Thus began the latest chapter in the strange tale of a CIA plan to train a force of Libyan commandos for covert operations in Libya. The story began sometime in the late 1980s, when French- and U.S.-backed troops loyal to Chad’s President Hissene Habre beat back an armed incursion by Libya’s Muammar Kaddafi. Habre’s forces captured hundreds of Libyan soldiers in northern Chad, including a large number of officers. It was a time when Washington still considered Kaddafi - not Saddam Hussein - to be public enemy No. 1. Sometime in either the waning days of the Reagan administration or the beginning of the Bush administration, U.S. officials devised a plan to recruit disgruntled Libyan POWs, train them as commandos and send them back into Libya in an attempt to overthrow Kaddafi.
Last December Idris Deby, a Chadian insurgent supported by Kaddafi, launched an attack from a rebel base in Sudan and overthrew Habre. The CIA’s commandos suddenly found themselves unwelcome in N’Djamena, Chad’s war-torn capital. Their African odyssey began. First, U.S. planes airlifted the Libyans to Nigeria. They were not wanted there, either. A day later they flew to Zaire, where they were interned at a camp near Lubumbashi, close to the Zaire-Angola border. But President Mobutu Sese Seko - normally a staunch friend - proved less cooperative than U.S. officials had anticipated. Apparently stung by cutbacks in U.S. aid and criticism in Congress over his human-rights record, Mobutu allowed Libyan agents access to the exiles. As the result of either threat or inducement, some 250 Libyans returned home. Fearing for the safety of the remaining commandos, U.S. officials airlifted them to Kenya.
As it turned out, Kenya agreed to provide a temporary haven for the Libyans. Washington thereupon announced that it was restoring $5 million in military aid that had been frozen because of human-rights abuses by the government of Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi. U.S. officials insisted that the restoration of aid to Kenya was not simply a reward for hosting the Libyans. They pointed out that Kenya had lent diplomatic support during the gulf crisis and had taken small steps to liberalize its internal politics, as well.
The question remained: what to do with the CIA’s would-be commandos? Their location is a closely guarded secret, though they are behind barbed wire and under the protection of Kenyan armed forces. Apparently they are in reasonably good spirits. They pass the time playing soccer and wondering which country will eventually grant them permanent asylum from Kaddafi’s Libya - a country they never got a chance to try to destabilize.
