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He was describing the Nato-backed toppling of the regime of dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Mr Cameron joined then French President Nicolas Sarkozy after Nato airstrikes helped so-called freedom fighters defeat supporters of the dictator who had ruled Libya with an iron fist for nearly 40 years.

The former prime minister promised a new dawn for the country. But Libya today is a failed state where murder and torture go completely uninvestigated and ISIS-supporting terror cells are able to plot atrocities on the UK, such as the Manchester bombing.

It has since emerged that far from being freedom fighters, a number of the rebels who toppled Gaddafi, were Libyan extremists living in the UK who travelled to the country to fight the dictator.

They were part of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), also known as the "Manchester Boys", of which Salman Abedi, 22, who carried out the Ariana Grande atrocity, was part of.

Middleeasteye.netreported claims that known members of LIFG from the Manchester area, who were under anti-terror control orders to restrict their movements, had them lifted and their passports returned so they were free to leave and help in the fight against Gaddafi.

But Mr Cameron haddescribed those who overthrew the Gaddafi regime as having the "courage of lions".

Just over a month later in October 2011 some of those brave "rebels" applauded by Cameron executed the ousted the former Libyan leader after finding him cowering in a pipe.

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Mr Cameron had warned, if NATO did not help the rebels, Libya risked being a failed state that could pose a terror threat to us back home.

But, six years later, after taking the action, Libya is now a breeding ground for terror strikes on the UK and Sirte went on to become an ISIS stronghold.

The freedom and democracy Mr Cameron excitedly promised in his speech, that the UK and France would help build by "standing alongside" the liberators, has never materialised.

Mr Cameron said: "It is great to be in a free Benghazi and in a free Libya. The people of Britain salute your courage.

"Your city was an inspiration to the world. You threw off a dictator and chose freedom.

"Colonel Gaddafi said he would hunt you like rats but you showed the courage of lions.

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"Now, just as your courage has written the last chapter of Libyan history, so it must write the next one, and your friends in Britain and in France will stand with you as you build your democracy and build your country for the future."

The country has since been locked in a merciless civil war with various groups, including the Coalition-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which was supposed to rebuild the nation, ISIS, and other fighting militant groups.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the GNA was never able to assert itself through the Libyan National Army (LNA), even in the capital Tripoli, due to it competing with other factions.

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A migrant gestures from behind the bars of a cell at a detention centre in Libya

A HRW report on the state of Libya in 2016 said nearly half a million people had been internally displaced.

It said: "The civilian population struggled to gain access to basic services such as healthcare, fuel, and electricity.

"Militias and armed forces affiliated with the two governments engaged in arbitrary detentions, torture, unlawful killings, indiscriminate attacks, abductions, and forcible disappearances.

"Criminal gangs and militias abducted politicians, journalists, and civiliansincluding childrenfor political and monetary gain.

"The domestic criminal justice system remained dysfunctional, offering no prospects for accountability."

Now, just as your courage has written the last chapter of Libyan history, so it must write the next one, and your friends in Britain and in France will stand with you as you build your democracy and build your country for the future.

David Cameron

"Tens of thousands of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from Africa and the Middle East transited through Libya on their way to Europe, with at least 4,518 drowning or going missing while crossing the Mediterranean.

"While in Libya, armed groups and guards at migrant detention facilities subjected many to forced labor, torture, sexual abuse, and extortion."

Disturbingly, far from the west standing with the Libyans as its new dawn was created, the report said the International Criminal Court (ICC), had failed to open a single investigation into any ongoing war crimes in Libya, despite having jurisdiction there.

The report added: "In July, 14 2016 unidentified bodies were found close to a dumpster in Benghazi with gunshot wounds, and in October, 10 unidentified bodies with gunshot wounds and torture marks were found in a nearby neighbourhood of Benghazi.

"Both incidents took place in areas under LNA control.

"In June 2016, unidentified armed groups killed 12 detainees upon their conditional release from al-Baraka prison in Tripoli.

"All 12 were members of the former Gaddafi government and had been accused of taking part in the violence against anti-government protesters in 2011.

"The ICC prosecutor has failed to open any new investigations into the grave and ongoing crimes in Libya, citing resource limitations.

"In her November 9 2016 update to the Security Council, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced her office would expand the Libya investigations in 2017 to include recent and ongoing serious crimes."

Award winning journalist and author John Pilger said in an article on his website: "Britain, France and the United States effectively destroyed Libya as a modern state.

"More than 'giving rise' to Islamic State - ISIS had already taken root in the ruins of Iraq following the Blair and Bush invasion in 2003 - these ultimate medievalists now had all of north Africa as a base.

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Police are treating it as a possible terror incident

"The attack also triggered a stampede of refugees fleeing to Europe.

"Cameron was celebrated in Tripoli as a 'liberator', or imagined he was.

"The crowds cheering him included those secretly supplied and trained by Britain's SAS and inspired by Islamic State, such as the 'Manchester boys'."

On September 5, 2011, Mr Cameron addressed the House of Commons praising and justifying British involvement in the civil war.

He said "Britain could not stand by as Gaddafi slaughtered his people.

"Nor could we allow a failed pariah state festering on Europes southern border, with the potential to threaten our own security."

According to HRW, and the recent Manchester bombing, that is exactly what we have been left with.

Last September, a scathing report released by the Foreign Affairs Committee said Cameron was ultimately responsible for failing to stabilise Libya after the death of Gaddafi, which led to the rise of ISIS in north Africa, and that he took the country to war on a series of "erroneous assumptions."

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How David Cameron hailed those in Libya who went on to carry out Manchester terror strike - Express.co.uk