CIA caught off guard by Islamic State’s rise in post-Moammar Gadhafi Libya
(Worthy News) – CIA chieftains were caught off guard by the spiraling Islamic violence in postwar Libya, suddenly realizing that analysts had never brainstormed what the country would look like and that the White House had not asked.
The agency also acknowledged in a classified report that Moammar Gadhafi, Libya’s U.S.-deposed dictator, had long suppressed a variety of radical Islamic groups, including al Qaeda, from taking root in his country and endangering North Africa.
Today, absent Gadhafi’s iron fist since October 2011, Libya is in a civil war and has become a coveted destination for Islamic extremists, including the Islamic State in and around Benghazi. Based in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State boasts its largest franchise in Libya, where it wants to destabilize a fledgling democratic government in the capital of Tripoli and export terrorism. President Obama, who approved the intervention, has called Libya a “mess.” [ Source ]