Gaddafi predicted jihadist attacks on Europe, in 2011 phone calls with Tony Blair
Dictator Muammar Gaddafi warned Tony Blair in two fraught phone conversations in 2011 that his removal from Libya would open a space for jihadists to seize control of the country and even launch an invasion of Europe.
The transcripts of the conversations have been published with Blair’s agreement by the UK foreign affairs select committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the western air campaign that led to the ousting and killing of Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, in October 2011.
They [jihadists] want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe
In the two calls the former British prime minister, who left Downing Street in 2007, pleaded with Gaddafi to stand aside or end the violence. The transcripts reveal the gulf in understanding between Gaddafi and the west over what was occurring in his country and the nature of the threat he was facing.
In the first call, at 11.15am on February 25, 2011, Gaddafi gave a warning in part borne out by future events: “They [jihadists] want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe.” Gaddafi insisted: “Libyan people will die, damage will be on the Med, Europe and the whole world. These armed groups are using the situation as a justification.”
Three weeks after the calls, a Nato-led coalition that included Britain began bombing raids that led to the overthrow of Gaddafi. He was finally deposed in August and murdered by opponents of his regime in October.
In the second call the Libyan leader said: “We are not fighting them, they are attacking us. I want to tell you the truth. It is not a difficult situation at all. The story is simply this: an organisation has laid down sleeping cells in north Africa. Called the al-Qaeda organisation in north Africa … The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9/11.”
Gaddafi added: “I will have to arm the people and get ready for a fight. Libyan people will die, damage will be on the Med, Europe and the whole world. These armed groups are using the situation [in Libya] as a justification – and we shall fight them.”
At one point he urged Blair to go to Libya to see the lack of violence in Tripoli, and held the telephone to a TV screen so Blair could hear people voicing their support for Gaddafi in the streets.
Blair said he had decided to act as an intermediary due to his past contacts with Gaddafi when prime minister. He made contact by phone with the knowledge of both Washington and London, he said.
During the calls Blair suggested he could engineer a peaceful exit for Gaddafi if he agreed to leave. Referring to him as the leader, Blair also insisted there was no attempt at colonisation of Libya. Gaddafi said he had to defy colonisation, insisting: “There is nothing here. No fight, no bloodshed. Come see yourself.”
Blair also urged Gaddafi to give him a phone number so he could contact him urgently, and beseeched him to “do something that allows the process to start, end the bloodshed, start a new constitution”.
Blair ended the call by saying: “ I would like to offer a way out that is peaceful … keep the lines open.”
Commenting on the exchanges on Thursday, the foreign select committee chair, Crispin Blunt, said: “The transcripts supplied by Mr Blair provide a new insight into the private views of Colonel Gaddafi as his dictatorship began to crumble around him. The failure to follow Mr Blair’s calls to ‘keep the lines open’ and for these early conversations to initiate any peaceful compromise continue to reverberate. The committee will want to consider whether Gaddafi’s prophetic warning of the rise of extremist militant groups following the collapse of the regime was wrongly ignored because of Gaddafi’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 Gaddafi about the risks of intervention for both the Libyan people and the western interests.”
