Middle East Focus: Lebanon and Libya: the Not-so-Mysterious Mystery of that Other al-Sadr………….

Arabia Deserta

Lebanon and Libya: the Not-so-Mysterious Mystery of that Other al-Sadr………….

“On the 31st anniversary of Imam Moussa al-Sadr's abduction, the Iranian foreign minister says Iran will continue efforts to find out about the cleric's fate. In a meeting with the head of a high-ranking Lebanese delegation Khalil Hamdan, Manouchehr Mottaki described Imam Moussa al-Sadr as a prominent figure whose ideals have deeply affected Lebanon and Islamic world. Imam Moussa al-Sadr was kidnapped during an official visit to Tripoli to meet with officials from the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in August 1978. In 2008, the Beirut government issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi over Sadr's disappearance. Mottaki also hailed the Lebanese resistance movement and its role in defending Lebanon during the 33-Day War, and said that Israel "does not understand any language other than resistance.”……” Press TV (Iran)

Moussa Al-Sadr was leader of the Lebanese Shi’a Amal organization, a first serious step toward educating and enfranchising Lebanon’s Shi’as (a plurality of the population) and freeing them from the feudal warlord political system of South Lebanon (actually of all of Lebanon). That was before Hezbollah existed (and before the Iranian Revolution). Al-Sadr vanished during an official visit to Libya in 1978, almost certainly arrested and murdered by Libyan agents, almost certainly by order of Libyan Dictator Colonel Muammar Qadhafi who had his own “interests” in Lebanon. The Libyans deny it, and al-Sadr's luggage turned up at a Rome airport later, an easy thing for the Libyans to arrange in those pre-suicide-bomber days when they had close connections to other groups.
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