- Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:53 pm
#15211
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms shipments to Islamic rebels from Qatar last year, but Congress grew alarmed as evidence grew that Qatar was turning the weapons over to Islamic terrorists, according to United States officials and foreign diplomats. The Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan Islamic terrorists, concerns that have not previously been reported. The weapons and money strengthened Islamic militant groups in Libya, allowing them to become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi government. Evidence has surfaced that weapons went to Ansar al-Shariah, an extremist group blamed for the Benghazi attack. American officials say that the United Arab Emirates first approached the Obama administration during the early months of the Libyan uprising, asking for permission to ship American-built weapons to support hard core Islamic groups.The Obama administration rejected that request, but instead urged the emirates to ship weapons to Libya that could not be traced to the United States then provided funding for the operation.
