Al Qaeda flag flew over Benghazi courthouse in fall 2010. Pictures at article link:
10/29/10, "Liberated Libya: Al Qaeda Flag Aloft Benghazi's Courthouse," American Thinker, Andrew Bostom
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Al Qaeda flags still seen all over Benghazi in fall 2011:
11/5/2011, “Benghazi: A Sea of Al-Qaeda Flags,” National Review Online, John Rosenthal
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Even after Benghazi murders, US government still downplays Al Qaeda in Benghazi:
9/17/12, “The banners, which U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland downplayed disingenuously as a “plain, black flag,” should by now be familiar enough to administration officials. It is the same one adopted by other Salafi extremists, including those belonging to al Qaeda and its regional affiliates."
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Written in fall 2011 about Al Qaeda in Benghazi:
11/5/2011, “Benghazi: A Sea of Al-Qaeda Flags,” National Review Online, John Rosenthal
“The emergence of images of a black al-Qaeda flag flying atop the Benghazi courthouse, the symbolic cradle of Libya’s anti-Qaddafi rebellion, has provoked hasty efforts at damage control by defenders of the rebellion and the new Libyan order. The latter, mostly operating under cover of anonymity in online comments sections, have suggested, among other things, that the images were photoshopped, that the flag is not in fact the al-Qaeda flag, and that the raising of the flag was an isolated incident: the work of, as one commentator here put it, a “small group of Islamists.” But pictorial evidence posted on an Arabic-language Islamic Internet forum reveals that the Benghazi waterfront was in fact covered by a veritable sea of al-Qaeda flags last week: both the “classic” black version and a more novel white one.
Large-format, high-resolution versions of the photos are available here on Muslm.net. The selection also includes a grainier video still. Smaller versions of the images are reproduced below. [more photos at link]
Note that some of the above images have also appeared in the Western press, though typically without any mention, much less identification, of the flags. For one prominent example, see my “See No Al-Qaeda: The New York Times and Libya” on the Corner. The photos that appeared in the Western press are dated October 28 and attributed to Reuters photographer Esam al-Fetori.
What is commonly known as the al-Qaeda flag was reportedly first used by the late Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq. The Arabic script represents the Islamic shahada or declaration of faith: “There is no god but God [Allah], and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” The script that appears on the Libyan flags is slightly different in style from that on the “original” Iraqi ones. The design is identical.
As the below detail from a screenshot shows, the poster of the photos on Muslm.net uses the original Iraqi al-Qaeda flag as an avatar.
The Middle East Media Research Institute has posted a two-minute-long video clip, dated October 25, that shows a parade of vehicles in Libya flying the al-Qaeda flag. The exact location is not given, but it appears also to be Benghazi. The images of the “vehicle parade” are followed by images of a traditional march in which demonstrators chanting “Allahu Akbar!” can likewise be seen flying the flag.
Were it not for the deficiencies of reporting on Libya in the mainstream Western media, the appearance of al-Qaeda flags in the capital of the anti-Qaddafi rebellion should come as no surprise. As shown by the captured al-Qaeda personnel records known as the “Sinjar Records,” the eastern Libyan heartland of the anti-Qaddafi rebellion was one of the major sources of the foreign recruits that joined al-Qaeda in Iraq to fight against American and coalition forces. (For a discussion, see here.) Abdul Hakim al-Hasadi, a leading military commander of the rebellion on the Eastern front, has admitted to personally recruiting many of the Libyan al-Qaeda members and that some of them returned to Libya to participate in the “jihad” against Qaddafi.” via Free Republic
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Reporting after US deaths in Benghazi:
Sign in photo below: “Wait for us White House, Black Flag is coming soon!!!”
9/17/12, “The dangerous U.S. double standard on Islamic extremism,” Justin Gengler, Mideast.ForeignPolicy.com
“The death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials in Libya last Wednesday should serve to draw much-needed attention to an increasingly untenable contradiction in U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Even while it seeks to recover from this latest attack by Islamic radicals, United States’ unwitting support for the latter through continued patronage of that very same ideology elsewhere in the region, most clearly in Syria and in Bahrain. There, U.S. policymakers should expect equally frightening results. …
When demonstrators in Cairo and Sanaa succeeded in gaining entry into their respective U.S. embassies, in each case they replaced the U.S. flag with a black pennant bearing in white the Muslim profession of faith: “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God.” The banners, which U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland downplayed disingenuously as a “plain, black flag,” should by now be familiar enough to administration officials. It is the same one adopted by other Salafi extremists, including those belonging to al Qaeda and its regional affiliates, from Mali to Yemen. Not coincidentally, it has made an appearance in each of the mass protests witnessed thus far – in Benghazi, in Tunis, in Khartoum, and even in Doha.
That the Obama administration would fail to acknowledge the flag’s overt symbolism is indicative of an uncomfortable yet enduring truth about U.S. policy in the Middle East: that the United States’ enemies in one country are its allies of convenience in another. Even as it reels from the first death of a sitting ambassador in more than two decades, the United States continues to supply logistical and other “command-and-control” support to rebels in Syria, while Gulf allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar pour in money and arms. Of little or insufficient concern, apparently, is the nature of those being empowered, or the broader ideological forces underlying their struggle….
The result is a social and political climate that not only features unprecedented polarization, but that presents a grave threat to U.S. interests — both political and physical — in the region.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, brought to the fore uncomfortable questions about the sources of violent Islamic extremism, and about the United States’ unwitting support for the latter through continued patronage of those who help sow the seeds of this mindset. One hopes that these uncomfortable questions will now be revisited, and to greater substantive effect, when on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 there should occur yet another act of political violence committed by individuals associated with that very same ideology.” photo ForeignPolicy.com
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US ruling class relationships with Mideast regimes are the problem:
10/20/11, “The lost decade,” Angelo M. Codevilla, Claremont Institute
“That would have pointed to the Middle East’s regimes, and to our ruling class’ relationship with them, as the problem’s ultimate source. The rulers of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority had run (and continue to run) educational and media systems that demonize America. Under all of them, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Wahhabi sect spread that message in religious terms to Muslims in the West as well as at home.
- That message indicts America, among other things, for being weak.
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