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WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency has inserted clandestine operatives into Libya to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and to contact and vet the beleaguered rebels battling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces, according to American officials. While President Obama has insisted that no American military ground troops participate in the Libyan campaign, small groups of C.I.A. operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help bleed Colonel Qaddafi’s military, the officials said. In addition to the C.I.A. presence, composed of an unknown number of Americans who had worked at the spy agency’s station in Tripoli and others who arrived more recently, current and former British officials said that dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are working inside Libya. The British operatives have been directing airstrikes from British jets and gathering intelligence about the whereabouts of Libyan government tank columns, artillery pieces and missile installations, the officials said. American officials hope that similar information gathered by American intelligence officers — including the location of Colonel Qaddafi’s munitions depots and the clusters of government troops inside towns — might help weaken Libya’s military enough to encourage defections within its ranks. In addition, the American spies are meeting with rebels to try to fill in gaps in understanding who their leaders are and the allegiances of the groups opposed to Colonel Qaddafi, said United States government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the activities. American officials cautioned, though, that the Western operatives were not directing the actions of rebel forces. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment. The United States and its allies have been scrambling to gather detailed information on the location and abilities of Libyan infantry and armored forces that normally takes months of painstaking analysis. FULL REPORT:>> http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=138373; --------------------------------------------------------- Title: Ron Paul educates some liberals http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=137325 -- APFN-1 YahooGroups: Subscribe: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/apfn-1/join Unsubscribe: [email protected] APFN MSG BOARD: `In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.' http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/149495.html APFN CONTENTS PAGE: http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm APFN TWITTER http://twitter.com/signup?follow=APFN1 Find elected officials, including the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, local officials, and more. http://congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/ SUPPORT APFN: PMB 206, 7549 W. CACTUS RD. #104, PEORIA, AZ 85381 |
