The announcement of the press service of the Libyan government
The director of the CIA William Burns visited Libya today where he met with the Tripoli-based head of government, two months after a Libyan suspect in the Lockerbie terror attack was extradited to the US.
This is the first visit by a CIA director since the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed four people, including the US ambassador.
“The Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeiba met today in Tripoli with CIA director William Burns,” in the presence of Libyan Foreign Minister Nayla Al-Mangous and Libyan intelligence chief Hussein al-Ayeb, the Libyan government’s press service said.
During the meeting, Burns – who takes office from March 2021 – “stressed the need to develop economic and security cooperation between the two countries,” according to the same source.
The Dbayba government, recognized by the UN but whose legitimacy is contested by the rival camp in eastern Libya, issued in mid-November to the US Abu Aguila Mohammad Masoud Khair Al-Marimi a suspect in the 1988 attack on a Pan-Am plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people were killed.
After this release, the Dbeiba government was heavily criticized by the public as well as by its political opponents and rights defenders who believed that the Lockerbie file, which was closed in 2003, should not be reopened.
Many analysts said the Tripoli government took the risk of exposing itself to such criticism in the hope, in return for this release, of increased American support against its opponents in the deeply divided country.
Under pressure from public opinion, Dbeiba assured that he “acted with respect to the sovereignty of Libya” and denied that he wanted to extradite the Abdullah Senoussiformer Libyan intelligence chief under Muammar Gaddafi.
Libya has been plunged into chaos since the uprising that toppled the Gaddafi regime in 2011, with rival forces, myriad armed militias and foreign mercenaries scattered across the country amid foreign intervention.
According to local media, the head of American intelligence is expected to then go to al-Razma (25 km east of Benghazi),
RES-EMP
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