Sherif Elhelwa, writing for Vice, has photographed the al-Qaeda flag flying atop the courthouse in Benghazi. It shares a staff with the Libyan rebel flag, or more precisely the NATO-rebel flag.
“It was here at the courthouse in Benghazi where the first spark of the Libyan revolution ignited,” he writes. “It’s the symbolic seat of the revolution; post-Gaddafi Libya’s equivalent of Egypt’s Tahrir Square. And it was here, in the tumultuous months of civil war, that the ragtag rebel forces established their provisional government and primitive, yet effective, media center from which to tell foreign journalists about their ‘fight for freedom.’”
From the beginning of the staged revolt against Gaddafi, evidence pointed at the presence of the CIA created terrorist group within the ranks of the NATO rebels. It was reported by the establishment media and then ignored as the official narrative came into focus.
“The war to rid the country of the Gaddafi dictatorship might have ended, but the battle for control of post-revolutionary Libya has only just begun. And it will surprise few that assorted radicals, jihadists, Salafists, and LIFG [Libyan Fighting Group] veterans are attempting to fill the power vacuum and replace one dictatorship with another,” Elhelwa concludes.