What Happened to 15,000 NATO Trained Libyans? Some Fight for ISIS Others For Al-Qaeda

(Tripoli) in 2014  it was still said "NATO is welcome in Libya."  2013/2014 have been included and educated 15,000 Libyan soldiers have been trained in NATO countries. Observers did not expect among them either a new Rommel or Napoleon.  But perhaps  some have wished that the recruits would completely dissolve into nothingness, so that today there would no trace of them?

Nobody knows today where the 15,000 soldiers trained to  NATO standards  have gone, so in any case the claim, they have remained. According training program, there are 2,000 men in Britain, 2,000 men in Italy, 3,000 in Turkey and 8,000 men from the United States who were trained in Bulgaria. The cost of 600 million dollars is to be assumed  by the Libyan government under Ali Zeidan.

The government and the Prime Minister Zeidan broke and fled the jihadists to Europe. Since then, there are two governments in Libya. One controls the west, the other to the east of the country. Situated on the Mediterranean an  Islamic state has been established, the  Emirate of Libya. The south is held by clans, and no one knows who they support precisely.  Anyway, Libya has not paid 600 million for training troops, at least not Italy, as the Washington Post reported.

Training chaos, indiscipline and asylum applications

On closer inspection it turns out that the training programs were canceled partially. Of  those Libyans sent to Britain one third soon had to be sent back for indiscipline, violence and sexual abuse. Others sought asylum in London, in order not to have to return to Libya. So you might not have not imagined. Of the 3,000 men who came to Turkey, more than half took off before the end of the training. Italy was the first country to start with the Operation Cohort  training program. The 80th Regiment was located in Cassino. The barracks were specially remodeled to meet the Muslim customs, with own prayer rooms and facilities for the ritual ablutions, the menu had been already modified accordingly.

The program failed but all the same reasons: lack of discipline, low motivation, lack of coordination with the military leadership in Tripoli. Although there were constantly sent new middlemen who came and went, they proved to be unreliable and incapable. Officially there is little information on the part of NATO. Unofficially it is said in Europe this is  a failure of the United States. The flop of the training program for Libya "once again demonstrates the inability of the US government to control the development of the Arab Spring, fanned by Washington. The biggest flop is trying to train  allied armies and militias in the Arab States, so they can take the place of western units to combat  Islamic jihadists and terrorists,"  cites Il Timone a high NATO officer, who requested anonymity.

"Realistic possibility" that some joined the Islamists

American sources blame for the failure on internal disunity in Libya. In fact, the conflict between secularists and Islamists led to split the country into two parts, and allowed the Islamic state (IS) in Libya to take root. Some of them who went to Great Britain, Italy, Bulgaria and Turkey Libyans were unsuitable. Nevertheless, several thousand men have undergone military training according to  high NATO standards. "We wonder where these men are," said the NATO officer.There was the "realistic possibility" that at least part of them joined the Islamists.

Already in Afghanistan, the Taliban have infiltrated the formation of a pro-Western police and army. In some cases, hadthe goal of murdering the Western instructors. Between 2011 and 2014 more than one hundred of them were killed. In other cases, after a good training and arming of the Taliban. "Then we [NATO] are  surprised that police units with weapons and vehicles "Made in US"  go over to the Taliban."

In Mali three out of four US-trained units have defected to al-Qaeda

The new army of the post-Saddam Hussein era that had been trained by US instructors, dissolved in the attack of the Islamic State (IS) one year ago. In Mali in 2012 three out of four U.S.-trained and equipped anti-terrorist battalions defected to al-Qaeda. And the fourth battalion attempted a coup against the government of Bamako. In Syria, the US has already trained several waves of "moderate" rebels since 2011. The result was always the same . The majority fought for jihad. As Washington could no longer cover up and turned off the tap of donations, the  "moderate" rebels became Islamist militias.

A few days ago 60 "moderate" Syrian rebels of the recent training  program  went over to the Al-Qaeda fighters of Al-Nusrah Front. Remarkably, the same forces opposed to the Air Force attack on the Al-Qaeda positions. "With the gigantic military power which the US has, the start of the new offensive is just embarrassing," said Charles Lister, an expert on Syrian rebels at Brookings Doha Center for the British Guardian .

CIA report admits failure -  It is hampered I'm finding the cause 

A CIA report acknowledged in recent months a failure of the Washington-led training programs. The US military sees the cause in a "too Western" orientation of the training program, which was not suitable for Arab and African armies.

When asked whether the training of Libyan officers and soldiers really was a flop, the aforementioned NATO officers said: "Guaranteed. And not just in Libya. We train Arab armies and militias, so they fight instead of us. But these  fight against us and we have new armies and militias trained, so that they now fight the armies and militias that we trained yesterday. And this repeats itself. "

The question remains, what happened to the thousands of Libyan recruits. Hundreds remained in Europe and have filled  the "army" of "refugees" and asylum seekers. "A general overview is missing. Through individual details, however, one can draw conclusions. Some of the returnees had joined tribal militias. Part are fighting in Libya with the IS-emirate. And some have gone directly from Turkey to Syria and Iraq and have connected there with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State," said the NATO officer.

The Christians of the Middle East since 2011 have raised allegations that the civil war has been unleashed by the US and its Middle East allies. The persecuted Christians are convinced that the US supports their tormentors. Perhaps their torturers were trained by Western instructors?

Text: Andreas Becker
Image: Il Timone