position:nominal prime minister

  • In Libya, Islamists’ Growing Sway Raises Questions - NYTimes.com
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/world/africa/in-libya-islamists-growing-sway-raises-questions.html

    Islamist militias in Libya receive weapons and financing directly from foreign benefactors like Qatar; a Muslim Brotherhood figure, Abel al-Rajazk Abu Hajar, leads the Tripoli Municipal Governing Council, where Islamists are reportedly in the majority; in eastern Libya, there has been no resolution of the assassination in July of the leader of the rebel military, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, suspected by some to be the work of Islamists.

    Mr. Belhaj has become so much an insider lately that he is seeking to unseat Mahmoud Jibril, the American-trained economist who is the nominal prime minister of the interim government, after Mr. Jibril obliquely criticized the Islamists.

    For an uprising that presented a liberal, Westernized face to the world, the growing sway of Islamists — activists with fundamentalist Islamic views, who want a society governed by Islamic principles — is being followed closely by the United States and its NATO allies.

    “I think it’s something that everybody is watching,” said Jeffrey D. Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, visiting here on Wednesday. “First of all the Libyan people themselves are talking about this.”

    On arme et finance les islamistes, puis on s’inquiète du rôle politique central que pourraient avoir les islamistes. Et Jeffrey Feltman est chargé d’expliciter ce que pensent – selon les Américains – les libyens.

    Bientôt, Feltman viendra nous expliquer que le rêve secret des libyens est de maintenir une présence de l’OTAN sur leur territoire indéfiniment pour éviter que ces méchants islamistes (alliés, armés et financés par l’OTAN) ne prennent le pouvoir. À moins que ces islamistes comprennent où est leur intérêt.