FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, Nov. 1 -- In the 1970s and '80s, international terrorism training was centered in Libya. There, Col. Moammar Gaddafi, using his oil wealth to spread his vision of pan-African revolution, hosted and trained thousands of men, some of whom are now rulers of African countries.
The alliances formed then still shape the politics and wars of West Africa, and there are growing indications that, despite its public disavowals, Libya is in the thick of regional tensions fomented by the alumni of its training camps.
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It was at a Libyan camp that Ibrahim Bah, a Senegalese, was trained before joining Islamic resistance fighters in Afghanistan, and then fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In the late 1980s, Bah returned to Libya and met Charles Taylor, now the president of Liberia. Taylor was then being trained to launch a rebellion against the government of Samuel K. Doe. Bah also met Foday Sankoh, who, with a small cadre of men, would soon establish the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and go to war against the government of Sierra Leone.
Taylor's introduction to Gaddafi had been secured by Blaise Compaore, a zealous officer in the army of Burkina Faso and now that country's president. He is a close friend of Bah's.
Through the ensuing decade, the ties among the four men -- Bah, Taylor, Sankoh and Compaore -- have remained strong. Bah fought with both Taylor's Liberian rebels and Sankoh's RUF, and he now resides in Burkina Faso. Sankoh created the RUF with the help of the three others. When they became heads of state, Compaore and Taylor were able to ensure a steady flow of weapons to their allies in the region.
Through his international contacts in the illicit diamond and arms trade, Bah has helped each man become enormously wealthy, according to intelligence sources and others who know all four well.
In exchange, Bah has enriched himself and the movements that he supports. He has also secured political clout and government protection, including various false passports under a variety of assumed names, for his activities.
Described by those who know him as quiet, serious and a religious Muslim, Bah had as his main contact in the RUF a notorious senior commander named Sam Bockerie, also known as Mosquito. Bockerie fell out with the RUF and fled to Liberia in December 1999, where he stayed under the protection of Taylor.
Taylor, Bah and dozens of senior Liberian government officials are under a U.N.-imposed travel ban and economic sanctions because of their alleged role in the illicit diamonds-for-weapons trade that the RUF used to keep its military supplied. Taylor and Compaore repeatedly have denied involvement.
Sankoh is now imprisoned in Sierra Leone, and the RUF he founded, under new leadership, has signed a peace agreement with the government and began to disarm its combatants. That peace process, according to RUF officials, Western intelligence analysts and U.N. investigators, would end RUF control over Sierra Leone's diamond fields -- and cut off the flow of money through Bah to Taylor and Compaore.
With control of the diamond fields threatened, Western intelligence sources said, there are several strong indicators that the old Libyan network is moving to protect its interests. Over the past six months, the sources said, Libya has sent several large shipments of weapons to Taylor.
In mid-September, Bockerie, in violation of the U.N. travel ban, visited Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, staying at the presidential lodge, according to a U.N. report and knowledgeable sources. On Sept. 26, Bockerie and Bah flew to Libya on an official airplane of the government of Chad, the sources said.
Intelligence sources say they believe Bockerie and Bah traveled on behalf of Taylor and Compaore to seek aid from Gaddafi. The aid, the sources said, would support a Bockerie-led insurgency that would enter Sierra Leone from Liberia and keep control of the diamond fields.
"There is an axis that is extremely dangerous that seems willing to plunge the region into war to keep control of the diamond fields," said an intelligence source in the region. "If it were just Bockerie, or even Bockerie and Taylor, it would not be of such concern. But if Libya is involved and we have diamonds already going to terrorist organizations, we have serious trouble."
