
in counterterrorism and surveillance for the past six months, a newspaper said
Saturday. The Daily Telegraph said a contingent of between four and 14 men from
the Special Air Service, or SAS, were working with Col. Moammar Gadhafi's soldiers
in Libya, a country once notorious for its support of terrorism.
The paper cited an unidentified SAS source as saying that the training was seen as
part of the deal to release Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, whose return
to Libya last month outraged Americans and raised questions over the nature of
Britain's relationship with Gadhafi's authoritarian regime.
Britain's military refused to comment on the Telegraph's report. The Foreign Office
said Britain had "ongoing co-operation with Libya in the field of defence," but refused
to comment on the issue of special forces. It denied in a statement that the defenceco-
operation had anything to do with al-Megrahi's release.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other government officials have emphasized Libya's
remarkable transformation from rogue state to Western ally and the need to keep
Gadhafi on board since he renounced terrorism and dismantled his country's clandestine
nuclear program in 2003. But media reports have suggested that the prisoner exchange
agreement that paved the way for al-Megrahi release was motivated in part by a desire
to secure access to Libya's vast energy reserves. British Justice Secretary Jack Straw
seemed to endorse that claim when he told the Telegraph last week that trade played
"a very big part" in the negotiations over the prisoner deal.
Britain's thirst for Libya's oil and gas resources was again thrust into the spotlight earlier
this month when it was reported that Brown had refused to lobby Gadhafi for compensation
for the Britons killed and injured by Libyan-supplied plastic explosives used by the Irish
Republican Army in the 1980s and '90s. In a letter written last year to a survivor of one
of the IRA bombings, then-junior Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell explained that Libya
was now "a vital partner ... in guaranteeing a secure energy future for the U.K."
Britain's secretive SAS is among the world's best respected commando units. It was created
during World War II for attacks behind Axis lines, but the group has since turned its attention
to fighting terrorists. Among its best-known operations was the 1980 raid on the Iranian
Embassy in London, which broke an Iraqi-backed siege. The SAS also played an active role
in suppressing IRA rebels -- many of whom were supplied with Libyan weapons and explosives.
Robin Horsfall, a former SAS soldier who participated in the Iranian Embassy siege and fought
the IRA in Northern Ireland, said giving special forces training to the Libyans was putting lives
at risk. "People will die as a result of this decision," he told Sky News television, explaining
that the Libyans "can learn how to defeat what we do." He added that the military's refusal to
talk about the report was telling.
"When they say 'no comment' we can read our own interpretation into that," he told the broadcaster.
BBC News :
SAS training Libya, paper claims
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