Washington believes the group is responsible for the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other Americans.
In November, the United Nations blacklisted Ansar al-Sharia Benghazi and its sister group, Ansar al-Sharia Derna, over links to Al-Qaeda and for running camps for the Islamist State group.
So there you have your soundbite. The Paris outrage: Made in Libya. Not Syria. And brought to us by the people who killed Christopher Stevens in Benghazi.
I am sure that Hillary Clinton is grateful to the French police for botching the raid to capture Abaaoud and pumping 5000 rounds into his apartment instead of capturing him; otherwise, he might have become a lively topic of interest and curiosity and the right wing could have cooked off the Benghazi! munitions through election day. For that matter, it seems unlikely that the governments of the West, or the media cheerleaders thirsting for a rousing good vs. evil narrative, are very interested in exploring the morally fraught issue of blow back from the spectacular Libyan disaster, either.
To sum up: the alleged and now reportedly deceased architect of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, did not fight “for IS.” He fought “with” Katibat al-Battar al-Libi, a Libyan outfit whose presence in Syria predates that of ISIS. Even after Katibat al-Battar al-Libi decided to pledge allegiance to ISIS, it retained its independent identity. And it would appear unlikely that Abaaoud, as a European of Moroccan descent, would be a central figure in the brigade, whose personnel, funding, and mission seem to have largely emanated from Libya.