OnIslam.net

CAIRO – Following their success in ousting long-standing leader Muammar Gaddafi, divisions began to surface among Libya’s new rulers, with Islamists critical of the interim leadership’s policies to define post-revolution Libya, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday, September 14.

Muslim scholar Ali Salabi described the leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC) as “extreme secularists”.

He told Al-Jazeera television that prime minister Mahmoud Jibril and his allies are "extreme secularists" who seek to enrich themselves via "the deal of a lifetime."

Jibril and his associates were guiding the nation into "a new era of tyranny and dictatorship," he said on Tuesday.

He added that the new administration could be “worse than Gaddafi”.

The criticism reflects the growing divisions inside the NTC following Gaddafi’s overthrow.

On Sunday, Tripoli’s military commander Abdel-Hakim Belhaj criticized an NTC plan to bring opposition fighters under the civilian authority in Benghazi.

An associate to Belhaj said privately that Jibril sought to be "a new dictator."

Belhaj is an ally to Salabi, who has fashioned himself as a spiritual mentor of the anti-Gaddafi opposition.

"Our aim as Islamic fighters was just to get rid of Gaddafi," Belhaj said in a recent interview.

Salabi has recently told the Irish Times that he and Belhaj had been friends for 25 years.

"The same thoughts I carry, he carries," Salabi said.

Based in Qatar, Salabi frequently travelled from his base to visit opposition fighters in Benghazi.

The scholar spent time in Libya prisons in the 1980s for criticizing the Gaddafi’s regime.

Two decades later, he was recruited by Gaddafi’s son Seif Islam to help negotiate freedom for imprisoned Islamists who renounced violence, including Belhaj.

Observers believe that this is a golden opportunity for Libya’s Islamists to assert their role after decades of repression under Gaddafi.

In public comments, Salabi has said that he supports a pluralistic democratic model for Libya.

Denial

But Libya’s new rulers denied any divisions.

"I would say Mr. Jibril does have the support of the Libyan people," NTC spokesman Mahmoud Shammam, who was also singled out by Salabi for criticism, said.

"But in the new Libya, we respect the right of people to express their views peacefully."

The spokesman insisted that there was no conflict between Islamists and secularists in the NTC.

"We are all Muslims, we are all moderate Muslims," Shammam said.

The spokesman also denied any divisions between the NTC prime  minister Jibril and Tripoli’s commander Belhaj

"We are all working together for a better Libya," Shammam said.

In his first public speech in Tripoli on Monday, NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel-Jalil said “moderate Islam” will guide post-revolution Libya.

"We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where Shari`ah (Islamic law) is the main source for legislation, and this requires many things and conditions," he said.

He added that Libya's new leaders would not accept any extremist ideology.