Tripoli mayor Mahdi al-Harati is in Malta, government sources have confirmed, dispelling notions that he is a threat to national security.

Maltese language newspaper l-Orizzont reported yesterday that Arab sources believed he was dangerous, and that he was possibly responsible for the entry of Islamic State (IS, also known as Isis) militants from Iraq and Syria into Libya.

Government sources said yesterday that Mr al-Harati was a regular visitor and that this was not his first visit this year. They also said that this was not an official visit – Mr al-Harati holds an Irish passport and entered the country as a citizen. They also said he would be leaving in the coming days.

Mr al-Harati has fought in multiple countries, including Libya and Syria, as part of revolutionary brigades.

The Tripoli mayor lived in Ireland for 20 years where he worked as a teacher. He returned to war-torn North Africa in the early stages of the conflict and became the co-commander of the Tripoli Brigade during the Libyan civil war. The Tripoli Brigade was one of the first rebel units into the Libyan capital and participated in the battle for Muammar Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound. Mr al-Harati is regarded as one of the most important rebel commanders of the Libyan civil war.

After the fall of Tripoli, he was appointed deputy head of the Tripoli Military Council. He stepped down as commander of the brigade and as TMC deputy after he was approached by Syrians to set up a similar outfit to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

“The horror of what I saw was enough for me to decide something must be done. We couldn’t understand why the world was failing to respond to the plight of the Syrian people. When they didn’t take a stand, we decided to act,” Mr al-Harati told Foreign Policy magazine.

He was also one of those seized after an Israeli attack on a flotilla ship, the Mavi Marmara, in April 2010 after it attempted to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.