I wouldn't trust the Libyans....

This sounds like a bad deal, no?

The men have been released from house arrest as a result of the deal with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

The Home Office refuses to give a commentary on the number under control orders – currently 13 – but an update by the Home Secretary in September revealed that five individuals had their orders revoked between June and September.

One of them was a Libyan known as AF and three others were dropped because they were deemed “no longer necessary.”

In all 12 Libyans have been held under the control order regime since it was introduced in 2005, and only one remains subject to it.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was banned in Britain in 2005, although dozens of members had fled to the UK.

The peace deal, struck between Colonel Gaddafi’s regime and the LIFG in July, has had reverberations around the Islamic world and has now reached Britain.

It has come as a major blow to al-Qaeda, which counts members of the group among its leadership and announced it had merged with the LIFG.

Negotiations with members of the group began following a series of meetings in London between Gaddafi’s son, Saif al Islam al Gaddafi, then studying at the London School of Economics, and a former senior member of the group living in Britain, Noman Benotman.

As part of the agreement, the leaders of the LIFG, most of whom are in jail in Libya, have distanced themselves from al-Qaeda and condemned terrorist attacks on civilians.

Their statement has also been endorsed by influential Saudi clerics, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Salman al-Oudah.

One of al-Qaeda’s most senior leaders, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has seen his older brother sign up to the peace deal.

Details of the deal, which took two years to put together, were conveyed to the Libyans under control orders in Britain by security officials because they were not allowed access to the internet.

Paul Cruickshank, an expert in al-Qaeda at New York University who has made a documentary for CNN on the peace deal, said the group had not disavowed violence against military targets in Afghanistan or Iraq but added: “In essence the new code for jihad [holy war] is exactly what the West has been waiting for – a credible challenge from within jihadist ranks to al-Qaeda’s ideology.”

Mr Benotman told the Daily Telegraph: “These men 100 per cent support the statement - they really have denounced violence. Traditionally terrorism has only one way in and no gate out. It is important that we open gates.”

Do you believe them?