Defection of Moussa Koussa Means the Gaddafi Regime is Crumbling
[By Arezki Daoud | daoud@north-africa.com | US+508-981-6937] The defection of Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa (hear podcast at bottom of story) is indicative of a regime that is steadily and surely collapsing. Koussa is not a man who gives up easily, and if and when he does it simply means there is nothing else to gain by staying with his boss. Indeed Moussa Koussa defected on Wednesday when he decided to leave for London. Koussa is one of Gaddafi’s closest aids. He is as close as one can get to the mad man of North Africa. With him and others surrounding Gaddafi leaving, it confirms our earlier prediction of a regime that is bound to slowly extinguish itself like a fire dying without oxygen.
The defections are likely to sustain as long as foreign forces from the air keep a close eye on the Libyan military movements on the ground and that further support is provided to the poorly trained resistance fighting against Gaddafi. That support is quickly arriving as President Obama has reportedly signed a presidential finding authorizing covert operations in Libya. The New York Times says CIA agents are already active in eastern Libya helping the anti Gaddafi movement.
Importance of Moussa Koussa
Despite statements from the Gaddafi regime that the defection of Koussa is not important, the move signals that the circle of supporters around the leader is now broken. Prior to becoming Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa was Libya’s top spy. Between his links with the international community as Foreign Minister and his intelligence and security work, Koussa is central to the survival of the Gaddafi regime.
Koussa is a man that typically operates under the radar screen. Unknown from the public given the nature of his work, he has been a key player in Libya's contemporary history, negotiating such difficult events as his country's renunciation of its weapons of mass destruction program and the release of the Bulgarian medics. For more than 20 years, Koussa has been the country's top intelligence chief.
Koussa's negotiations skills were tested on the international stage when he negoted the terms of the release of the Bulgarian medics, which were finalized in earlier 2007. Koussa was one the primary negotiators on behalf of Libyan in the Bulgarian medics matter for about six years. But this was only one of many of Koussa's duties and tasks, perhaps the most visible given the intense media focus on that story. After being part of a closed Libya for over 20 years and cementing that isolation, this Tripolitanian made a 180 degree turn to symbolize Libya's new opening, a symbol of his ability to adjust and adapt to new political realities. To be such a person in Libya requires the ability to influence the man at the top of the pyramid, Colonel Gaddafi, while maintaining a distance from the rest of the system.
Officially retired before he became Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa has been successful in entering and thriving within Gaddafi's secure inner circle. Up until his defection, he has a member of an elite group surrounding Gaddafi and composed of the reformist and head of oil sector Chokri Ghanem, Ali Treki Abdellasalam, who typically focuses on African affairs, Bachir Salah, the Colonel’s Chief of Staff, Khaled Kaim, head of the military, propagandist Mohamed Sharif of the World Council of Islamic Call, Al-Hadi Al-Warfalli, the General Manager and Chairman of BSIC Group and Mohamed Madani Al Azari, the Secretary General of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD). In addition are Gaddafi’s family members, including his highly aggressive son Seif Al-Islam and his cousin Ahmed Khadafam. The previous circle of influence in which Koussa belonged included Abdullah Senoussi, head of domestic intelligence.
Koussa, who comes from a rather poor family, knows the West very well. Thanks to a scholarship, he has studied in the United States, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1978 with a Master's degree. Upon graduating, Koussa joined the Libyan special services to become head of security for Libyan diplomatic representations in northern Europe. While heading the security of the embassies, he allegedly supervised the tracking of political opposition figures in exile, leading to the assassination of a half dozen of them in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
After showing that he was an able operator, Koussa was appointed secretary of the Libyan office in London in the early 1980s. This title equated to that of ambassador. His statement to the press the British press on June 12, 1980 that the manhunt for Libyan opponents will go on caused him his job after the British government ordered him out of the country.
Returning to Libya, his reputation enabled him to pursue his anti-opponent expedition, eliminating the "enemies of the revolution." As such he joined a group of security officers considered the most extremist elements of the anti-opposition movement. Led by Abdessalam Jalloud, the second most powerful man after Gaddafi, the group included Ahmed Kaddafedem, Sayed Rachid, Abdessalam Zedma and others. Four years later (1984), Koussa joined the Mathaba, the Libyan foreign intelligence unit led then by Younes Belgassem. Koussa's role was to coordinate Libya's assistance to liberation movements around the world, in particular in Africa. Under his leadership, Tripoli became a must-visit place for the opponents of regimes that Libya disliked, including Chad, Central Africa, Mali, Zaire, Congo and South Africa.
While his role before and after joining Mathaba led him to be closer to the radicals led by Jelloud, instead of the moderate elements under the leadership of Senoussi, Koussa managed to avoid falling into disgrace the way Jelloud did. Observers and analysts say that Koussa's only master is Gaddafi, a position that helped him thrive in the Libyan regime. He always found ways to establish relations with those that are most important at that time, including befriending Ali Abu Chaaraya, the influential brother of Mrs. Safia Gaddafi, the wife of the Colonel, and head of operations in the foreign intelligence service.
As a key leader in the intelligence service, the name of Moussa Koussa became more known in December 1988 and in September 1989 following the Lockerbie and Tenere bombing of American and French airliners. His roles in these events however have never been demonstrated or proven, despite former CIA chief George Tenet accusing him in a published memoir of being the mastermind of the Pan Am terror attack. Given his controversial position, Koussa was also the subject of an international arrest warrant from the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, for his alleged role in the destruction of UTA's DC10 aircraft.
While his troubles with western governments forced him to stay put for a while, it only added to his prestige at home, with a promotion in November 1994 as head of security services and foreign intelligence. Taking over this central intelligence unit propelled him front and center as a leading figure in negotiating the return of Libya into the international community, in an appointment that showed the trust that Gaddafi had in him.
In early 1999, a series of secret meetings took place between Koussa, the CIA and Britain's M16 in London, Geneva and Prague, leading up to the closing of the Lockerbie chapter and the abandoning of Libya's WMD program. He also met the Clinton administration main person in charge of North African affairs then, Martin Indyk, and his successor in the Bush administration William Burns. Becoming a privileged interlocutor, Koussa led the special American and British agents visiting Libya in late 2003 to evaluate and destroy the WMD arsenal acquired by Libya over the years. Koussa is also said to be the man who shared the list of WMD equipment and material suppliers with the CIA.
However, all along his career, sources say all the decisions Koussa made came from his boss’ orders, sometimes hinting of his inability to make decisions by himself. This inability is obviously what sustained him and enabled him to a certain degree to grow in the Gaddafi regime. And what the Colonel got was an apparently trustworthy aid. Now that Koussa fled to the UK, the Colonel must wonder to what extent Koussa’s allegiance was real.