Libya, an oil-rich nation in North Africa, has been under the firm, if sometimes erratic, leadership of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi since he seized power in 1969. But in February 2011, the unrest sweeping through much of the Arab world erupted in several Libyan cities.
The CIA sent small teams of operatives into Libya after the agency's station in the capital was forced to close, and officers assisted in the rescue one of the two crew members of an F-15E Strike Eagle that crashed.
A former leader of an al Qaeda linked group in Libya claims that there are around 1000 fundamentalist Islamic fighters in the country that have joined the uprising against Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s forces, a number that jives with intelligence reports and independent estimates.
The young Qaddafi loyalist wove together a grim tale that fits the official Libyan narrative perfectly. Al Qaeda fighters torched his home in the rebel-held enclave of Misratah, he claimed, and then killed his father. The crazed Islamists, he charged.
