Qadhafi Regime Suffers Major Defection but Fights On

James Phillips / April 01, 2011

Wednesday’s defection of Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa is a major embarrassment for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi and a sign of lagging morale in the top echelons of his regime.

Koussa was not just the foreign minister, which is often just a mouthpiece position in Arab dictatorships; more importantly, he was the head of Libya’s main intelligence agency between 1994 and 2009. He was also a longtime confidante of the Libyan dictator, who had previously lost his minister of interior and minister of justice to defections and is increasingly dependent on members of his own family and tribe to maintain his grip on power.

Koussa may have valuable intelligence about Qadhafi’s future plans, insights on the regime’s vulnerabilities, and suggestions for secret facilities that could be targeted for bombing. Given his key role within the regime, he undoubtedly has important information about the regime’s past terrorist activities, including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that resulted in the deaths of 270 people, most of them Americans. (more…)