Colonel Gaddafi foretold the rise of ISIS in phone calls to Blair, and warned that Europe would be attacked – and deluged by flood of Middle Eastern migrants

Transcripts of their conversations in 2011 published for the first time today
Gaddafi said extremists forced civil war and would attack Europe next
Dictator said enemy was Al Qaeda and asked: ‘Do you support terrorists?
Mr Blair told Colonel Gaddafi to flee Libya on eve of NATO air strikes
Ex-PM told him: ‘If you have a safe place to go you should go there’

By Euan McLelland and Martin Robinson Uk Chief Reporter For Mailonline

Published: 12:54 GMT, 7 January 2016 | Updated: 07:32 GMT, 8 January 2016

Colonel Gaddafi warned Tony Blair that if he was removed from power Islamic extremists would take over Libya with the ultimate goal of conquering Europe.

Newly released transcripts of 2011 phone calls between the pair reveal the ousted Libyan leader’s anxieties about the growing influence Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were having in Africa and the Middle East.

He warned jihadis were already wreaking havoc in the North African state despite his governance – and that if he was to be toppled it would pave the way for the rise of an Islamic State that would open the doors to a deluge of migrants heading for mainland Europe.
Warning: Colonel Gaddafi warned Tony Blair that if he was removed from power Islamic extremists would take over Libya with the ultimate goal of conquering Europe, it has been revealed
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Warning: Colonel Gaddafi warned Tony Blair that if he was removed from power Islamic extremists would take over Libya with the ultimate goal of conquering Europe, it has been revealed
In this first call, which lasted half an hour, Gaddafi told Mr Blair that the civil war in Libya was run by Al Qaeda terrorists trying to control the north African coastline

In this first call, which lasted half an hour, Gaddafi told Mr Blair that the civil war in Libya was run by Al Qaeda terrorists trying to control the north African coastline

Blair contacted the dictator and urged him to flee for a ‘safe place’ in two calls on February 25 2011, eight months before he was beaten to death after being found in a sewer.

Transcripts of the conversations were published for the first time yesterday and MPs said the dictator’s fears extremists would take Libya may have been ‘wrongly ignored’ because he was usually ‘delusional’.

However, hindsight appears to prove the former dictator foretold the rise of ISIS – and the knock-on effect it would have on displacing the Libyan people and millions more across Iraq and Syria.

Here we examine the key points covered in the telephone exchanges between Gaddafi and Mr Blair.
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Gaddafi on the rise of Islamic extremists in Libya and how they embedded like the 9/11 sleeper cells

February 25 2011, 11,15am

In this first call, which lasted half an hour, Gaddafi explained to Blair how al Qaeda had planted themselves in Libya.

From there, he claimed, extremists had began to launch attacks throughout the country.

He warned that the small terror cells were similar to those that embedded themselves in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks – and that there ideologies were being shared.
The Libyan leader explained to Blair how al Qaeda had planted themselves in Libya before launching attacks throughout the country

The Libyan leader explained to Blair how al Qaeda had planted themselves in Libya before launching attacks throughout the country

Gaddafi said: ‘They don’t use Arab words, they use Islamic. Out of the blue they were given instructions to attack police stations and to cause this disturbance.

‘They have managed to get arms and terrify people. People can’t leave their homes. They have been threatened with arms.

‘They have managed to set up local stations and in Benghazi have spread thoughts and ideas of al Qaeda.’

The former Libyan leader explains that al Qaeda jihadists are fighting to takeover North Africa

February 25 2011, 11,15am

The ousted Libyan leader told Mr Blair that the country’s civil war was run by al Qaeda terrorists trying to control the north African coastline.

He said: ‘It is a jihad situation. They have arms and are terrorising people in the street. They are armed gangs who have no weapons. Not decided to face them with force, asking their families to convince them to lay down arms. Can’t reason with them.

‘They keep saying things like Mohammad is the profit. Similar to bin Laden.
The ousted Libyan leader told Mr Blair that the country’s civil war was run by al Qaeda terrorists trying to control the north African coastline

The ousted Libyan leader told Mr Blair that the country’s civil war was run by al Qaeda terrorists trying to control the north African coastline

‘They are paving the way for him in north Africa. They (jihadists) want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe.’

Gaddafi told Mr Blair that if he was removed from power terrorists would take control of the region and urged him to ‘explain to the international community’.

He said: ‘We are not fighting them, they are attacking us. The story is simply this: an organisation has laid down sleeping cells in North Africa, called the Al-Qaeda Organisation in North Africa. The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9/11’.

At the end of the first conversation Mr Blair, who had been out of UK politics for four years, told him he would speak to his contacts in the EU and America and call back.

Gaddafi warns that terror group’s expansion across Africa and Middle East would lead to flood of ‘non-believer’ migrants heading for Europe – before extremists start to invade

February 25 2011, 11,15am

After expressing his grave concerns about the growing number Islamic extremists in not just Libya but the likes of Algeria, Afghanistan and across the Middle East and Africa, the dictator then assessed what impact he believes the rise would have on those who choose not to confirm to their ideals.
Chillingly, Gaddafi stated the jihadists wanted ‘to control the Mediterranean’, predicting that they would then ‘attack Europe’

Chillingly, Gaddafi stated the jihadists wanted ‘to control the Mediterranean’, predicting that they would then ‘attack Europe’

Gaddafi said: ‘They [al Qaeda extremists] are controlling the Mediterranean Sea. Ships and vessels of non-believers [will flee].

‘Like in the day of Barbarossa and during the Ottoman Empire.’

Chillingly, he then stated the jihadists wanted ‘to control the Mediterranean’, predicting that they would then ‘attack Europe.’
Tony Blair and Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi take a break during the 2004 ‘deal in the desert’
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Tony Blair and Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi take a break during the 2004 ‘deal in the desert’

Blair’s attempt to keep Gaddafi safe

February 25 2011, 3.45pm

Four hours later, at 3.45pm, the ex-Labour leader called back but Colonel Gaddafi became increasingly irate and demanded Mr Blair visit him ‘see the truth’.

Gaddafi also repeatedly asked him if he ‘supported’ terrorism and al Qaeda.

But Mr Blair told him: ‘If you have a safe place to go you should go there, because this will not end peacefully unless that happens. You have to leave the country’.

Plea: In their later call at 3.45pm Mr Blair, labelled ‘TB’ told Gaddafi (G): ‘If you have a safe place to go you should go there’ but the dictator responded by saying this was an attempt to colonise Libya

Gaddafi told Mr Blair his plan for him to leave sounded like ‘colonisation’ and said he was ready to arm his people to fight any outside intervention.

He said: ‘There is no bloodshed here. It is very quiet. But if you want to reap Libya, we are ready to fight. It will be like Iraq.’

Warning that the situation could pass ‘the point of no return’ within days, Mr Blair told Gaddafi that ‘this is the last chance to resolve this peacefully’.

‘The violence needs to stop and a new constitution needs to take shape’, he told the Libyan leader, adding that people would be ‘content’ if they saw he was standing down.

Gaddafi asks Blair if he sympathises with Al Qaeda after former Prime Minister recommends against an armed response

February 25 2011, 3.45pm

Gaddafi compared the situation in Libya to campaigns of extremist violence in Afghanistan, Algeria, Nigeria and Pakistan and challenged Mr Blair: ‘Do you support al Qaeda? … Are you supporting terrorism?’

Exchange: An increasingly irate Gaddafi told Blair to ‘leave us alone’ and asked him to come to Tripoli – which Mr Blair said he would consider

Blair responded by saying: ‘No, absolutely not, the important thing is how do we get to a point where this thing can end in a peaceful way?’

The fraught conversation continues, before ending with Gaddafi telling Blair to ‘just leave us alone’, as the former Prime Minister urged him to ‘keep the lines open’.

What happened following the phone calls?

Three weeks later, Nato bombers including from Britain, stared air strikes that led to the demise of Gaddafi, who was hacked to death in the October.

The ex-Labour leader was questioned about his relationship with Gaddafi before he died in 2011 and their 2004 ‘deal in the desert’ by MPs on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee before Christmas.

The committee issued the transcripts of their phone calls this morning.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988
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Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi climbs the steps of a plane at Glasgow Airport, bound for Tripoli
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Criminal: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, left, was jailed for life for the Lockerbie bombing only to be released on compassionate grounds in 2009 (right)

Mr Blair, who left Downing Street and quit as an MP in 2007 before becoming a Middle East Envoy, said he was ‘acting as a concerned citizen’ and had asked David Cameron and Hillary Clinton for permission.

Chairman Crispin Blunt MP said: ‘The transcripts supplied by Mr Blair provide a new insight into the private views of Colonel Gaddafi as his dictatorship began to crumble around him.

‘The failure to follow Mr Blair’s calls to ‘keep the lines open’ and for these early conversations to initiate any peaceful compromise continue to reverberate.

‘The Committee will want to consider whether Gaddafi’s prophetic warning of the rise of extremist militant groups following the collapse of the regime was wrongly ignored because of Gaddafi’s otherwise delusional take on international affairs.
Pc Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London 31-years-ago – bout nobody has been brought to justice
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Pc Yvonne Fletcher was shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London 31-years-ago – bout nobody has been brought to justice

‘The evidence that the Committee has taken so far in this inquiry suggests that western policy makers were rather less perceptive than Gaddafi about the risks of intervention for both the Libyan people and the western interests.’

He also denied that he was trying to save the dictator’s life when he told him to go somewhere ‘safe’, saying it was to end bloodshed in Libya.

Mr Blair said last month he brought Gaddafi ‘in from the cold’ by going to his desert tent in 2004, as the north African country began its return to the international community after years of isolation for supporting terrorism, including sending shipments of semtex to the IRA.

During the ‘deal in the desert’ Gaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction, bringing to a halt programmes to develop nuclear and chemical arms.

It also sealed millions in trade and oil deals between the two countries but Mr Blair denied it also paved the way for the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al Megrahi and a promise not to pursue the killer of PC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984.

They met more than once a year until Mr Blair left power in 2007.

The Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi was freed from his life sentence and sent home by the Scots on compassionate grounds because he had ‘just three months’ to live in 2009.

But for two years and 9 months after his release until his death al-Megrahi lived in the lap of luxury.

Mr Blair denied that Libyan involvement in the Lockerbie bombing and the shooting of WPc Yvonne Fletcher had been set aside as part of efforts to bring Gaddafi on side.

‘We raised the case of Yvonne Fletcher every time. We did not hold back on Lockerbie and Yvonne Fletcher,’ he said last month.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3388533/Colonel-Gaddafi-accused-Tony-Blair-supporting-Al-Qaeda-warned-jihadis-Libya-attack-Europe-series-phone-calls.html#ixzz3wh7HemI1
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