Farrakhan predicts backlash from Gaddafi death

CHICAGO (AP):

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan on Tuesday said the killing of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was "an assassination", and predicted the US was unprepared for the looming backlash from his overthrow.

During an interview with a Chicago radio station, Farrakhan laid Gaddafi's death at the feet of the US, Great Britain and France. Gaddafi was killed last week, two months after being ousted following a 42-year reign that turned his oil-rich country into an international pariah and his own personal fiefdom.

Farrakhan, who considered Gaddafi a friend, said those nations' establishment of a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi's planes and offers of humanitarian relief to the Libyan people were intended to help oust Gaddafi from power and gain access to Libya's oil wealth.

Successful assassination

"They succeeded in being the authors of the successful assassination of a sitting president," Farrakhan told WVON-AM in Chicago, adding that it placed America's interests in danger. "No one can trust the United Nations because it is a pawn of the Western world. No nation will give up their weapons of mass destruction like Gaddafi did, because it is the only protection they have against the wicked witches of the West."

Farrakhan also noted that the people now claiming leadership of Libya are advocating Islamic Sharia law, something that he contends the US has opposed.

Farrakhan earlier this year portrayed Gaddafi as a fellow revolutionary who has lent millions of dollars to the Nation of Islam over the years. The group used US$3 million it borrowed from Libya in the 1970s to acquire its opulent headquarters on Chicago's South Side. A US$5-million loan was used years later to pay back taxes and costs for the home of the movement's former leader Elijah Muhammad.