A year on since the death of Colonel Gaddafi, RT speaks with political analyst Ibrahim Alloush who thinks that it is the involvement of NATO and its allies that handed the country over to ‘a group of fanatic criminals.’

­It’s as the former regime strognhold of Bani Walid is bombarded by the army in attempts to restore order in the volatile city.

RT:The tensions around Bani Walid just underline the challenges for transforming Libya into a peaceful country but despite this, was the western backed Arab Spring a success, is the country better of without Gaddafi?

Ibrahim Alloush: Well I think the picture speaks for itself. For the last three weeks Bani Walid has been lying under siege and recently it was bombarded, many civilians were killed and wounded, the city was not allowed to receive medical supplies, food or fuel for that matter. Let me remind you that several hundred people from Bani Walid have been abducted after the new regime came into power. This picture is not only restricted to Bani Walid in-fact there are several places in Libya where the so called revolutionaries, the NATO mercenaries that invaded Libya with support of NATO airplanes have kidnapped and are still keeping in jail without trial or any form of supervision, tens of thousands of supporters of Colonel Gaddafi.  Also amnesty International recently demanded that the siege of Bani Walid be lifted. This siege represents a form of collective punishment that is not very different from the way the Libyan people were treated by NATO airplanes or by the so-called revolutionaries.

RT:As you pointed out, Bani Walid is indicative of how unstable the country is, and following the death of the US ambassador last month, NATO has offered its help to improve security in the country. Do you think that Western countries should now be more involved in bringing stability to this very troubled country now?

IA: I think that the involvement of Western countries was the source of trouble for Libya as a whole. We have seen that the state has become dismantled, as happened in Iraq and Somalia, wherever NATO, or US troops have walked in. There was a total implosion of the central state, and this is why you have cases like Bani Walid. If you look at it from the point of view of the rule of law, in fact, there is no rule of law in Libya, and this is the best environment for the control of states that used to be considered rogue states, as they refuse to abide by the dictates of the imperialist countries.

RT:Rogue, failed states are a target for extremists, for the likes of Al-Qaeda. Just how dangerous now is the situation in Libya, where the authorities basically lose control to extremists?

IA: I think the question is who brought Al-Qaeda to Libya, and now to Syria. It’s the same Western involvement, with the support of petrodollars from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. That is handing the country over to a group of fanatic criminals, who are bent on bloodshed, torture, slitting throats, bringing the country back to medieval darkness. We have seen very clearly what these people are aiming to do. They want to punish Bani Walid for its stance against the invasion of Libya by NATO. This is a form of collective punishment against the whole population for standing up for their independence and the sovereignty of their country.

RT:Today Turkey has called on the US, Britain, and its allies to intervene in Syria to prevent the looming humanitarian disaster there. Would the situation in Syria be different from that in Libya, if there was foreign military action?

IA: I think they are already intervening in Syria. All the weapons and all the volunteers, the fundamentalists who are coming into Syria through Turkey, and sometimes Iraq and Lebanon, they are not coming in on their own. They are being financed and armed by Western countries, as well as GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries. What we’re seeing here now, is a form of destabilization. The same is happening in Beirut, this recent bombing is an attempt to destabilize the country, and an attempt to put Syria under siege by imploding Lebanon internally, along sectarian lines.