Gaddafi Warned Blair About Attacks In Europe

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi prophesied Islamists would attack Europe in a 2011 telephone call with Tony Blair.

The former Prime Minister has released details of highly unusual phone calls he made to Gaddafi as Libya descended further into chaos.

In the call, Libya’s embattled leader insists he is a victim of an Islamist conspiracy, not a popular uprising.

"The story is simply this," he says. "An organisation has laid down sleeping cells in North Africa. Called the al Qaeda Organisation in North Africa... The sleeping cells in Libya are similar to dormant cells in America before 9/11."

Gaddafi made similar claims publicly at the time, but in the private call to Mr Blair he goes further, predicting the Islamists’ ultimate aim was to launch attacks on Europe.

"They keep saying things like Mohammed is the Prophet. Similar to bin Laden. They are paving the way for him in North Africa. They want to control the Mediterranean and then they will attack Europe. Need to explain to the International Community."

Two calls a few hours apart were made by Mr Blair to the Libyan leader.

In desperate sounding pleas, Mr Blair urges his Libyan interlocutor to look after himself and take the right course of action.

He tells him: "If you have a safe place to go you should go there because this will not end peacefully and there has to be a process of change. That process of change can be managed and we have to find a way of managing it."

Gaddafi, however, seems to see that advice as a veiled threat.

"It seems that this is colonisation," he tells Mr Blair. "I will have to arm the people and get ready for a fight."

Mr Blair tries to reassure the Libyan leader that neither re-colonisation nor military intervention are being considered by the West, but tells him he has only a narrow window of opportunity to save his skin.

He tells him: "Important to get this thing right now, I appreciate you are under attack. Make sure as far as you can that no one else is killed, no further bloodshed is essential to the process I describe."

Mr Blair says the call is a private one but implies he is passing on the thoughts of others still in positions of power in the West.

"I repeat the statement that people have said to me: If there is a way that he can leave he should do so now. I think this can happen peacefully but he has to act now and signal that he wants this to happen."

Gaddafi also refers to himself in the third person to give his enigmatic answer: "Where is he meant to go?  He has no mandate."

Gaddafi may have prophesied Islamist attacks on Europe but despite Mr Blair’s warnings he was not able to foresee his own fate.

After the rout of his forces he was found hiding in a drainage culvert and killed eight months later.