Life
The Defense Intelligence Agency says he was 41 at the time of his death, putting his birth date around 1967. In the 1980s he was one of the Afghan Arabs who came to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet-Afghan War. He returned to Libya in 1994 and took part in a failed attempt to oust Muammar Gaddafi. In the wake of this attempt al-Libi escaped to Saudi Arabia, where he was imprisoned in Riyadh following the Khobar Towers bombing. Sometime thereafter he was either released or managed to escape, and came to Afghanistan to collaborate with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In 1997, a dispute between the two oldest brothers of the Canadian Khadr family, Abdullah and Abdurahman, was mediated by al-Libi, who earned their confidence and respect telling them about Dubai and Ferraris, and they later referred to him as a "really cool" person. In 2002, he approached the father Ahmed Khadr about letting the 15-year old Omar serve as a translator for some Arab "visitors" in the region. When a gun-battle resulted in the young translator being sent to Guantanamo Bay, al-Libi tried to placate the family with gifts and apologies, but Khadr remained furious and refused to associate with al-Libi, whom he blamed for not taking care of his son.
In May 2005 when Abu Faraj al-Libbi was captured in Pakistan, his identity was confused in many reports with Abu Laith al-Libi.
al-Libi was seen in two online videos in 2007, the first of which called for the kidnapping of Westerners. The second claimed preparations were being made for war against Israel and the subsequent imposition of Islam in the world. In February of that year he is said to have been involved in the Bagram Air Base bombing, which al-Qaeda claimed was an attempted assassination of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. In November 2007 he reported the merger of Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a Libyan group waging jihad against Gaddafi, with al-Qaeda; this would be his last public appearance before his death.
Read more about this topic: Abu Laith Al-Libi
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Since as a child I used to lie
Upon the leaze and watch the sky,
Never, I own, expected I
That life would all be fair.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist—the only thing he’s good for—is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning. Even if it’s only his view of a meaning. That’s what he’s for—to give his view of life.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
“One of the lies would make it out that nothing
Ever presents itself before us twice.
Where would we be at last if that were so?
Our very life depends on everything’s
Recurring till we answer from within.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)