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Big Brother’s backlash

The most startling capture was that of Abu Anas Al Liby, accused of links with Al Qaeda and suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa. Liby, whom a jury has already indicted in 2000, has been shipped to New York and will be presented before a magistrate to stand trial. He was held in a daredevil manner inside Libya through commando action earlier this month, which Tripoli contests as a breach of its sovereignty. The US Seals raid was apparently met with a serious political backlash as Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was abducted by unknown militants, and released subsequently, for motives that remain unclear.

The operation inside Libya is the first of its kind, and goes on to hint at the determination in the security establishment of the United States to bring to justice criminals who are at large. US Secretary of State John Kerry, while defending the act, termed it as ‘legal and appropriate’. Similarly, the trap that was laid to capture Taleban’s second-in-command Latif Mehsud inside Afghanistan indicates a desire to crackdown on dreaded terrorists. Mehsud’s arrest is seen as a significant blow to the Pakistani Taleban, who of late are being wooed to talks by Islamabad to end a prolonged insurgency. How the Taleban will react to it is not a rocket-science question as the militants have already come up with stern conditionalities. Liby and Mehsud’s airlift, however, have plunged the US allies deeper in a mess than easing their dealings with indigenous problems.