Month: February 2011

EDITOR: The Libyan endgame is nearing its end

Despite the mass murder by Gaddafi mercenaries, more and more of Libya has turned over to the rebel civilian revolution. Many of the army, airforce and special forces, as well as the civilian workers in most of the country are now fighting to rid the country of its diseased tyrant. One hopes the end of the Gaddafi rule is very near.

Gaddafi ‘losing grip’ over Libya: Al Jazeera online

Demonstrators remain on the streets as leader’s power may soon be confined only to the capital, Tripoli.
26 Feb 2011

Most of Libya is out of control of the government, and Muammar Gaddafi’s grip on power may soon be confined only to the capital, Tripoli, Libya’s former interior minister has said.

General Abdul Fatteh Younis told Al Jazeera on Saturday that he had called upon Gaddafi to end his resistance to the uprising, although he does not expect him to do so.

The embattled Libyan regime passed out guns to civilian supporters, set up checkpoints and sent out armed patrols, witnesses said in Tripoli.

Some of Libya’s security forces reportedly have given up the fight. Footage believed to be filmed on Friday showed soldiers joining the protesters.

The footage showed demonstrators carrying them on their shoulders in the city of Az Zawiyah after having defected — a scene activists said is being repeated across the country.

Al Jazeera, however, is unable to independently verify the content of the video, which was obtained via social networking websites.

Our correspondent in Libya reported on Friday that army commanders in the east who had defected had told her that military commanders in the country’s west were also beginning to turn against Gaddafi.

They warned, however, that the Khamis Brigade, an army special forces brigade that is loyal to the Gaddafi family and is equipped with sophisticated weapons, is currently still fighting anti-government forces.

Our correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, said that despite the gains, people are anxious about what Gaddafi might do next and also because his loyalists were still at large.

Interim government

Mustafa Mohamed Abud Ajleil, Libya’s former justice minister, has led the formation of an interim government based in the eastern city of Benghazi, the online edition of the Quryna newspaper reported on Saturday.

Quryna quoted him as saying that Muammar Gaddafi “alone” bore responsibility “for the crimes that have occurred” in Libya and that his tribe, Gaddadfa, were forgiven.

“Abud Ajleil insisted on the unity of the homeland’s territory, and that Libya is free and its capital is Tripoli,” Quryna quoted him as saying in a telephone conversation.

Abu Yousef, a resident from the town of Tajoura, told Al Jazeera that live ammunition was being used against anti-government protesters.

“Security forces are also searching houses in the area and killing those who they accuse of being against the government,” he said.

Anti-government protesters have attacked black Africans in Libya, mistaking them for mercenaries.

“The situation is very dangerous. Every day there are more than a hundred who die, every day there are shootings. The most dangerous situation is for foreigners like us and also us black people. Because Gaddafi brought soldiers from Chad from Niger. They are black and tey are killing Arabs,” Seidou Boubaker Jallou told Al Jazeera.

Jallou and his friend, both from Mali, fled by night to the Tunisian border. They said the roads out of the West are still in the hands of those loyal to Gaddafi.

Zawiya, a town 120 km from the Tunisian border, is now in the hands of the people. Egyptians who arrived at the border described a bloody massacre on Thursday which left many dead.

“I was in Zawiya’s martyrs square. There was a group of army men in the square who attacked the protesters. It was a very fierce confrontation. They were shooting using heavy weaponry. There were at least 15 to 20 dead and I had footage of what happened but the Libyan authorities on the Tunisian border took even my phone. Gaddafi wants to commit a crime with the absence of any media,” Ahmed, an Egyptian, told Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri.

‘Civil war’

Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, the Libyan leader’s son, said people in “three-quarters of the country are living in peace”.

In an interview on Al-Arabiya television, Seif said that the protesters are being manipulated and that the situation had “opened the doors to a civil war”.

He denied that African mercenaries had been recruited to attack the protesters in a crackdown that the United Nations say has killed at least 1,000 people.

“Show us the mercenaries, show us the women and children who were killed,” he said. “These reports about mercenaries are lies.” The protests were being led by “small groups, armed groups,” according to Seif al-Islam.

“Those provoking these people are terrorists,” he added, echoing his father who in a televised address last week blamed al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for manipulating the country’s youth with drugs.

The eastern region of the oil-rich North African nation is now believed to be largely free of Gaddafi control since the popular uprising began on February 14 with protests in the city of Benghazi.

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from the town of Al-Baida in eastern Libya, said that while many parts of the country’s east is no longer government controlled, local residents do not want to separate from the rest of Libya.

“They still want a united Libya, and want Tripoli to remain its capital,” she said.

Our correspondent added that many in the country’s east have felt abandoned by the Gaddafi government, despite the vast oil wealth located in the region.

The crackdown has sparked international condemnation. The United States said it was moving ahead with sanctions against the regime.

Barack Obama, the US president,  issued an executive order, seizing assets and blocking any property in the United States belonging to Gaddafi or his four sons.

The European Union also agreed to impose an arms embargo, asset freezes and travel bans on Libya.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said on Friday that decisive action by the Security Council against the crackdown must be taken, warning that any delay would add to the growing death toll which he said now came to over 1,000.

The official death toll in the violence remains unclear. Francois Zimeray, France’s top human rights official, has said that it could be as high as 2,000.

Ban’s call, as well as an emotional speech by the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations, prompted the council to order a special meeting on Saturday to consider a sanctions resolution against Gaddafi.

Libya: Gaddafi in spotlight at UN Security Council: BBC

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has demanded “decisive action” from the Security Council

The UN Security Council is meeting to consider action against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government in Libya over its attempts to put down an uprising.

A draft resolution calls for an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze.

It also proposes referring Col Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, one of Col Gaddafi’s sons has said the Libyan people “have no future” if agreement on ending the rebellion is not reached.

Much of Libya, especially the east, is now controlled by anti-Gaddafi forces but the Libyan leader still controls the capital Tripoli, home to two million of the country’s 6.5 million population.

The UN estimates more than 1,000 people have died in the 10-day-old revolt.

The global body’s World Food Programme has warned that the food distribution system is “at risk of collapsing” in the North African nation, which is heavily dependent on imports.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has demanded “decisive action” over the Libya crisis by the Security Council. The draft resolution it is considering is backed by Britain, France, Germany and the US.

Checkpoints are operating at major crossroads and on arterial roads into the city. Some are run by the army, at others armed men in civilian clothes are stopping cars.

The authorities here admit there’s been trouble in Tripoli, but picking up the line used by Colonel Gaddafi himself they say it was caused by youths who’d been using drugs or by al-Qaeda supporters who are said to have hijacked the protests.

Small but very noisy crowds of Gaddafi loyalists surrounded the BBC team wherever we went.

Everywhere I went in Tripoli was calm except for the airport where there was chaos.

The security forces at the airport are tense and jumpy, struggling to control the crowds at the terminal entrances, sometimes using various kinds of clubs to keep them in line.

The Libyan delegation at the UN has sent a letter to the Security Council backing measures to hold to account those responsible for armed attacks on Libyan civilians, including action through the International Criminal Court.

The BBC’s UN correspondent Barbara Plett says the main point of contention in the draft resolution is the proposal to refer Libya to the court, so the Libyan delegation statement will put pressure on those in the council who oppose the reference or want to water it down.

The US has already imposed sanctions against Libya, and closed its embassy in Tripoli.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Friday freezing assets held in the US by Col Gaddafi, members of his family and senior officials. The president said he was also seizing Libyan state property in the US, to prevent it being misappropriated by Tripoli.

Thousands of foreign nationals – many of them employed in the oil industry – continue to be evacuated from the country by air, sea and land.

Saturday saw two British military transport aircraft pick up about 150 foreign nationals in the desert south of the second city, Benghazi, and fly them to the Mediterranean island of Malta.

Britain also announced it had temporarily closed its embassy in Tripoli and pulled out its staff on the last UK government-chartered aircraft because of the deteriorating security situation.

Airport chaos
BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, at Tripoli airport, reports that about 10,000 people remain outside the terminal building and several thousand more are inside. He saw piles of discarded luggage and personal possessions, even TVs, abandoned by people who’ve been desperate to get out.

Most of the people trying to leave are Egyptians, and many of them told our correspondent they had been waiting there for seven days.

Friday saw Col Gaddafi make a defiant address to supporters in Tripoli, but in an interview with the al-Arabiya TV network broadcast on Saturday, his son Saif al-Islam appeared to strike a more cautious note.

“What the Libyan nation is going through has opened the door to all options, and now the signs of civil war and foreign interference have started,” said Saif Gaddafi.

“An agreement has to be reached because the people have no future unless they agree together on a new programme.”

Friday saw reports of anti-government demonstrators in several areas of Tripoli coming under fire from government troops and pro-Gaddafi militiamen, but on Saturday the capital city was calm, with shops open and people on the streets.

A Libyan journalist told the BBC that supporters of Colonel Gaddafi were occupying central Green Square in a public show of support.

Outside the capital, anti-Gaddafi protesters are consolidating their power in Benghazi. Leaders of the uprising are setting up committees to run the city and deliver basic services.

It is believed that rebels are fighting units of the regular army in the western cities of Misrata and Zawiya.

Continue reading February 26, 2011

EDITOR: The changes start arriving!

The Egyptian government has removed the blockade of Gaza, and the world has not collapsed! After five years of playing the Israeli sidekick on this illegal and immoral blockade, the revolution has brought this to an end. Bravo to the Egyptian masses!

Arabic w/ English subtitles:  Sout Al Horeya  Voice of Freedom صوت الحريه – Amir Eid ft. Hany Adel

Not to be missed – a beautiful freedom song out of the Cairo of the Egyptian Revolution!

Gaddafi loses more Libyan cities: Al Jazeera online

Protesters wrest control of more cities as unrest sweeps African nation despite Muammar Gaddafi’s threat of crackdown.
23 Feb 2011
Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s long-standing ruler, has reportedly lost control of more cities as anti-government protests continue to sweep the African nation despite his threat of a brutal crackdown.

Protesters in Misurata said on Wednesday they had wrested the western city from government control. In a statement on the internet, army officers stationed in the city pledged “total support for the protesters”.

The protesters also seemed to be in control of much of the country’s east, and an Al Jazeera correspondent, reporting from the city of Tobruk, 140km from the Egyptian border, said there was no presence of security forces.

“From what I’ve seen, I’d say the people of eastern Libya are the ones in control,” Hoda Abdel-Hamid, our correspondent, said.

She said there were no officials manning the border when the Al Jazeera team crossed into Libya.

‘People in charge’

“All along the border, we didn’t see one policeman, we didn’t see one soldier and people here told us they [security forces] have all fled or are in hiding and that the people are now in charge, meaning all the way from the border, Tobruk, and then all the way up to Benghazi.

“People tell me it’s also quite calm in Bayda and Benghazi. They do say, however, that ‘militias’  are roaming around, especially at night. They describe them as African men, they say they speak French so they think they’re from Chad.”

Major-General Suleiman Mahmoud, the commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, told Al Jazeera that the troops led by him had switched loyalties.

“We are on the side of the people,” he said. “I was with him [Gaddafi] in the past but the situation has changed – he’s a tyrant.”

Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, was where people first rose up in revolt against Gaddafi’s 42-year long rule more than a week ago. The rebellion has since spread to other cities despite heavy-handed attempts by security forces to quell the unrest.

With authorities placing tight restrictions on the media, flow of news from Libya is at best patchy. But reports filtering out suggest at least 300 people have been killed in the violence.

But Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, said there were “credible’ reports that at least 1,000 had died in the clampdown.

Defiant Gaddafi

Amid the turmoil, a defiant Gaddafi has vowed to quash the uprising.

He delivered a rambling speech on television on Tuesday night, declaring he would die a martyr in Libya, and threatening to purge opponents “house by house” and “inch by inch”.

He blamed the uprising in the country on “Islamists”, and warned that an “Islamic emirate” has already been set up in Bayda and Derna, where he threatened the use of extreme force.

He urged Libyans to take to the streets and show their support for their leader.

Several hundred government loyalists heeded his call in Tripoli, the capital, on Wednesday, staging a pro-Gaddafi rally in the city’s Green Square.

Fresh gunfire was reported in the capital on Wednesday, after Gaddafi called on his supporters to take back the streets from anti-government protesters.

But Gaddafi’s speech has done little to stem the steady stream of defections from his side.

Libyan diplomats across the world have either resigned in protest at the use of violence against citizens, or renounced Gaddafi’s leadership, saying that they stand with the protesters.

Late on Tuesday night, General Abdul-Fatah Younis, the country’s interior minister, became the latest government official to stand down, saying that he was resigning to support what he termed as the “February 17 revolution”.

He urged the Libyan army to join the people and their “legitimate demands”.

On Wednesday, Youssef Sawani, a senior aide to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of Muammar Gaddafi’s sons, resigned from his post “to express dismay against violence”, Reuters reported.

Earlier, Mustapha Abdeljalil, the country’s justice minister, had resigned in protest at the “excessive use of violence” against protesters, and diplomat’s at Libya’s mission to the United Nations called on the Libyan army to help remove “the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi”.

A group of army officers has also issued a statement urging soldiers to “join the people” and remove Gaddafi from power.

IDF fires on militants on Gaza border, wounding 11: Haaretz

Palestinians report three children were among the wounded, while the rest belonged to Islamic Jihad; IDF says explosive device was detonated towards soldiers patrolling border.

Eleven Palestinians were injured Wednesday when Israeli Defense Forces fired at a group of militants on the border with Gaza, Palestinian news agencies reported.

They said that three children were among the injured; the other eight were members of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad.

Gaza emergency services chief Adham Abu Selmeya said that the injured suffered shrapnel wounds. One was in a critical condition while two were in serious condition.

The IDF responded by saying that an explosive device was detonated toward soldiers who were performing routine activity in the area, on the northern part of the border.

“Shortly afterwards, a mortar shell was fired at the force and five additional mortar shells were fired into Israeli territory, landing in the Sdot Negev Regional Council,” the IDF statement read. “Subsequently, the force identified a number of militants in the same area and returned fire in their direction. A direct hit was confirmed.”

The al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad (Holy War) movement, said in a statement that a group of its members was targeted.

Abu Selmeya added that earlier Wednesday two workers collecting gravel near the border between northern Gaza and Israel were shot and injured by Israeli soldiers.

The IDF noted that in the past two months, “over 12 devices were laid along the security fence and exploded at IDF forces.”

They added that two explosive devices were found on the border as recently as Tuesday.

“The terrorist organizations are constantly operating against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers,” the IDF stated, adding that they held “the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for maintaining the calm in the Gaza Strip and for any terrorist activity emanating from it.”

Inside Libya’s first free city: jubilation fails to hide deep wounds: The Guardian

The first foreign journalist to reach Benghazi sees how Muammar Gaddafi’s bid to cling to power has failed

At the heart of the city where he launched his rise to power, Muammar Gaddafi’s indignity is now complete. In little more than three days of rampage, the rebels in Libya’s second city have done their best to wind the clock back 42 years – to life before the dictator they loathe.

Benghazi has fallen and Gaddafi’s bid to cling on to power, whatever the cost, has crumbled with it. There is barely a trace of him now, except for obscene graffiti that mocks him on the dust-strewn walls where his portraits used to hang.

Residents who would not have dared to approach the town’s main military base without an invitation were doing victory laps around it in their cars. Every barrack block inside had been torched and looted. The stage where Gaddafi would address the masses on the rare occasions that he came here had collapsed. His house across the road had been ransacked and there wasn’t a loyalist soldier inside.

“He is gone. A dragon has been slain,” cried Ahmed Al-Fatuuir outside the secret police headquarters. “Now he has to explain where all the bodies are.”

The Middle East’s longest ruling autocrat seems disinclined to do that, or to go quietly. His rambling speech on Tuesday night, in which he vowed to die in his homeland as a “martyr”, has convinced many in Benghazi that although they may have ousted their foe from eastern Libya, they have not seen the last of the bloodshed.

At the city’s hospitals, administrators are still tallying the toll from the most savage fighting seen here in decades. At the al-Jala hospital, at least 65 deaths have been recorded since 17 February, along with dozens of injuries, many of them horrific. And they are still coming in.

A Libyan soldier, who along with many of his colleagues had joined the anti-government insurgency, was pronounced dead as the Guardian arrived inside the overworked intensive care unit. A small bullet wound near his right kidney had caused irreversible chaos inside his body.

“They are still out there,” said the doctor who pronounced him dead. “These mercenaries who are hired by Gaddafi are lurking in the shadows.”

Wherever they are hiding, they must be running out of arms. All day defecting troops and officers were lugging in thousands of pounds of ammunition to a courtyard inside the secret police headquarters on Bengazi’s waterfront. By the day’s end an arsenal that could easily supply an army brigade was piled up. There were plastic explosives, rockets, machine guns and even the anti-aircraft weapon that was used to mow down demonstrators as they assaulted the military base on Sunday.

Evidence of the carnage it caused was clear on the walls of nearby buildings and in the mortuaries. Doctors had used their mobile phones to capture the carnage that was caused by military weapons on human flesh. And they coolly displayed the aftermath of the battle, denouncing Gaddafi as a criminal as they did so.

Nearby Filipino orderlies were putting the finishing touches to the short life of a dead soldier, washing his body with a clinical calm and slowly readying a green body bag. It was a process they were clearly familiar with. ” Too many times, too many times,” said one orderly as he rested on a trolley. “It has been terrible in here.”

At least 232 demonstrators in Benghazi are believed to have been killed since the uprising began and up to 1,000 injured. There are no reliable figures on the number of soldiers or mercenaries killed during the assault of the barracks, or in the hours of chaos that followed.

One thing that is clear is that this was not a peaceful stroll through the streets of Bahrain, as has largely been the case on the other side of the Arabian peninsular. This was a savage rampage on both sides, a blood and guts revolution, fuelled by decades of repression, neglect and rage. There has been nothing peaceful about it.

Testimony to the protesters’ vehemence is dotted all around the base, in the form of bulldozers stolen from nearby worksites that were used to breach the walls. At least six of them stand burned and mangled near where their work had been successfully done – gaping holes in whitewashed walls that allowed protesters to storm through.

“That is where the anti-aircraft gun was and that is where all the African mercenaries were found dead,” said Mohamed Fatah, who was part of the throng that attacked the base. “The people were leading a funeral march past the big roundabout and people from inside the base opened fire,” he said. “They went home, gathered themselves and came back. This is what happened.”

Gaddafi’s reported use of mercenaries appears to have tipped the hand of many protesters and armed forces. “That is why we turned against the government,” said air force major Rajib Feytouni. “That and the fact that there was an order to use planes to attack the people.”

Workers at an oil refinery 120 miles west of Benghazi said that they had seen an air force jet crash nearby and two parachutes land. There were widespread reports that those on board had refused to carry out an order to attack the east of the country.

The reports could not be independently verified. However, Feytouni confirmed that an air force base to the east had been hit on Sunday by two bombs dropped from a jet. “They were trying to make sure that the weapons did not end up in the hands of the opposition,” he said.

He added that he had personally witnessed 4,000-5,000 mercenaries flown into his air force base on Libyan military transport planes, beginning on about 14 February – several days before the uprising started.

“They [the planes] had 300 men at a time, all of them coming out with weapons,” he said. “They were all from Africa: Ghanaians, Kenyans.”

Several of the alleged soldiers of fortune are being held in a jail at the top of the ransacked courthouse on Benghazi’s corniche. One was briefly brought to meet the Guardian. He was quickly ushered away by lawyers who said he was not allowed to speak until the case against him was finished.

But the court of public opinion on the heaving street below had already convicted the unnamed African, along with anyone else linked to what they believe are the dying days of 42 years of sadistic oppression. There was no sign of any pro- regime figures. And even those who have recently defected, such as the country’s justice minister, are not prepared to show their faces publicly, fearing the reactions from a combustible street.

The mood of people fluctuated easily between nervousness and violence; warmth and zeal. The first western reporters seen in the city since law and order collapsed were embraced almost as liberators. At some points during the morning and at the hospital, it was difficult to move without people eagerly thrusting in our faces more macabre images of dead people or missing relatives.

“His time will come,” said one man brandishing a simple sign that said in English: “Freedom for Libya”. He added: “You are welcome here. The world needs to see what is happening.”

Along the long and winding way from the Salum crossing from Egypt, there was not an official to be seen.

Neighbourhood Watch-like groups, all armed with AK-47s, manned checkpoints in and out of all the towns. But every military and police post for 360 miles had been abandoned. The scattering of the police was leading to claims of victory and the feeling of triumphalism among many of the city’s young people.

The deathly emptiness of a rainy morning in a city under siege had by dusk given way to teaming streets and jubilant cheers. Celebratory burst from AK-47s cracked into the air thoughout the afternoon – always a disconcerting sound in a war zone.

The jubilation did little to hide Benghazi’s wounds, though. Here, more than in the capital, Tripoli, or Gaddafi’s other strongholds, mainly in the west, society remains brutalised and stagnant, a drab decaying old-order feel, much like Iraq in 2004.

“Here hospitals are nothing like in Tripoli,” said an intensive care nurse who identified herself as Fatima. “It is first world there, but we have to make do.”

It’s the same with government buildings – what remains of them. There is barely a typewriter left, let alone a computer or the basic tools of administration.

Neglect had been a clear strategy for Gaddafi for a city that had in 1969 deeply resented the coup he launched against the monarch, King Idris, and has not forgiven him since. The independent flag last flown 42 years ago has become a prominent symbol of this revolution. It flies above key government buildings and even hospitals and it is worn as a badge by most organisers.

Benghazi feels Libya’s time has come. Residents are adamant that the leader who forgot them has days, or perhaps weeks, left as president. “He can’t survive and he won’t survive,” one man shouted outside the courthouse. “He is deluded and he is cruel. He will attack us again even though everyone knows he is finished.”

The city has little sense of what is happening in the west of the country where Gaddafi still appears to be in control of at least large parts of the capital.

Meanwhile, many of the 1.5 million foreigners still in Libya are scrambling for the border, or waiting from help from their governments. Several passenger ferries are waiting in the choppy waters off the coast of Benghazi for any evacuation order. And the Salum border crossing to Egypt is a chaotic scramble of fleeing Egyptians who overran the arrival hall on Tuesday evening as the Guardian was trying to enter Libya. Riot police were moved into position but weren’t used.

The international community again appears hamstrung by the man it had spent decades trying to rehabilitate. Leverage is limited and options are few.

“The people of the international community had been helping their governments to help the assassin,” said an orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Shakir, in al–Jala hospital. “And that only because the assassin and his government is helping them. That is a flawed logic.”

So far reactions to the gathering storm here, which may soon lead to the overthrow of the third Arab autocrat in less than three months, has been to renounce the volatile leader and the compulsive savagery he is launching as his legacy melts away.

But there remains a gnawing fear that the worst may be yet to come. “Of course it is true,” Saad Achmed, a 24-year-old student, said. “If he feels he is cornered he will come for us. Those roads you came in on may be clear, but you did not see who is hiding over the hills? We have won the big battle, but that does not mean the war is won just yet.”

Continue reading February 23, 2011