Blair Ignored Terror Warning By Gadaffi

Transcripts shows Libyan leader foresaw threat from Islamists

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TONY BLAIR may have “wrongfully ignored” a warning from Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Islamist attacks on Europe, newly released telephone transcripts revealed yesterday.

The former Labour prime minister made two calls to Col Gaddafi on February 25 2011, a week after the Libyan regime responded with violence to uprisings in Benghazi and other cities.

Mr Blair used the correspondence to urge the Libyan leader to stand aside and accept a change of government, as demanded by the insurgents.

He said refusing to do so could spell “bloodshed for a lot of Libyan people.”

However, a suspicious Col Gadaffi branded Mr Blair’s plan “colonisation” and blamed the violence on al-Qaida sleeper cells in Libya.

“There is no bloodshed here. It is very quiet. But if you want to reap Libya, we are ready to fight. It will be like Iraq,” the Libyan leader threatened.

He said the uprising was part of a plot by armed Islamists to “control the Mediterranean… and then attack Europe.”

Col Gadaffi bluntly asked Mr Blair: “Do you support al-Qaida? … Are you supporting terrorism?”

The transcripts were released by the House of Commons foreign affairs committee in the wake of evidence Mr Blair gave to the committee last month as part of its investigation into British policy towards Libya.

Committee chairman Crispin Blunt suggested that Col Gadaffi may have been more “prophetic” about the danger from Islamist militancy in Libya if his regime fell than Mr Blair gave him credit for.

Libya has endured civil war since Nato’s 2011 intervention, with Islamic State (Isis) outposts emerging in cities including Sirte.

And the transcripts were released as news broke of a lorry bomb killing at least 60 police officers in the town of Zliten.

Tory MP Mr Blunt said: “The committee will want to consider whether Gadaffi’s prophetic warning of the rise of extremist militant groups following the collapse of the regime was wrongly ignored because of Gadaffi’s otherwise delusional take on international affairs.

“The evidence that the committee has taken so far in this inquiry suggests that Western policy-makers were rather less perceptive than Gadaffi about the risks of intervention for both the Libyan people and the Western interests.”

As prime minister, Mr Blair played a key role in bringing Libya back in from the cold after years of international sanctions, famously meeting Col Gadaffi in his desert tent in 2004.

Source http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-0585-Blair-ignored-terror-warning-by-Gadaffi