Libyan Revolution Week 27 part 7

[joshcryer]

Links to sites with updates: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya">AJE Libya Live Blog http://blogs.aljazeera.net/twitter-dashboard">AJE Twitter Dashboard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya">The Guardian http://uk.reuters.com/places/libya">Reuters http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/">Telegraph http://feb17.info/">feb17.info http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=footerlinks">Libya Alhurra (live video webcast from Benghazi) http://libya-alhurra.tumblr.com/">Libya Alhurra archives and updates http://www.ustream.tv/channel/benghaziradio">Benghazi Free Radio, in Arabic (may have translators present at times) http://www.tributefm.com/">Tribute FM (English broadcast from Benghazi) http://www.libyafeb17.com/">libyafeb17.com

Twitter links: http://twitter.com/#!/aymanm">Ayman Mohyeldin, with AJE http://twitter.com/#!/bencnn">Ben Wedeman, with CNN http://twitter.com/#!/tripolitanian">tripolitanian, a Libyan from Tripoli http://twitter.com/#!/BaghdadBrian">Brian Conley, reporter in Libya http://twitter.com/#!/freelibyanyouth">FreeLibyanYouth, Libyan advocate http://twitter.com/#!/LibyaFeb17_com">LibyaFeb17.com twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/ChangeInLibya">ChangeInLibya, Libyan advocate https://twitter.com/#!/TheyCallMeSof">Sofyan Amry (arrived in Benghazi recently) http://twitter.com/#!/KiloFoot">KiloFoot (general Arab Spring news aggregation)

Useful links: http://audioboo.fm/feb17voices">feb17voices http://www.google.com/search?q=time+in+libya">Current time in Libya http://www.islamicfinder.org/cityPrayerNew.php?country=libya">Prayer times in Libya

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1809502">Week 27 part 6 here.

http://www.pogar.org/countries/theme.aspx?cid=10&t=2">The Oppressive Laws of Gaddafi's Libya
The government grants the right of association to official institutions by virtue of Law 71 of 1972, which regulates associational activity in Libya. Law 20 of 1991 on the Promotion of Freedom sanctions the death penalty for anyone whose continued existence would lead to the disintegration of Libyan society. The Code of Honor of March 1997 institutes a system of collective punishment for wrongdoing, whereby families, towns and municipalities are held responsible for the actions of individuals in their midst and are subject to punishment such as the dissolution of the local People's Congress or the denial of government services, including utilities, water, infrastructure projects. Associations engaging in political activity are illegal in Libya. Further, political activity is defined by Articles 2 and 3 of Law 71 of 1972 as any activity based on a political ideology contrary to the principles of the Al-Fateh Revolution of September 1, 1969. The Law on Publications, No. 76 of 1972, as modified by Law 120 of 1972 and Law 75 of 1973, govern the operation of the press, reserving all rights to publish.

This is what the Libyan freedom fighters are fighting against. Each and every one, when they went into this, knew that it was all or nothing, they had no choice but to fight. For their very survival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixwx_B38678">Marching On in Libya, for the revolutionaries!

Libyan rebels celebrate in Gaddafi's "Green Square" after capturing his compound.

Screencap of http://go.sky.com/vod/content/Home/content/videoId/eefdd9d2c3e5f110VgnVCM1000001f5012ac________/content/detachedLiveTv.do#url=http://go.sky.com/vod/content/Home/content/changeDetachedChannel.do?videoId=eefdd9d2c3e5f110VgnVCM1000001f5012ac____">Sky News, click the link to watch live footage.


Day 189 August 25

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-writer-matthew-vandyke-escapes-from-libyan-jail/story-e6freuyi-1226121757332">US writer Matthew VanDyke 'escapes from Libyan jail'
THE mother of a US writer missing since March in Libya says she has spoken with her son and that he said he had escaped from a Tripoli prison.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Venezuelan-Embassy-looted-in-Libya-Hugo-Chavez/articleshow/9727077.cms">Venezuelan Embassy looted in Libya: Hugo Chavez
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said today that his country's embassy in Libya was looted.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/25/501364/main20097048.shtml">Libyans plunder Qaddafi family's riches
"I can't even believe what I am seeing," said Muftah Shubri, a resident of Tripoli's western Nofleen neighborhood, as he walked across Aisha's lawn to the large covered pool where a ball and a small rubber boat still floated in the water.
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/libya-rebels-fight-to-1139312.html">Libya rebels fight to capture loyalist-held cities
Libyan rebels battled forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in the east Thursday and faced stubborn resistance in the capital as the opposition moved to assert control over the oil-rich country even as the longtime dictator remained at large.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/25/libya-letters-gaddafi-nato-obama">Gaddafi's desperate bid to save regime revealed
The Gaddafi regime carried out an extraordinary clandestine lobbying operation to try to stop Nato's bombardment of Libya, and believed the western allies were likely to launch a full-scale invasion in "either late September or October".
http://news.sky.com/home/article/16056965">Libyans Paying A High Price For Liberation
When war is raging through your city, you are either fighting or enduring the hardships that it brings.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2029816/Gaddafis-Neverland-Fairground-rides-zoo-shrine-dead-daughter-Inside-tyrants-bizarre-lair.html">Gaddafi's Neverland: inside the tyrant's bizarre lair
But one could only stare in disbelief at this theme park within a warzone. He snorted: �eLibyan children have no childhood, their lives are destroyed by Gaddafi. But his children, his family, have everything.�f

Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Libyan_civil_war">here for updated map. The size of the circles show population, the color represents control, red for FFs, green for tyrants. Note, this week is an animated gif, to show gains made by the freedom fighters.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x594751">A topic on the women of the revolution, dispels myths about the treatment of women in Benghazi.

Videos to bring the Libyan Revolution into context
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0vChMDuNd0">The Battle of Benghazi. BBC Panorama on Libya http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyaPnMnpCAA">Part 1, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMzwQvcx62s">Part 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwWwOeZqz6M">Video of the convoy sent to take Benghazi, taken from a dead soliders cell phone (shows how massive the operation was). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAclhhHv43s&feature=player_embedded">Arab Awakening: Libya: Through the Fire. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD5tu5bJWKc">Tea of Freedom Song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z41kQvx4uKw">Libya: Part 2 - The Uprising http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vNWCGDkdWY">Benghazi - Backbone of the Libyan revolution

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-march-10-0">March 10 7:28pm Saif al Islam Gaddafi says "the time has come for full-scale military action" against Libyan rebels. He goes on to say that Libyan forces loyal to his family "will never surrender, even if western powers intervene".

As of this week the National Trasitional Council has been formally recognized by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_the_Libyan_Republic#Recognition">52 countries. France (March 10), Qatar (March 28), Maldives (April 3), Italy (April 4), Kuwait (April 13), The Gambia (April 22), Jordan (April 24), Sengal (April 28), The United Kingdom (June 4), Spain (June 8), Australia (June 9), UAE (June 12), Germany (June 13), Canada (June 14), Panama (June 14), Austria (June 18), Latvia (June 20), Denmark (June 22), Bulgaria (June 28), Croatia (June 28), Turkey (July 3), Poland (July 9), Netherlands (July 13), Belgium (July 13), Luxembourg (July 13), United States (July 15), Japan (July 15), Albania (July 18), Slovenia (July 20), Montenegro (July 21), Portugal (July 28), Botswana (August 11), Gabon, Tunisia, New Zealand (August 22), Egypt (August 22), Jordan (August 22), Morocco (August 22), Colombia (August 22), Oman (August 23), Bahrain (August 23), Nigeria, Malta (August 23), Iraq (August 23), Greece (August 23), Norway (August 23), Lebanon (August 23), South Korea (August 24), Sudan (August 24), Hungary (August 24), Chad (August 24), Ethipia (August 24), Burkina Faso (August 24).

"One month ago (Western countries) were sooo nice, so nice like pussycats," Saif says in a contemptuous sing-song tone."Now they want to be really aggressive like tigers. (But) soon they will come back, and cut oil deals, contracts. We know this game." - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058389,00.html">Saif Gaddafi

(Yeah, Saif, as if you weren't "cutting oil deals, contracts" with western states. Who are the 'tigers' now? Bombing your own people.)

http://english.libya.tv/2011/04/25/eastern-libyans-believe-in-national-unity-distrust-au-and-turkish-mediation-survey-reveals/">The first free public opinion poll ever conducted in Libya reveals clues to Eastern Libyan sentiments
* 98 percent of the respondents do not support the division of Libya as a part of the political solution for the current conflict with the Gaddafi regime. Around 95 percent also don�ft see any role for Gaddafi or his sons in a transitional period, and think it is impossible to implement any political reform in Libya if Gaddafi or one of his sons stays in power

* Around 96 percent of those polled, believe that the 17th of February revolution can consolidate the national unity of Libya and support the model of a democratic Libya based on a constitution which respects human rights

* Al-Qaeda has not played any role in the 17th of February revolution, say 94 percent of the Eastern Libyans, and 91 percent thinks it�fs impossible for Al-Qaeda to play any political role in the new Libya

* The National Transitional Council is seen by 92 percent of those surveyed as �gexpressing the views and wishes of Libyans for change�h

This is equivalent to 17% the entire population of Libya, doing the numbers very conservatively.

http://jenkinsear.com/2011/03/19/a-legal-war-the-united-nations-participation-act-and-libya/">A Legal War: The United Nations Participation Act and Libya
The above link is to an overview of why Obama's implementation of the NFZ and R2P is perfectly legal under the law. I will not post it entirely here, however, all objections come down to the misinformed position that Obama, by using forces in Libya, was invoking Article 43 of the United Nations. This is wrong. Obama invoked Article 42, which does not require congressional approval to implement. Proof of this is that Article 43 has http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/actions.shtml#rel5">never been used.

It goes like this: The US law (Title 22, Chap. 7, Subchap. XIV �˜ 287d) grants the President the right to invoke UN Article 42 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode22/usc_sec_22_00000287---d000-.html">without authorization, the War Powers Act (Title 50, Chap. 33 �˜ 1541) grants the President permission to act without authorization under http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1541?E548.html">"specific statutory authorization" which, by definition, is what 287d does. �˜ 1543 of the War Powers Act requires the President to report to Congress, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama_explains_libya_mission_to_congress/2011/03/03/ABU9377_blog.html">which he did. One can argue all day and night about the legality of the War Powers Act, doesn't change the fact that under the law as it is written, the President acted within the law.

Editorials and stories worth reading.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2011/03/2011328194855872276.html">Libyan Karzai? Chalabi? Forget it, http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/04/04/110404taco_talk_anderson#ixzz1HvS7iW22">Who Are the Rebels?, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/29/vision-democratic-libya-interim-national-council">A vision of a democratic Libya, http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/is-qaddafi-an-anti-racist/">Is Qaddafi an anti-racist?, http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/04/20/left-slipping-towards-qaddafi">The left: slipping towards Gaddafi?, http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/04/27/once-again-�gstop-bombing�h">Once again on "stop the bombing", http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/an-open-letter-to-the-left-on-libya.html">An Open Letter to the Left on Libya, http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/top-ten-ways-that-libya-2011-is-not-iraq-2003.html">Top Ten Ways that Libya 2011 is Not Iraq 2003, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/09/110509fa_fact_anderson">Sons of the Revolution http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/voices/?ref=main-menu">Voices from the Field

Mohammed Nabbous, killed by Gaddafi's forces while trying to report on the massacre in Benghazi

"I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to lose the battle" -Mohammed Nabbous, a month ago when all this began

I'm struggling to come up with something to say about this man. I was not aware of the Libyan uprising until I saw Mo's first report, begging for help, posted here on DU. I was stricken. Here was a man giving everything he had to explain a situation that clearly terrified him, I would not call him a coward in that moment, but you could see the fear in his eyes, and desperation in his voice. For 30 days Nabbous would spend many hours covering the uprising in Benghazi. For many nights I would go to sleep with the webcast of Benghazi live on my computer screen, looking to it occasionally to be sure it was still 'there.' Mo treated the chat room as if we were his friends, and in some way, we were. I never signed up to LiveStream to thank him for all his work and it seems somewhat shallow to do so now, given that I was a lurker for so long. Ever since I took over posting these threads "Libya Alhurra" has been linked as a source of information. It wasn't until last night, when I posted, and twitter posted on Mo's adventures out into Benghazi to try to determine the truth of the situation, that Mo's webchannel became a hit, over 2000 people were watching him stream live. This was curious to him because he'd done many reports like this in the past but he appeared somewhat bemused that the view count exploded as it did. Last night Mo became a star. This is a man who first started out with a webcast replete with fear and desperation finally overcoming that aspect of himself and losing that fear, to become someone who was a fighter for the resistance just as much as those who held the guns. Reporting on the front lines of Benghazi became his final act, and for that he should never, ever be forgotten. I'm so sorry Mo that I never got to know you better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAclhhHv43s&feature=player_ded">Arab Awakening: Libya: Through the Fire is a documentary about Mo's last days, please watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EXALI60hg">Mo's first report, which many of you may remember, begging for help.

Mo leaves behind a wife and a newborn child she had http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/23/a_bright_voice_from_libyas_darkness">this to say about the No Fly Zone and R2P UN resolution:

We started this in a pure way, but he turned it bloody. Thousands of our men, women, and children have died. We just wanted our freedom, that's all we wanted, we didn't want power. Before, we could not do a single thing if it was not the way he wanted it. All we wanted was freedom. All we wanted was to be free. We have paid with our blood, with our families, with our men, and we're not going to give up. We are still going to do that no matter what it takes, but we need help. We want to do this ourselves, but we don't have the weapons, the technology, the things we need. I don't want anyone to say that Libya got liberated by anybody else. If NATO didn't start moving when they did, I assure you, I assure you, half of Benghazi if not more would have been killed. If they stop helping us, we are going to be all killed because he has no mercy anymore.

[joshcryer]

1. Libyan Revolution Day 190 updates below, current time in Libya, 1:36pm Friday, August 26

[joshcryer]

2. Libyan comedian says harder to joke without Gaddafi

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-libya-comedian-idUSTRE77O36520110825">Libyan comedian says harder to joke without Gaddafi
For 35 years Milood Amroni, Libya's top comedian, used humor as a weapon to poke fun, ever so carefully, at the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

But an uprising wrested Amroni's home, the eastern city of Benghazi, from Gaddafi's rule months ago. While the revolution means Amroni is finally able to joke openly without fear of disappearing into prison, he says he's had enough of political jokes and wants to move on.

"I felt I had to start again from the very beginning," Amroni told Reuters.

"I felt that if I make jokes about Gaddafi they wouldn't be good jokes because he's too weak now and it's not good to make jokes about a weak guy," said the tall, pencil-thin 50-year-old.

[joshcryer]

4. Somewhat related, Louie CK's final ep for the season was dedicated to Tim Hetherington:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hetherington">Tim Hetherington was killed in Misrata trying to cover the plight of the people there.

The Louie CK episode was about Louie going to Afghanistan to cheer up troops at various FOBs. I won't spoil it but I highly recommend it.

[pinboy3niner]

3. Libya chemical, nuclear material 'secure'

Source: AP

2011-08-26 13:02


Washington - The US State Department expressed confidence on Thursday that Libya's raw nuclear material and deadly chemicals are secure, trying to dispel fears that the near collapse of Muammar Gaddafi's regime means terrorists could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.


In a statement issued on Thursday night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the leaders of the rebel government in Libya, the Transitional National Council (TNC), had obligations to the international community as well as to their own people as they took control of the Arab country.

...


Raw nuclear material and chemicals aside, the fate of thousands of rockets is less clear. US intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts criticised slow work by State Department to locate and buy back dangerous munitions like the estimated 15 000 to 25 000 shoulder-fired missiles in Gaddafi's weapons stores.

...


That's feeding a debate within the administration over whether to devote more US resources, including manpower on the ground, to find and secure the potentially deadly or at the very least, lucrative, material.

...


The administration has ruled out sending any US troops to Libya, and is resisting internal calls inside the intelligence and counterterrorism community to expand the CIA's covert mission, two former US officials said. Since the CIA teams are operating covertly, they are not considered to be official participants in the UN-sanctioned mission to protect civilians in Libya.

...


http://www.news24.com/World/News/Libya-chemical-nuclear-material-secure-20110826

[pinboy3niner]

5. #Tripoli Martyrs Square, everything calm...one man picking up bullet casings one by one

Tweet from AJE's evan Hill:

evanchill

In #Tripoli Martyrs Square, everything calm, people off praying in other districts, one man picking up bullet casings one by one.

Fri Aug 26 11:32:30 2011

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-26-2011-1443

[joshcryer]

6. Bah, I came to post that.

Had it marked up and everything. Glad I refreshed. :rofl:

So fine, you just have fun! :P

[pinboy3niner]

7. LOL!

That is a striking image, isn't it?

But don't feel too badly--Iterate and tabatha have skunked me on 3 or 4 different occasions lately, and in every case I had spent extra time carefully selecting and pulling together different paragraphs, marking and formatting. You can't win 'em all. :)

[pinboy3niner]

8. U.S. accuses Syrian regime of 'targeted' attack on popular cartoonist

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Ali Farzat is a popular Syrian political cartoonist

• He was abducted and beaten after a cartoon depicting Syria's Bashar al-Assad

• The U.S. State Department blames the al-Assad regime for a "targeted, brutal attack"

• Farzat's supporters circulated a photo of the hospitalized cartoonist on the internet

From Gabe LaMonica, CNN

August 26, 2011 1:12 a.m. EDT


(CNN) -- The U.S. State Department got personal in its complaints against the Syrian government Thursday, accusing it of a "targeted, brutal attack" on a popular Syrian political cartoonist, Ali Farzat.


Shortly after a cartoon by Farzat depicting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hitching a ride with outgoing Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi began circulating in Syria, Farzat was reportedly kidnapped by masked men, beaten and thrown unconscious from a van onto a road in Damascus.


"The (al-Assad) regime's thugs focused their attention on (Farzat's) hands, beating them furiously and breaking one of them -- a clear message that he should stop drawing," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wrote in an official statement.

...


"While making empty promises about dialogue with the Syrian people, the Assad regime continues to carry out brutal attacks against peaceful Syrians trying to exercise their universal right to free expression. We demand that the Assad regime immediately stop its campaign of terror through torture, illegal imprisonment, and murder," Nuland's statement continued.

...


http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/26/syria.cartoonist.beaten/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

[pinboy3niner]

62. Badass:

Follow-up to this story posted in GD by MiddleFingerMom:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1824132


MUST SEE, highly recommended!

[Amonester]

102. I suggest we flood the ambassy with Badass pics:

http://www.syrianembassy.us/

[pinboy3niner]

9. What happened overnight

Source: Washington Post (news blog)

— NATO is focusing its airstrikes on the region around Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, where loyalist forces still hold control, the AP reported. The NATO bombing appeared to be aimed at helping the rebel advance.


— After several days of fierce clashes, rebel forces took control of the Abu Salim neighborhood near Gaddafi’s compound, al-Jazeera reported.


— Mahmoud Jibril, the deputy chairman of the Transitional National Council, spoke at a press conference in Istanbul about his concerns for Libya going forward, Reuters Africa reported. Jibril said his biggest concerns were security issues, the need to demilitarize quickly, questions of legitimacy, and financial stability. He pleaded with the U.S. and other countries to unfreeze billions of dollars to help create peace and stability in the nation. The United Nations Security Council approved an infusion of $1.5 billion of Gaddafi’s money seized by the U.S. Italian prime minisiter Silvio Berlusconi and other world leaders pledged to unfreeze another $500 million.


— Amnesty International said both loyalist and rebel forces have been inflicting abuse on prisoners in Zawiya, west of Tripoli, according to accounts from survivors, CNN reported. The human rights group is urging both sides to not mistreat detainees. The group also found evidence that pro-Gaddafi guards have raped child detainees, and that Libyan rebels are abusing children and holding foreign mercenaries as prisoners.


7:10 a.m.:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/libya-news-updates-inside-a-gaddafi-bunker/2011/08/26/gIQAr8GqfJ_blog.html

[ellisonz]

10. Gaddafi regime sent immigrant boats

13:14 Reuters Italy has proof that Muammar Gaddafi planned to turn its tiny island of Lampedusa into an “inferno” by sending thousands of desperate African migrants there by boat, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said. “We have terrible messages (in our possession) and they will be made public soon,” Frattini said in an interview with Avvenire, the Italian bishops’ newspaper.

“We have proof of orders given by Gaddafi’s government to transform Lampedusa into an inferno: ‘Put thousands of desperate people on boats and throw the island into chaos.’ We have proof and we can’t ignore it.”

http://www.libyafeb17.com/

Also 09:26 Alex Thomson tweets: “Water’s gone off now across much of Tripoli.”

[ellisonz]

11. Rebel units are massing in Misrata for an attack on Sirte

1.38pm: Rebel units are massing in Misrata for an attack on Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace, writes Chris Stephen in Misrata.

Chris Stephen.

Tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers abandoned by fleeing government forces, are being assembled for the attack, and hurriedly painted black, a precaution against being hit in friendly fire incidents.

Rebels told the Guardian on Thursday that a British and French special forces team is helping co-ordinate the assault, in which Misratan units will push eastwards to link up with forces from Benghazi which are this morning fighting their way westwards.

Misratan rebels are also advancing in other directions: one unit has reached the outskirts of Beni Walid, 100 miles south west, and was attempting to negotiate the surrender its loyalist defenders.

Rebel fighters are still based in Misrata, however, and commuting every day to the front line, in what is a often family affair. Typically, one brother will join his brigade in Tripoli or on the Sirte front while the other will stay on checkpoint duty in Misrata, then swapping over the following day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/26/libya-rebels-hunt-gaddafi-live-updates

[ellisonz]

12. Migrant evacuations from Tripoli continuing

9.01am: A rescue ship for migrants stranded in Tripoli has loaded passengers in the city's port after being anchored off the coast for two days while fighting raged.

Pasquale Lupoli, regional director of the International Organisation for Migration, said: "It has not been easy to do this operation. We never expected it to be. Nevertheless, there is a huge sense of relief that all our efforts are in the end helping these migrants."

A second boat with a much larger capacity is due to carry out another evacuation over the weekend, IOM said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/26/libya-rebels-hunt-gaddafi-live-updates#block-15

[ellisonz]

13. Op-Ed: Moammar Kadafi's inner 'I'

Op-Ed
Moammar Kadafi's inner 'I'
The Libyan leader's speeches are full of first-person self-aggrandizement.

By Jerrold M. Post

August 26, 2011
In March, a few days after NATO planes began bombing Libya, Moammar Kadafi delivered a speech to the nation he had ruled for more than four decades.

"Great Libyan people," he began, "you are now living through glorious hours." In the speech, designed to rally Libyans with soaring rhetoric to stand against the rebellion and the foreign attacks, Kadafi ended with a promise. "We will defeat them by any means.... We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one.... We will be victorious in the end."

------


Many high officials in his government have already defected. One of them, Abdel-Salam Jalloud, who had been with Kadafi since the 1969 coup that brought him to power, said recently that "Kadafi is delusional because he thinks he can disappear in Libya, and when NATO leaves, he believes he can gather his supporters."

At this point, with defeat looming, Kadafi is delusional. The only question now is how many Libyans will remain with him on his first-person-singular course to the bitter end.


-----

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-post-kadafi-churchill-libya-20110826,0,1932569.story


Jerrold M. Post is director of the political psychology program at George Washington University. He was founding director of the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior and is the author of "Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World" and "The Mind of the Terrorist."

[pinboy3niner]

14. Libya: Gaddafi had customised Fiat 500

Source: The Telegraph

Rebels in Tripoli have found an eccentrically-customised Fiat 500 that was specially made for Col Gaddafi by an Italian firm.


By Nick Squires, Rome

2:06PM BST 26 Aug 2011


Reported to have cost £175,000 (200,000 euros) the Fiat, which is bright green with gold trimmings, was part of the booty seized by anti-Gaddafi rebels this week when they overran the Libyan leader’s huge Bab al-Azizia compound.

...



It was customised by a company in Milan and bears some of the bizarre hallmarks of the Gaddafi personality cult.


On the bonnet, in place of the familiar Fiat symbol, is a black map of Africa with Libya picked out in green, the country’s coast sprouting copies of the Colonel’s famous Green Book.


The interior features a back-lit image of a tribal leader known as 'The Lion of the Desert’ who fought Italian troops during Libya’s colonisation in the 1920s and 30s

...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8724784/Libya-Gaddafi-had-customised-Fiat-500.html

[pinboy3niner]

15. NATO attacks pro-Gadhafi forces near Sirte

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI and KARIN LAUB - Associated Press | AP – 7 mins ago


TRIPOLI (AP) — British warplanes struck a large bunker Friday in Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, his largest remaining stronghold, as NATO turned its attention to loyalist forces battling advancing Libyan rebels in the area.


The airstrikes came a day after fierce clashes erupted in the Libyan capital, which remained tense as rebels hunted for the elusive leader and his allies. Pro-Gadhafi forces were shelling the airport and sporadic shooting was reported elsewhere, but the streets of Tripoli were relatively calm on Friday.

...


The NTC's finance minister, Ali Tarhouni, said Gadhafi's capture is not a prerequisite for setting up a new administration in the capital.


"We can start rebuilding our country," Tarhouni said late Thursday. "He (Gadhafi) is the one who is basically in the sewer, moving from one sewer to another."


http://news.yahoo.com/nato-attacks-pro-gadhafi-forces-near-sirte-112835461.html

[pinboy3niner]

16. 20 African states recognize NTC, but it now appears 54-member AU will not do so

From AJE Live Blog:

Twenty African states have formally recognised the rebel National Transitional Council as Libya's legitimate government, African Union officials said on Friday after it appeared that the 54-member bloc as a whole would not do so.

"According to the tally we've been keeping, 20 African countries have recognised the NTC as the government," an AU official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

Nigeria and Ethiopia, where the AU is headquartered, were among several member states who had been lobbying the organisation to recognise the NTC, officials said.


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-26-2011-1559

[Iterate]

17. Was the Libyan Intervention Really an Intervention?

Was the Libyan Intervention Really an Intervention?
In today's world, the international community has an obligation to protect fellow citizens from governments that forfeit their legitimacy
Aug 26 2011, 10:20 AM ET

...

International lawyers know that "intervention" and the "non-intervention doctrine" are swampy and highly disputed areas of the law. Former colonies have many good reasons to insist on "non-intervention" by their former imperialist masters, but what exactly constitutes intervention -- particularly non-military or quasi-military (sending arms, etc) assistance or sanctions -- is often in the eye of the beholder. The UN Charter takes a firm stand: Article 2(7) provides: "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."

But if an international coalition uses force on the authorization of the Security Council, because the Council has determined that a government has overwhelmingly failed in its responsibility to protect its own people, and because the vast majority of those people with access to free means of expression are asking for force to be used, doesn't it make more sense to say that the citizens of many nations, as represented by their governments, are responding to a call for help from the citizens of a nation unable to compel their government to perform its most basic function?

Note the "closed sphere" assumption reflected in the language of the Charter: spheres defined by a government's control over territory and a defined population. That control is sovereignty, which once meant, in law and theory if never in practice, absolute control without interference from others. The UN Charter dates from 1945; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was not issued until 1949 and the various core treaties translating the Universal Declaration into law -- the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention against Torture, the Convention against Genocide, the Convention against Discrimination against Women, and others -- all concluded over the next five decades. All of these conventions give citizens defined rights against their governments, with varying degrees of supervision by the international community. And then finally, in the first decade of the 21st century, came the "responsibility to protect." The UN World Summit in 2005, convened by Kofi Annan, adopted an outcome document with the following articles:

...

Fred Kaplan, in an otherwise excellent piece on humanitarian intervention in Slate, says that the responsibility to protect (R2P) is just a sanitized version of humanitarian intervention. Not so, in my view. For the first time, international law and the great powers of international politics have recognized both the rights of citizens and a specific relationship between the government and its citizens: a relationship of protection. The nature of sovereignty itself is thus changed: legitimate governments are defined not only by their control of a territory and a population but also by how they exercise that control. If they fail in that obligation, the international community has the responsibility to protect those citizens.

...

complete... http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/08/was-the-libyan-intervention-really-an-intervention/244175/

A short piece, actually pretty concise, but to just select the first four(or actually any four) paragraphs is a bit misleading as to its value.

[Iterate]

18. Audio: Jonathan Whittal of MSF in Tripoli

PaulTOwen Guardian politics journalist and co-editor of The Wire Re-up, a book about The Wire

Jonathan Whittal of MSF in Tripoli
1 minute ago
http://audioboo.fm/boos/451120

[pinboy3niner]

19. Imam praises rebels who "liberated the land inch by inch, house by house, alley by alley" :)

From the latest update to an earlier AP story:

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI and KARIN LAUB - Associated Press | AP – 12 mins ago

...


Tripoli, meanwhile, enjoyed the quietest day yet since the rebel takeover, though pro-Gadhafi forces were shelling the airport and sporadic shooting was reported elsewhere in the metropolis of 2 million people.


At the first Friday prayers since Tripoli fell to the rebels, hundreds of people crowded a mosque in central Tripoli, listening as the imam praised the rebels for taking up arms against Gadhafi. He said they had "liberated the land inch by inch, house by house, alley by alley," using a famous phrase from a Gadhafi speech against the uprising.


Hearing the phrase, worshippers laughed or shouted "Allahu Akbar!"


Afterward, the worshippers marched out chanting in support of revolution. "Hold your head high, you are a free Libyan," some shouted.

...


http://news.yahoo.com/nato-hits-gadhafi-hometown-tripoli-celebrates-150013569.html

[pinboy3niner]

20. Rebels send in special forces to hunt for Gadhafi

On the run, strongman tells Libyans: 'The enemy is delusional, NATO is retreating'

msnbc.com news services

updated 2 hours 31 minutes ago


TRIPOLI —

...


The rebels' Col. Hisham Buhagiar said they were targeting several areas to find Gadhafi: "We are sending special forces every day to hunt down Gadhafi. We have one unit that does intelligence and other units that hunt him down."


Loyalist forces are still present in several areas of the city, some of them flying rebel banners rather than the green flags of the Gadhafi era, Reuters correspondents said.

...


A measure of the rebels' grip on the capital will be apparent at Friday prayers later in the day. As the insurgency developed, Gadhafi's security forces saw the weekly worship as a protest and shot people as they exited mosques.

...


Nonetheless, many in Tripoli count themselves happy already that Gadhafi has gone. "I was nine years old when Gadhafi came to power and I've always hoped I wouldn't die before I saw this day," said Ali Salem al-Gharyani, choking back tears.


"I am now 50 years old and this is the first time, seeing Gadhafi gone, that I have experienced true joy in my life."


Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.


http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44284349/ns/today-today_news/t/rebels-send-special-forces-hunt-gadhafi/

[pinboy3niner]

21. AU desists from recognising Libya's NTC

Source: Al Jazeera

African body calls for formation of transitional government that also includes officials from Gaddafi's side.

Last Modified: 26 Aug 2011 15:48


The African Union has refused to explicitly recognise Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), in a setback for Libyan rebels who have already been recognised as the legitimate government by more than 40 countries.


Instead, the AU on Friday called for an inclusive transitional government in the North African state that would also involve officials from Muammar Gaddafi's side.


"(The) council ... calls for the formation of an inclusive transitional government, the establishment of a constitutional and legislative framework for the democratic transformation of Libya as well as for support towards the organisation of elections and a national reconciliation process," Ramtane Lamamra, the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, said following a meeting of the body's Emergency Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

...


Officials at the talks said the 15-member emergency council was split almost in half between countries that have recognised the NTC and countries who have not.

...


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/08/2011826142710579779.html

[Iterate]

22. A citizen journalist in Tripoli: 'I’ve waited my entire life for this moment'

A citizen journalist in Tripoli: 'I’ve waited my entire life for this moment'
As soon as Tripoli fell into the hands of anti-Gaddafi fighters, one of our Observers took out his camera to film his neighbours’ reactions. After 42 years of living under a dictatorship, emotions were running high. Our Observer explains why he chose to document the situation in Libya rather than join the opposition’s ranks.

26/08/2011 / LIBYA / Tariq Elmeri

“When the repression began, there were many volunteers to go fight, but few people to document the events”

Tariq Elmeri is a 28-year-old Libyan who studied computer engineering in the United States. He lives in Hay Al Andalous, a neighbourhood in central Tripoli. We spoke to him via Skype.

“When the revolution began six months ago, I tried to go to Tunis with my father and a friend. We were stopped at the border. The authorities took away our passports because my dad is a high-ranking public servant. In Libya, everyone who works for the government in important posts are put on lists, and not allowed to leave the country unless officially authorized by the prime minister.

“We got around online censorship by using proxies, until the authorities shut off the Internet”

I closely followed the regime’s repression, gathering information. In my neighbourhood, there were not a lot of demonstrations because the people who live here had different opinions, and could not unite together with a common goal. But at the same time, everybody had the feeling that they had to do something. Some people managed to leave the country and go to Tunisia, from where they raised support for the rebellion.

When Benghazi was freed, I and other online activists starting using Twitter and Facebook to share all the information we could find. However, the authorities soon started monitoring our activity. They created fake Facebook pages to steal our passwords and pirate our accounts. So we started using proxies .

more, plus several embedded videos... http://observers.france24.com/content/20110826-libya-tripoli-citizen-journalist-video-internet-al-andalous

Hang in there with the video -they usually end better than they begin.

[Iterate]

23. Libyan sovereign wealth fund 'missing $2.9bn'

Libyan sovereign wealth fund 'missing $2.9bn'
26 August 2011 Last updated at 15:31 GMT

Some $2.9bn (£1.8bn) is missing from the accounts of the Libyan sovereign wealth fund, the official tasked with tracking down Libya's foreign investments has told the BBC.

Mahmoud Badi said investigations had found "misappropriation, misuse and misconduct of funds" at the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA).

The LIA has total funds worth about $70bn.

It was set up in 2006 by Saif al-Islam, one of Muammar Gaddafi's sons.

more... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14684547

I'm sure it's just a rounding error.

[pinboy3niner]

25. That happens to me, too, when my counting is interrupted

They just need to start over; I'm sure it will come out okay.

"One, two, three..." :)

[pinboy3niner]

24. McManus: Will there be a Libya bounce for Obama? (LAT OP-ED)

It's possible that the president will get a boost in the polls if Moammar Kadafi is captured, but it's not likely to help him much in 2012.


By Doyle McManus

August 25, 2011

...


In recent decades, victories abroad haven't mattered all that much in elections at home. So, while it's possible that President Obama will get a bounce in the polls if Moammar Kadafi is captured and taken off in chains, it's not likely to help him much in 2012.

...


Still, the war in Libya has been a success, and Obama deserves some of the credit. In March, after a ragtag band of Libyans in the eastern city of Benghazi rebelled against Kadafi's government, the U.N. Security Council and NATO were deadlocked over what to do. France and Britain wanted to intervene, but many Americans (including, notably, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates) were wary of wading into another war while U.S. troops were still mired in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama aides came up with an innovative proposal: Let the French and British take the lead, provide American support only where needed and rule out any thought of boots on the ground.

...


Perhaps most important, the Libya campaign now looks like a success for one of the Obama administration's biggest foreign policy ideas: that an important goal of U.S. diplomacy, especially in a time of economic austerity, is to persuade others to help bear the burden of quelling the world's dangers.

...


When he faces the voters next year, Obama can make a credible argument that in foreign policy, he's done most of what he promised. He said he would wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and U.S. troops are slowly disengaging from both countries. He promised to maintain the war against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups; he's done that. And he promised to renew U.S. alliances so we could draw on more help from others; the NATO campaign in Libya, with much of the burden borne by Europeans, is proof that the doctrine can work. Obama's foreign policy has fallen short of its goals on other counts, most notably in Israel and Iran, but on balance, it's not a bad record.


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcmanus-column-libya-obama-elec20110825,0,3632997.column

[tabatha]

26. Inside info

G and other Trash located
Even Mussa is there
Located by "Friends" spec ops
No way out under the floor
Already blocked
Someones phone was located
M.I's

I believe they are trying to arrest them rather than have a shoot out.

[pinboy3niner]

28. AJE Live blog reported NTC Justice Minister saying G surrounded:

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-26-2011-1930

[Iterate]

38. Council believes Gaddafi trapped south of Tripoli

Council believes Gaddafi trapped south of Tripoli
Friday, August 26, 2011, 14:26 , by
Mark Micallef, Benghazi

The rebels in Tripoli are hoping to close in on Muammar Gaddafi 40 to 50 kilometres south of the capital where they believe he might be cornered soon.

The National Transitional Council security advisor Abdul Karim Bazama has told timesofmalta.com's team reporting from the rebel capital Benghazi, that fighters in Tripoli are chasing a convoy of trucks which is believed to include Col. Gaddafi and at least two of his sons.

Mr Bazama was not able to confirm if Saif al Islam, heir apparent of the dictator, was in the convoy.

"He is finished," Mr Bazama said confidently, insisting that the capture or killing of the dictator was only days away.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110826/local/council-believes-gaddafi-trapped-south-of-tripoli.381957

[pinboy3niner]

27. New CNN Poll: Support for Libya jumps but no bounce for president

August 26th, 2011

12:10 PM ET

By: CNN Political Unit


Washington (CNN) - Support for U.S. military action in Libya has skyrocketed nearly 20 points in the wake of this week's events in Tripoli, but most Americans don't see the rebel advances in Libya as a victory for the United States, according to a new national survey.


And a CNN/ORC International Poll released Friday also indicates that while President Barack Obama's approval rating on Libya has grown, his overall job rating has not budged.


According to the poll, 54 percent of all Americans now favor U.S. military action in Libya, up from 35 percent in July. And a 52 percent majority now approve of how Obama has handled the situation in Libya, up seven points since May.


But only a third say that removing Moammar Gadhafi from power is a major achievement for the U.S. and only a third say that the events of the past week represent a victory for the U.S.

...


http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/26/new-cnn-poll-support-for-libya-jumps-but-no-bounce-for-president/

[pinboy3niner]

29. Pool party at Aisha's place!

Libyan opposition supporters are apparently bringing their families over to the luxurious house of Muammar Gaddafi's daughter Aisha for a celebratory swim.

--Reuters

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-26-2011-2039

[pinboy3niner]

30. Rebels claim to be closing in on Gadhafi

updated 7 minutes ago

Transitional leaders press foreign governments to release frozen Libyan funds


TRIPOLI — Libyan rebels claimed to be close to capturing Moammar Gadhafi on Friday as their NATO backers bombed diehard loyalists in his tribal bastion, but there was no sign of an end to the war, or to international wrangling over Libya's riches.

...


Other TNC leaders, who stress they want to work with other rebel groups which sprang up later in the west as well with those who have previously supported Gadhafi, say the war will only be over once the fallen leader is caught, "dead or alive."


Alagi voiced confidence that Gadhafi and his entourage of sons and aides was surrounded and would soon be captured: "The area where he is now is under siege," he told Reuters, while declining to say where in Tripoli he thought Gadhafi was. "The rebels are monitoring the area and they are dealing with it."


Similar confidence has proved misplaced since the irregular armies overran Gadhafi's compound on Tuesday, however, and analysts do not rule out that the 69-year-old, a veteran master of surprise, might have slipped away to rally supporters for an insurgency. He has not been seen in public for two months, but made a defiant audio broadcast on Thursday.

...


http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44284349/ns/today-today_news/t/rebels-claim-be-closing-gadhafi/

[pinboy3niner]

31. 'Tripoli witness' recounts life in hiding

26 August 2011 Last updated at 14:51 ET

By Rana Jawad

BBC News, Tripoli

...


"They have a death brigade that specialise in people like you, I can't help you, no one can!" he warned. "They will knock on our door and drag you out in front of me and execute you! You have no idea what they are capable of. What will I do?! Tell me!"


The next day my mobile number was blocked.


I stopped broadcasting, got a new number and waited. On 20 February our neighbour, a man from Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte who worked at the now wrecked Bab al-Aziziya compound, crossed paths with my husband in the building's stairway.


"So your people aren't going to keep quiet?" he asked, nonchalantly. We packed a small case of belongings and all my broadcasting equipment and left to stay at my in-laws' home.


That was the night Tripoli's unarmed residents staged their own massive, peaceful protests.


It was also the night that the sounds of heavy artillery and gunfire that met them ripped across the city.

...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14686402

[Iterate]

32. LRDP update: #Zuwara, #Sabha, #Ghadames, #Ajeilat

Before the pool party it's best to get one's homework finished.

#Zuwara
TunisianAmazigh Amazigh Forever
Beautiful Amazigh song with amazigh pictures of #Zuwara in #Libya ♫ Ugur Amghar Amazigh ♫
March to Freedom Imazighen Libya Uploaded by ImazighenLibya on 21 Aug 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2aRELZAElc&feature=share

The Fight for Zwara—and Liberty
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/fight-zwara-and-liberty_591380.html
Will post this on full.

The city was quiet today and there were discussions among local leaders.

#Sabha
BintTarablis Nusaybah Khalil
#Sabha : Electricity and communication lines are cut off - #Gaddafi forces are shelling the city. Civilians need help. #Libya #LibyaBleeds 25 Aug

Sirte_Feb17 Sirtawi
#Sabha: Electricity's back and Manshia #FFs capture 6 #Gaddafi mercenaries. #Libya #Feb17 21 hours ago

4libya Jeanie Abdullah
#Sabha being attacked by #Gaddafi forces outside of the town by Grad rockets. #Zwara also still under attack by #Gaddafi Criminals #Libya 14 hours ago

Otherwise, all info about the area seems to be incoherent spam.

#Ghadames
Ghadames had liberated itself, twice. Gadddafi had sent forces the second time in order to secure the Algerian border.

ianbirrell ianbirrell
Many desert towns still under Gaddafi lockdown, including lovely old city of Ghadames, a world heritage centre 24 Aug

For_Gaddafi For Gaddafi & Libya
Algerian army has taken the Libyan city Ghadames 600km from Tripoli (south-west) warsonline.info/liviya/armiya-… 24 Aug

That was worrisome, but considering the source... Retweeted by a host of scoundrels.

sacha10 sacha bois
@mixmastah_p @TheTruthLibya Army of Algeria, which controls the #Ghadames, is going to meet with Libyan tribes and to agree on counter insur 25 Aug

VAVA_VIVA_LIBYA Ava
Libya Alahrar @LibyaTV reports that Gaddafi forces were kicked out of the world heritage city of #Ghadames after an uprising to 18 hours ago

4libya Jeanie Abdullah
Freedom Fighters Liberate #Ghadames today after uprising that started 12AM. They kicked out #Gaddafi forces & raised the free #Libya Flag! 14 hours ago

emmaomo2011 emmaomo
#Ghadames has been Liberated. FF drove G thugs out of the city via Nalut media #Libya 9 hours ago

News from Ajaylat

Al_Fatah69 Al Fatah
#LIBYA Just before I called a friend coming from Ajaylat & assured me that the legitimate leadership Jamahiriy… (cont) deck.ly/~XHkPq 25 Aug
"Al Fatah
#LIBYA Just before I called a friend coming from Ajaylat & assured me that the legitimate leadership Jamahiriya is the dominant frameworks Apelles & they maintain its stance strong in all parties & that thr is a spirit of jihad high & the insistence of senior members of the armed ppl, more than evr before & assured me that most of the media false. #stopthewars"

EmadDlala Emo Libya
#AJEILAT All Gaddafi brigades withdrawing from Tiji Badr Sabratha Sorman are in Ajeilat. #Libya 7 hours ago

So, not good, not good at all. It seems more clear now why the FFs from the Nafusa didn't just send in an overwhelming force. I just hope the people of Ajeilat don't pay the price if negotiation fails.

[Iterate]

33. The Fight for Zwara—and Liberty

The Fight for Zwara—and Liberty
7:44 PM, Aug 25, 2011 • By ANN MARLOWE

...

There is no chain of command among the revolutionaries. Every man feels he has the right to speak directly to his commander. This means that each brigade commander must speak with about 100 men to give orders, often receiving unwarranted—and unwanted—feed back from the fighters. It’s a miracle that more of the revolutionaries have not been killed.

The city was quiet all day today, after the NATO airstrike. Meanwhile, civilian representatives from the towns of Jumayl, Rigdalin, and Zultan met with leaders from Zwara to discuss peace terms. The Zwara men feel that the others are negotiating sincerely, and believe them when they say they have little or no control over many of the Qaddafi fighters based in their area.

Most of the population of Jumayl, Rigdalin, and Zultan historically supported Qaddafi and disliked the people of Zwara. However, even they seem to recognize that the game is nearing an end. The problem, they say, is that the Qaddafi brigades and volunteers are not in their control and want to keep fighting, with some thinking that Qaddafi will make a comeback (as unlikely as that might sound).

And dozens of Zwara men complain that their enemy is fighting for nothing, bitterly resenting the lives that are being lost here while the rest of Libya considers itself free.

more... http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/fight-zwara-and-liberty_591380.html?page=1

Again, excellence from Ann Marlowe and good insight into the local struggle.

[pinboy3niner]

34. Rebels Fan Across Libya Dressed as Condoleezza Rice (borowitzreport)

Posted in GD by pokerfan:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1820005


:rofl:

[Iterate]

35. Tripoli, the Morning After

Tripoli, the Morning After
August 25, 2011, 7:30 pm
By KHALED DARWISH

TRIPOLI, Libya — Wednesday, the day after Tripoli’s liberation, was special. That morning, the sun’s rays shone more intensely and the salty water of the Mediterranean turned into pure honey.

I overslept, rather like Libya had, got up, showered and returned the phone calls of my journalist friends, who, defying time and themselves, were clamoring to set up a printing press that spoke in Tripoli’s name.

We had a meeting at the home of a director on Shaykha Radya Street: four male journalists, two female ones, and a producer, and we agreed that we would publish something. We passed by a newspaper building, but it had been shelled the night before, hit either by tanks or by heavy artillery.

At 1 p.m., I went up to my office on the 10th floor, and remembered the books of poetry I had kept there, as well as my new Apple computer and the hard disk where I stored all my data. I wept at the unwarranted destruction. The targeting of that building was heartbreaking to me.

more... http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/tripoli-the-morning-after/?ref=opinion

[tabatha]

36. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: Libya: Detainees killed by al-Gaddafi loyalists

26 August 2011

AI Index: PRE01/422/2011

Amnesty International has uncovered evidence that forces loyal to Colonel Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi have killed numerous detainees being held at two military camps in Tripoli on 23 and 24 August.

Eyewitness testimony from escaped detainees described how loyalist troops used grenades and gunfire on scores of prisoners at one camp, while guards at the other camp shot dead five detainees they were holding in solitary confinement.

“Loyalist forces in Libya must immediately stop such killings of captives, and both sides must commit to ensuring no harm comes to prisoners in their custody,” said Amnesty International.

“Even as Colonel al-Gaddafi is cornered, with an ICC warrant active for his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity, his troops continue their flagrant disregard for human life and international humanitarian law.”

It is a war crime for any party to a conflict to kill or torture prisoners.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/libya-detainees-killed-al-gaddafi-loyalists-2011-08-26

[tabatha]

37. More Gaddfai destruction

Jonny_Hallam Jonny Hallam
Filmed round a looted house in brega. Found a land mine hidden at doorway left by retreating gads. Trap for people returning home?
6 hours ago

#Brega crude oil tank on Fire. Pro-Gads ignited it as they retreated. No time for FF to put it out while fighting.
http://twitter.com/#!/Jonny_Hallam/status/107181558116532226/photo/1
14 minutes ago

Ambulances coming back from the front line now at speed. trying to find out what happened
39 minutes ago

Le Parisien reporting: 'Gaddafi has been located in #Sirte according to French Presidents office.'
43 minutes ago

At Ras Lanuf checkpoint with 20 #FF soldiers watching AJA on at tiny TV. They keep cheering the reports of FF victories.
49 minutes ago

MT @Jonny_Hallam Filmed looted house in Brega. Found land mine hidden at doorway left by retreating gads. Trap for people returning home?
4 hours ago

All along road to #sirte 100s of km of power lines are down. How long will they take to repair?
9 hours ago

[pinboy3niner]

39. LIBYAN REVOLUTION DAY 191: CURRENT TIME IN LIBYA = 12:10 AM SATURDAY, AUGUST 27

Libya time = EDT +6 hours, PDT +9 hours, UTC +1 hour, GMT +2 hours

[tabatha]

40. alexblx's posterous

On #Gaddafi prisoners found killed in #Tripoli with hands bound - Don't rush 2 judgement @amnesty - these prisoners were most likely executed by Regime hardliners - for refusing to keep fighting.

To date there has been no probative evidence of any 'rebel' executions - whereas #Gaddafi executions of 'rebel' prisoners & his own hands bound troops refusing to commit war crimes - has been documented since the early days of the #Benghazi uprising:

EVIDENCE:

"GRAPHIC: Footage of soldiers executed by Gaddafi forces for refusing to shoot protesters:"
http://www.libyafeb17.com/2011/03/graphic-footage-of-soldiers-executed-by-gaddafi-forces-for-refusing-to-shoot-protesters/

"Executed by Gaddafi's forces" #Libya

http://alexblx.posterous.com/67144139

[Amonester]

47. don't rush to judgment... no probative evidence... (I was expecting it.)

Thanks!

[Iterate]

41. Gaddafi has crossed the line between murderous tyrant and plonker

Gaddafi has crossed the line between murderous tyrant and plonker
All dictators know that the biggest threat to their power is ridicule. And now the people of Libya are laughing
Marina Hyde guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 August 2011 21.30 BST

Did you see that gold mermaid sofa which belonged to Colonel Gaddafi's daughter? To adapt George Orwell's famous observations on the goosestep, a gold mermaid sofa is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army. "Its ugliness is part of its essence," Orwell went on of the preposterous high kick, in words which might just as easily be applied to that gilded monster of an arse-rest. "For what it is saying is 'Yes, I am ugly, and you daren't laugh at me.'"

Well, they dare now, even as Tripoli's death-toll mounts, and it's hard not to smile at every photo of a rebel posing with a goofy two-finger salute on the sea-beast, like some malarial parody of a DFS advert. See also pictures of rebels posing in canoes in Gaddafi's swimming pool; laughing at his fairground; or tinkling on his white baby-grand pianos with sarcastically raised eyebrows.

It's such a fine line between stupid and clever, as Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel once had cause to remark, and it's a similarly gossamer boundary between murderous and feared tyrant, and that plonker who bought some of the most tasteless nafferies in the wider north-African area.

Gaddafi may not be in rebel clutches (at least at time of writing), but he is now, unquestionably, a joke. And it's hard not to be swept along in the exhilaration of the great dictator becoming a joke. Ridicule is powerful, which is why the likes of Gaddafi threaten everything to suppress it, and in the free exchange of irreverence is the seed of Libyan democracy. This week, one of the country's most prominent comedians spoke of the challenges of a newly empowered audience. "Now it's very difficult to make them laugh about politics because they're joking themselves," explained Milood Amroni. "Now the people are making the jokes and we're laughing."

more, more, more ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/26/gaddafi-murderous-tyrant-plonker?CMP=twt_gu

Caught between joke and horror.

AJELive AJELive
Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons in #Tripoli: Eye witnesses say #Gaddafi loyalists instructed to shoot randomly 2 hours ago

"Gadhafi said his people 'love him.' I think that's what he said. It was hard to hear over the rebel gunfire." –David Letterman

[ellisonz]

42. The short life and cruel death of Libyan freedom fighter Izz al-Arab Matar

The short life and cruel death of Libyan freedom fighter Izz al-Arab Matar

Booker prize-shortlisted Libyan novelist Hisham Matar writes movingly of how his cousin was killed by a sniper in Muammar Gaddafi's compound

Hisham Matar
guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 August 2011 15.27 BST

My cousin Izz al-Arab Matar, a 22-year-old final-year student in engineering, was shot in Bab al-Aziziya, Muammar Gaddafi's fortified compound in Tripoli, at 4.30pm on Tuesday 23 August 2011.

"Izzo", as his friends and family liked to call him, had joined the rebel front immediately after the revolution started on 17 February.

He fought in the liberation of his hometown of Ajdabiya, helped liberate Brega and then went on to join the rebels in Misrata.

He would return home to his family in Ajdabiya occasionally to rest, get a change of clothes and eat a proper meal before setting off again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2011/aug/26/libya-death-izz-al-arab-matar

[ellisonz]

43. Rebels sieze border crossing to Tunisia

21:39 Reuters Revolutionaries drove soldiers loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from the Ras Jdir border post with Tunisia on Friday after nightfall and hoisted the green, red and black flag, two witnesses said.

They had fought with Gaddafi forces for control of the post, key to opening supply routes from Tunisia to Tripoli, earlier in the day.

http://www.libyafeb17.com/

[ellisonz]

44. Leaked cable: John McCain pushed to arm Qadhafi

By TIM MAK | 8/26/11 6:19 AM EDT Updated: 8/26/11 12:35 PM EDT

A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable shows that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain promised to help Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi obtain U.S. military hardware in 2009.

The cable, released by the open information group WikiLeaks, reveals the pledge came at meeting that was attended by other prominent members of Congress, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

In the meeting, Muatassim Qadhafi, the Libyan leader’s fifth son and national security adviser, requested U.S. assistance in obtaining military supplies, both lethal and non-lethal.

The cable indicates that McCain was the dominant voice among the congressional delegation in a push for military hardware for Qadhafi.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62114.html

McCain=Ratfucker

[tabatha]

50. Did Wikileaks just reveal the US blueprint for Libya?

The US administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were set on developing deep “military to military” ties with the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi, classified US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks on 24 August reveal.

The United States was keen to integrate Libya as much as possible into “AFRICOM,” the American military command for Africa which seeks to establish bases and station military forces permanently on the continent.

“We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi,” Senator Joseph Lieberman (Ind.-CT) said during an August 2009 meeting, which also included Senators John McCain and Susan Collins.

The records confirm that McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, strongly supported US arms sales to Libya and personally pledged to Muammar Gaddafi (also spelled “al-Qadhafi”) and his son Muatassim that he would push to get such transfers approved by Congress. McCain also revealed that the United States was training officers in Gaddafi’s army.

http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/did-wikileaks-just-reveal-us-blueprint-libya#

[tabatha]

45. Henchmen had secret plans to make Gadhafi 'King of Libya'

Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's regime was planning to proclaim him King of Libya once its forces had gained the upper hand over the rebels, documents show.

An internal briefing paper found in the Libyan prime minister's office set out plans for "confronting the enemies against the Great Jamiriyah," including the proposal to proclaim a monarchy.

The Daily Telegraph uncovered the document during a visit to Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi's deserted Tripoli office.

The eight point-strategy document was among papers dealing with the "crisis" facing the regime.

The paper, dated July 15, set out a step-by-step program to mobilize Libya's tribes to re-establish regime control of the country. But by then rebels controlled three large swathes of the country and were advancing on the capital Tripoli.

At the same time Libyan officials were publicly appealing for a ceasefire and said they were committed to an African Union road map as the basis for peace. But internally Gadhafi's henchmen were scheming to return Libya to a tribal state presided over by his family.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Henchmen+secret+plans+make+Gadhafi+King+Libya/5314842/story.html#ixzz1WBiK6fSZ

Thank God the AU plan was rejected. Thank God the rebels won.

[tabatha]

46. Freed Libyan prisoner: 'We gonna catch you, Gadhafi'

TRIPOLI – Libya's Abu Salim prison is one of the world's most notorious. For four decades, Moammar Gadhafi threw "enemies of the state" behind its bars without a trial to languish for years. Stories of torture and months in solitary confinement were common.
...
Amid the chaos at Gadhafi's recently conquered compound we met Ali Ahmed Sussi. He was released from the Abu Salim prison on Wednesday. Sussi was born in Benghazi but like many Libyans, he traveled abroad to get his education. He studied communication at the University of California and lived in Los Angeles with his family for 12 years.

Driven by hatred for Gadhafi's regime, the father of three returned to Libya to start a revolution in 2004. But when he smuggled weapons into the country from Yemen, the government caught wind of the plan, arrested him, and locked him up at Abu Salim.

Now, seven years later, the rebel forces have freed him. Standing among the hundreds of armed fighters who saved him, Sussi said "I can smell freedom." As soon as he was released the 46-year-old asked for fatigues and a gun. His hopes of staging a revolution are over, but he can still take part in the final days of one.

Fueled by memory of his years in Abu Salim, Sussi has now joined the hunt for the despot turned fugitive. He told us "I will search home to home, room to room, alley to alley. We gonna catch you Gadhafi."

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/26/7488605-freed-libyan-prisoner-we-gonna-catch-you-gadhafi

Video at link.

[ellisonz]

48. Gaddafi and Sons may have fled to Algeria via Ghadamis

Libya Live Blog

AJE Live Stream - Special Coverage: Libya Uprising - Tweeting revolutions
11 min 19 sec ago - Libya

Egypt's state MENA news agency quoted a source from the rebel Military Council in the city of Ghadamis, on the Algerian border, as saying that the convoy of armoured cars crossed the frontier on Friday morning protected by the commander of a desert nomadic military unit that had apparently operated under Gaddafi.

The source was quoted as saying the rebels were unable to chase and stop the convoy. Libyan rebels said on Friday they were close to capturing Gaddafi, who has disappeared after his Bab al-Aziziya bastion fell to the rebels on Tuesday.

Algeria's Foreign Ministry denied on Friday that it was linking any recognition of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) to a commitment from the council to crack down on Islamist militants.

A government source in Algeria had told Reuters on Thursday that it would not yet grant recognition to the NTC, and that it wanted to be certain that Libya's rulers were engaged in fighting al Qaeda's no

13 min 19 sec ago - Libya

A convoy of six Mercedes cars have crossed from Libya into Algeria, Egypt's state MENA news agency reported on Saturday, quoting a rebel source.

It was impossible to verify the report and it was not immediately clear who might have been in any convoy, but MENA quoted the source as speculating that senior Libyan officials or Muammar Gaddafi himself and his sons may have fled the country.

"It is believed that these vehicles were carrying senior Libyan officials, and possibly Gaddafi and his sons," MENA quoted the source as saying.

Algerian officials were not immediately reachable for comment.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya

[ellisonz]

49. As Qaddafi Forces Retreat, a Newly Freed Imam Encourages Forgiveness

As Qaddafi Forces Retreat, a Newly Freed Imam Encourages Forgiveness
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: August 26, 2011

TRIPOLI, Libya — Like many Libyans, Sheik Abdul Ghani Aboughreis had reason to feel bitterness toward supporters of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi as he led the first Friday Prayer service since rebels flooded into the city here.

When the uprising broke out in Tripoli six months ago, Sheik Aboughreis helped kick it off with a fiery Friday sermon at the Mourad Agha mosque. His words sent thousands of demonstrators pouring into the streets. From the earliest days of the uprising, his mosque and neighborhood became a center of revolt and resistance, and for six months it felt the lash of a brutal crackdown that residents say left dozens dead and hundreds, including Sheik Aboughreis, in prison.

But on Friday, five days after rebels broke through the prison gates to free him, Sheik Aboughreis watched the bands of thousands of young men racing through the streets waving Kalashnikovs from their pickup trucks, and he decided to deliver an unexpected message.

“The message was to forgive,” he said, “to forgive each other, to make sure to leave it to the law and not take revenge on each other.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/world/africa/27imam.html?_r=1&hpw

Article reveals how widespread oppression of religion was by Gaddafi.

[pinboy3niner]

51. Rebels increase control in Tripoli, order fighters to join one united national army

From AJE Live Blog:

Libya's rebels say they are close to fully controlling Tripoli but there is still no sign of their prime target, Muammar Gaddafi.


Security remains the most pressing concern as the National Transitional Council is ordering all rebels to join one, united national army.


But for now, the capital is littered with the casualties of the conflict- and families left with nowhere to live.


Al Jazeera's Sue Turton reports from Tripoli (2:15):


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-27-2011-0659

[pinboy3niner]

52. Libya war zone claims second Canadian, reports

By Ari Altstedter and Alex Weber, Postmedia News


OTTAWA —

...


Abdulhamid Darrat, who first came to Ottawa in the early 1980s, ran a successful Internet company in Libya called Baitaslxams. He was taken by government officers along with five co-workers and shoved into the back of a van, while at work in May. His daughter, Khadija, 16, said the last time she saw her father was at 3 a.m. on May 19 before he headed into the office for the day.


Khadija said Libyan officials led the family to believe that Darrat was taken out of Tripoli in order to do some sort of Internet work for the government. She said relatives with contacts in the Gadhafi regime told them Darrat was well looked after and doing well.


However, Khadija said Usama Okok, a family friend who worked with Darrat and was also taken captive in May, told them a different story. Apparently Darrat was beaten and killed only a few days after he was taken captive.


"They did stuff that no human being would do," Khadija said. "Nobody would even have done that to an animal." She said her father was a well-loved man who told his children they had the power to do whatever they wanted in life.

...


http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Libya+zone+claims+second+Canadian+reports/5315283/story.html

[tabatha]

53. New Republic: Liberation Not Just A Libyan Victory

By Joshua Kurlantzick

Judging from the fervor of their celebrations, the Libyan people are acutely aware that they will benefit from the fall of Moammar Gadhafi. But Libya is hardly the only country that has reason to rejoice.

As committed as the dictator was to destroying his own country, he posed an equal — perhaps even greater — danger to developing countries in other parts of the world. From the time he assumed power, Gadhafi leveraged Libya’s oil money, and his own willingness to have his country become a pariah state, to support insurgencies from East Asia, to South America, to southern Africa. With any luck, a number of long-running civil wars will disappear from the world stage together with Gadhafi himself.

Gadhafi always made it clear that he wouldn’t follow the informal rulebook established by other Arab and African leaders, according to which they never meddled in other countries’ affairs: Indeed, his political vision always extended beyond his own borders.

One of his pet projects, in fact, was the World Revolutionary Center, which he established near the city of Benghazi. Stephen Ellis referred to the institution as the “Harvard and Yale of a whole generation of African revolutionaries.” While many of his graduates shared an anti-Western ideology — which appealed to the Libyan dictator’s own self-image as one of the few statesmen willing to stand up to would-be imperialists — sometimes the rebels on his bankroll had no discernable ideology at all. Gadhafi’s ideological inclinations were often outweighed by his appetite for power, his desire to be seen as a dominant powerbroker in Africa, his fantasies of revenge against America, or simply his love of mischief.

http://feb17.info/news/new-republic-liberation-not-just-a-libyan-victory/

[pinboy3niner]

54. Tripoli calmer as Gadhafi's men pushed out

By KARIN LAUB and PAUL SCHEMM - Associated Press | AP – 3 hrs ago


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Tripoli began to look like a solidly rebel-held city on Friday, the calmest day in the capital since Moammar Gadhafi's opponents swept in nearly a week ago. Some even celebrated in the streets, marching and chanting, "Hold your head high! You are a free Libyan."

...


In Tripoli, some residents emerged gingerly from homes where they had taken cover for days. They looked upon a shattered city, largely without power or water and stinking with garbage, but also with no sign of the man who had ruled their lives for the past 42 years. Gadhafi's whereabouts were unknown. His portraits have been trampled, his green flags shredded and replaced with the rebel red, black and green.


Umm Yahya, who limped on a cane through Tripoli's shuttered downtown, leaning on her daughter for help, said her family had been surviving for days on pasta and tomato paste, but the fear and suffering in six months of civil war were worth it to taste freedom.


"We can speak freely now. We can talk on the phone," she said with a tired smile. "People are comfortable now spiritually and with that, anything is possible."

...


http://news.yahoo.com/tripoli-calmer-gadhafis-men-pushed-193608090.html

[pinboy3niner]

55. How fast will Gaddaffi's all-electric, custom-made, $286,000 Fiat 500 go?

It depends...



Rebels remove Gaddafi's Fiat 500 from his compound (Photo: AP)


:evilgrin:

[pinboy3niner]

56. Libya Front Moves to Gadhafi's Town

Source: Wall Street Journal

AUGUST 27, 2011

With Strategic and Symbolic Importance, Sirte Is Focus of NATO and Rebel Push

By SAM DAGHER


BENGHAZI, Libya—

...


There are indications that informal mediators are working between the sides. In Benghazi, Ali Zaidan, an influential opposition figure who hails from an area south of Sirte, was heard speaking on satellite phone Friday with a person who appeared to be a mediator inside Sirte. "We would like to end this matter," Mr. Zaidan told the caller.


"Let's minimize the damage. It would be a pity for more people to die," Mr. Zaidan said, asking the caller to provide him with the telephone numbers of certain elders from Col. Gadhafi's own tribe, the Gadhadfa.


Mr. Zaidan said in an interview it was a challenge to persuade the largely Bedouin tribes of Sirte—which include the larger Firjan and Ma'adan among others—that rebels mean no harm. That is especially true after Col. Gadhafi issued an audio message for Sirte on Wednesday, broadcast on a local radio station, warning residents that rebels from Benghazi and Misrata were converging on Sirte to plunder the city and rape its women.


"He's (Col. Gadhafi) trying to make everyone fight for their honor, property and life," said Hassan Drue'e, Sirte's representative on the NTC.


Mr. Drue'e said he was in regular satellite-phone contact with rebels operating clandestinely inside Sirte, who he says told him that all communications with the outside world have been cut off. They said Col. Gadhafi's son Mutassim, who acted as his father's national-security adviser, was in the city.

...


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576531943877544516.html

[tabatha]

57. Libya: Man suspected of killing Pc Yvonne Fletcher identified

The Daily Telegraph can reveal that Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, a junior diplomat working at the Libyan embassy, was seen firing a machinegun from a window in April 1984.

Following the collapse of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, Scotland Yard, which has kept the case open, is planning to send officers to Libya in the hope of bringing the suspected killer and his alleged accomplices to justice.

Mr Ameri was identified by a witness in a 140-page secret review of evidence conducted at the request of the Metropolitan Police. The report, seen by The Daily Telegraph, was written by a senior Canadian prosecutor and addressed to Sue Hemming, the head of counter-terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service.

Pc Fletcher was killed by a single bullet that hit her in the abdomen. An 11-day armed siege followed that ended when 30 Libyans from the embassy were deported. No one has ever been charged with killing the officer.

Queenie Fletcher, her mother, declined to comment but said earlier this week that the turmoil in Libya offered the “best chance yet” of catching her daughter’s killer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8726322/Libya-Man-suspected-of-killing-Pc-Yvonne-Fletcher-identified.html

[pinboy3niner]

58. UK announces humanitarian aid for conflict-torn Libya

Source: BBC

27 August 2011 Last updated at 01:19 ET


The UK is to provide urgent humanitarian support for those affected by the conflict in Libya, the government has announced.

Britain will provide medical assistance and food supplies via the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

It will also support efforts to reunite families separated during the uprising against Col Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

...


The UK's support will provide surgical teams and medicines for up to 5,000 wounded and food and household essentials for almost 690,000 Libyans.

...


Britain is also seeking approval from the United Nations to release around £1bn (1.86 billion Libyan dinar)($1.64 billion) of frozen Libyan funds to the country's central bank. British diplomats say the money would be used to pay salaries, and buy medicine and food.

...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14689827

[tabatha]

59. How to Avoid Bush’s Iraq Mistakes in Libya

Posted on 08/24/2011 by Juan

The illegal American invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation was so epochal a catastrophe that it spawned a negative phrase in Arabic, “to Iraqize” or `arqana. Tonight I heard an Alarabiya anchor ask a spokesman for the new government in Libya whether there as a danger of the country being “Iraqized.” He was taken aback and asked her what she meant. Apparently she meant chaos, civil war, no services, etc. (Those Neoconservatives who trumpet their Iraq misadventure as a predecessor to the Arab Spring should take a lesson; no one cites Iraq among the youth movements except as an example of what must be avoided). The Libyan intervention was legal in international law, authorized by the UN Security Council, and so can hope to have a better outcome. So how can Libyans and the world avoid the Iraqization of Libya?

1. No Western infantry or armored units should be stationed in the country. Their presence would risk inflaming the passions of the Muslim fundamentalists and of the remaining part of the population that is soft on Qaddafi. The presence of Western troops in Muslim lands creates terrorism, which then produces calls in the West for more Western troops, which creates more terrorism. It is the dialectic of a horror movie. The hawks who believe people can be bludgeoned into acquiescence have been proven wrong over and over again, in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. If large numbers of Western troops could always prevail, the Algerian Revolution of 1962 could never have succeeded.

The Qaddafi government collapsed in the east of the country in February, and Benghazi, al-Bayda, Dirna and Tobruk have been tolerably stable. There is no reason to believe that the west of the country need be less so once the fighting subsides. Security is not perfect, but let the Libyans supply it. Already in Tripoli, neighborhood watch groups have been formed to supply local security, and aside from the hated Bab al-Aziziya compound, there has been little looting.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/08/how-to-avoid-bushs-iraq-mistakes-in-libya.html

[pinboy3niner]

60. Libyan poitical prisoners set free

With Muammar Gaddafi on the run, many political prisoners who opposed him have been set free by Libyan rebel forces and are returning home.

At least 107 political prisoners held in the Abu Salim prison have returned home to the eastern city of Benghazi.

Many families are scanning lists of those freed from prison, anxiously looking for the names of their loved ones.

Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler reports from Benghazi (2:02):


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-27-2011-0928-0

[pinboy3niner]

61. Abandoned homes of Gaddafi family expose their luxurious lifestyle to the people

The whereabouts of Gaddafi's family remains unknown, but their abandoned homes in the capital Tripoli are exposing their luxurious lifestyle.

An indoor pool in the house of Muammar Gadaffi's daughter Aisha has been taken advantage of by curious rebels and their families.

Tripoli residents are taking tours of Gaddafi's compound, which is evidence of the ruler's extravagance available for all to see.

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal reports from Tripoli (1:35):


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-27-2011-1050

[pinboy3niner]

63. Libya: the luxury playboy homes of Colonel Gaddafi's henchmen

by Ryan Parry, Daily Mirror 27/08/2011


LIBYAN rebels lark about with guns in a playboy-style resort used by Gaddafi’s sons and advisers.


They discovered the abandoned complex of opulent sea-front villas on the outskirts of Tripoli.


Their luxury is in stark contrast to the abject poverty which millions of Libyans have suffered under Colonel Gaddafi’s regime.


Each of the houses – used as weekend retreats – is equipped with a hot-tub, infinity pool and all the (modern conveniences) you might expect in a celebrity mansion.

...


Smashed bottles of Dom Perignon and Moet were strewn amid the minimalist decor. Mutassim, the 34-year-old commander of the regime’s forces in Brega, is thought to be leading the fighting in his father’s birthplace, Sirte. The house is erected on stilts above the beach. Inside it has a huge white leather bed, scattered with designer Fendi cushions and bedspreads.

...


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/08/27/libya-the-luxury-playboy-homes-of-colonel-gaddafi-s-henchmen-115875-23374941/

[pinboy3niner]

64. NATO airstrikes conducted Friday, August 26

Key Hits 26 AUGUST:


In the vicinity of Tripoli: 2 Military Facilities, 1 Military Storage Facility, 1 Surface to Surface Missile Launcher.


In the vicinity of Sirte: 1 Armoured Fighting Vehicle, 11 Armed Vehicles, 3 Logistic Military Vehicles, 1 Military Observation Point, 2 Military Shelters, 1 Military Engineer Asset.


In the vicinity of RasLanuf: 2 Multiple Rocket Launchers.


In the vicinity of El Assah: 1 Tank.


In the vicinity of Okba: 1 Surface to Air Missile Transporter, 1 Radar.


In the vicinity of Al Aziziyah: 1 Surface to Air Missile Launcher, 2 Radars.


...


International Humanitarian Assistance Movements as recorded by NATO


Total of Humanitarian Movements: 848 (air, ground, maritime)


Ships delivering Humanitarian Assistance 26 AUGUST: 3


Aircrafts delivering Humanitarian Assistance 26 AUGUST: 5


http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2011_08/20110827_110827-oup-update.pdf

[pinboy3niner]

65. Rebels take control of suburb near Tripoli's airport after overnight fighting

The AP news agency has reported that rebels have claimed a suburb near Tripoli's airport after overnight fighting.

Residents in the suburb of Qasr bin Ghashir celebrateed by firing guns and anti-aircraft weapons into the air and beating portraits of toppled leaders with their shoes.

Omar al-Ghuzayl, a 45-year-old rebel field commander, told Al Jazeera his force has been able to push Gaddafi fighters "completely outside Tripoli."

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-27-2011-1320

[pinboy3niner]

66. Zimbabwe: Mugabe throws out defected Libyan envoy

Source: Africa Review

By KITSEPILE NYATHI in Harare
Posted Saturday, August 27 2011 at 12:39


Zimbabwe has Saturday told the Libyan ambassador and his embassy staff in Harare to leave the country after they defected to the National Transition Council (NTC).


The rebel-led NTC has been fighting to topple long time Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi since February and signs are the battle is nearing its end.


Libyan ambassador to Zimbabwe Teher Elmagrahi had on Wednesday led his countryman in Zimbabwe in raising the NTC’s red, black and green flag.


But President Robert Mugabe’s side of Zimbabwe’s coalition government said the pulling down of the old Libyan flag was illegal.

...


http://www.africareview.com/News/-/979180/1226070/-/h7d6s5z/-/

[pinboy3niner]

67. The rebel kept calling, 'Muammar!' 'Muammar!'

Ben Quinn posts on The Guardian's Live Blog:

David Smith, the Guardian's Africa Correspondent, is in Tripoli after spending last night in the western mountains.


He told me there was no sign of trouble on the road there, although he passed lots of rebel checkpoints, some with concrete barriers, often guarded by armed young men in t-shirts and shorts.


"There are big piles of bin-liners and other rubbish along the streets, as well as revolutionary graffiti and cartoons of Gaddafi on the walls, including one depicting him as a dog," added David.


"Likewise, one rebel who owned a dog could be heard shouting at it: 'Muammar!'"


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/27/libya-hunt-gaddafi-live-blog#block-4

[pinboy3niner]

68. Gasoline being distributed in Tripoli, diesel fuel arrives tomorrow to restore water supplies

The National Transitional Council (NTC) has been holding a press conference in Tripoli.

Some of main points to emerge so far from it include :

• From tomorrow diesel fuel is going to be arriving in the city. From it, power will be provided to ensure that water supplies can be re-established on a more stable basis. Petrol is being distributed today.


• Oil workers are needed to return to ensure that the sector's facilities are once again up and running.


• Television and radio stations will be operating again.


"(Most) basic services are the ones we are concentrating on right now, such as health," said a spokesperson.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/27/libya-hunt-gaddafi-live-blog#block-10

[pinboy3niner]

69. Rebels seize pro-Gadhafi stronghold near airport

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Gadhafi forces fled village near airport

• The United Nations warns that food and fuel shortages can further destabilize Libya

• Rebels and NATO battle loyalists in Tripoli and Gadhafi's hometown, a defense official says

• The African Union fails to recognize the rebel leadership as legitimate representative

By the CNN Wire Staff

August 27, 2011 7:10 a.m. EDT


Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- After days of fighting, Libyan rebel forces gained control of a tenacious pocket of resistance near Tripoli's airport overnight, CNN's Arwa Damon reported.

...


Gadhafi loyalists were using the village as a base to launch Grad missiles, rockets, and other forms of artillery in an attempt to regain control of the airport from rebels.


But overnight, Gadhafi forces fled Qasr Ben Ghasher leaving rebel forces to sweep through the village and secure a farm in the area owned by Khamis al Gadhafi -- Moammar Gadhafi's son.


Villagers celebrated the downfall of the Gadhafi regime with children painting red, black, and green flags early Saturday.

...


A 17-year-old rebel said he hates war but feels forced to fight until the war ends. At that point, "I'm going to see my mother. I'm going to see my family," said Louis al-Zinatni. "I'm going to remove this gun from my hands. It's not for me."

...


http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/27/libya.war/

[pinboy3niner]

70. Rebel fighters push beyond Ras Lanuf

Jacky Rowland reporting 13 km from Ras Lanuf in the oil terminal of al-Sidra said:

We are now very close to the frontline and the military checkpoint behind me is pretty much the last checkpoint before the frontline.


The rebel fighters have been able to push beyond Ras Lanuf right now, but in my experience they have never been able to push any further here. I was pretty close to this very same spot about five months ago.


The rebels are testing how far they can get. But the Gaddafi forces at the moment seem to have drawn a red line here just to the west of Ras Lanuf it seems like they really don't want the rebels to advance any further."

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-27-2011-1426

[Iterate]

71. Video: Zuwarah, Ras Ejdir, Tarhunah

Battle for liberating Amazigh Zuwara | Euro. 25-8-2011 |
Uploaded by ImazighenLibya on 25 Aug 2011

Libya, Libye, 25 August 2011, city of Zuwarah (western Libya) (http://g.co/maps/s8wc) (fighting against Gaddafi's militas and gangs is on-going). Libyan Freedom Fighters are now in control most of the country but where Gaddafi loyalists are still fighting, the confrontations are fierce. In the coastal town of Zuwarah populated by Imazighen Berber population, the revolutionaries remain defiant despite being surrounded by mercenaries loyal to Muammar Al-Qathafi and gangs from the neighboring cities of Al-Jmil, Al-Ajilat, Zolton and Regdaline. The shelling of the civilian population of Zuwara has already left six people dead and many more injured. The locals have called for help from the NTC in Benghazi without receiving response and also requested reinforcements and weapons from revolutionaries from other cities but with little success, most of the fighters been busy in Tripoli streets fighting. "Let's hope this is the last battle in the western region, next to the Tunisian border," said one revolutionary in Zuwara. "Regions of Ras Ejjdir, Al-Jamil, Zolton, Regdaline and Al-Ajilat are pro-Gaddafi, but God willing, we will win this battle in the coming hours." Euronews reporter exposes that: "Here at the gates of the city of Zuwara the latest battle between the Libyan revolutionaries and the criminal militias and mercenaries of Muammar Al Qathafi has been played out. The battle is over, and the revolutionaries say now there is nothing Al-Qathafi and gangs can do in the new Libya but to recognise there is a new leader, it is the real and original Libyan people."
http://youtu.be/saOefK7v8aU

Zuwara FF liberate Ras Ejdir | 26-8-2011|
Uploaded by ImazighenLibya on 27 Aug 2011
http://youtu.be/BJgp4oLUCtc

RAW, Libya rebels arriving in the city of Tarhunah
Uploaded by FreePressTV on 27 Aug 2011
http://youtu.be/4Yy4DlNrAfk

That title is a bit misleading. Actually it was FFs linking up with the locally liberated people of Tarhunah.

Plus, the latest, though not strictly current, map of Tripoli. There is less fighting today than the map indicates and the green areas have turned over during the night. I guess that would make it all red, but I can't resist posting it anyway.

Tripoli map- NTC control (red), Gaddafi (green), Disputed areas (yellow) upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm… #Libya

[joshcryer]

72. A double agent in Gadhafi camp (must read)

http://news.yahoo.com/a-double-agent-in-gadhafi-camp-.html">A double agent in Gadhafi camp
TRIPOLI, Libya—For more than five months in a city locked down by forces loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi, regime opponents in Tripoli's Fashloom neighborhood relied on a fellow resistance leader who told them with uncanny accuracy how to evade security sweeps and tipped them off to impending raids against them.

On Thursday, as a rebel advance broke Col. Gadhafi's grip over his capital, the man identified himself to those beyond his underground cell: He is Mahmoud Ben Jumaa, a senior officer in Col. Gadhafi's personal security force.

In his double-agent role in the uprising, Mr. Ben Jumaa by day issued orders to arrest or tail suspected rebels. By night, the 54-year-old met secretly with those trying to overthrow his boss, who in turn were part of a city-wide opposition to the strongman.

Even as battles continued for pockets of Tripoli on Thursday, a clearer picture is emerging to explain how Libya's uprising succeeded with little widespread bloodshed in the capital. In part, it is because onetime regime stalwarts—including internal security commanders as senior as Mr. Ben Jumaa—were secretly part of the rebel leadership.

I'm not going to do week 28 until this evening, don't hate me. :(

[pinboy3niner]

73. Chairman: NTC has no concrete information on the whereabouts of Gaddafi or his sons

Libya's rebels have no concrete information on the whereabouts of Muammar Gaddafi or his sons, according to Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council.


Reuters reports that he told a news conference that the council might consider inviting police officers from Arab or Muslim states to Libya to help with security, but did not want a police presence from any other nations.


Rebel commanders are still negotiating with Gaddafi loyalists to try to persuade them to surrender control over the city of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town, Abdel Jalil said.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/27/libya-hunt-gaddafi-live-blog#block-21

[tabatha]

74. Doors open on terrible secrets of a crumbling police state in Tripoli

Smoke belches from the basement of Tripoli’s domestic intelligence headquarters, and the neighbours venture inside cautiously. Every time they touch a filing cabinet, or a door latch, they are careful about surfaces that remain dangerously hot. They remain wary, as well, of the terrible secrets that such buildings now reveal as the police state crumbles.

Somebody has tried to remove all evidence of what happened in this drab compound of offices, interrogation rooms and subterranean prisons that has been bombed several times leaving smouldering fires. The computers have been unscrewed and their hard disks systematically ripped out; huge automated filing systems, once capable of holding millions of pages of records, loom empty in the darkness.

But rebels seized this part of the capital so quickly on Monday that the ransacking was left unfinished. The departing security officials left behind a trove of documents, video tapes, audio cassettes and surveillance photos. It’s a messy and incomplete record of the security establishment that served Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, strewn on the floor and hidden under broken concrete. What emerges is a picture of extreme paranoia, a government whose domestic spies were concerned with the smallest details of ordinary life.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/doors-open-on-terrible-secrets-of-a-crumbling-police-state-in-tripoli/article2144310/

[tabatha]

75. Islamic militant group pledges support to anti-Gadafy rebels

IN A drab villa down a rutted road in Ajdabiya, the key eastern town recaptured last weekend by rebels, sit two leading members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

In the past, the two men, both grizzled veterans of the 1980s jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, would have baulked at the prospect of an interview, let alone given their names or agreed to be photographed.

“Everything has changed now,” says Abdul Monem al-Madhouni, who wears a scarf in the red, black and green colours of the rebels’ flag over a striped shirt and slacks. “This is a new era and there is no need to hide anything.”

He and his companion, who gives his name as Abdullah Mansour, sit on the governing council of Libya’s foremost militant group. Its members, one of the greatest threats to Gadafy regime since it was set up in the 1990s, run to the high hundreds. The two, both of whom recently returned to Libya after years in exile, say they have permission from the 12-member LIFG council to give the interview and what they say reflects its position.

“We are with the people and we are supporting the people,” says Mansour when asked for the LIFG stance on the revolt against Gadafy’s rule. “We have opened our hearts and our hands to all the Libyan people to work together to get rid of Gadafy.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0329/1224293298818.html

[pinboy3niner]

76. Gaddafi's African 'mercenaries' leaving Libya

27 August 2011 Last updated at 10:03 ET

By Martin Plaut
Africa analyst, BBC World Service

...


African soldiers recruited by Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi have begun streaming home.


A ship carrying some 260 migrant worker evacuees has now arrived in Benghazi from the capital Tripoli.

...


Amid reports that some of the former pro-Gaddafi forces had been summarily executed, many have been crossing into Mali and Niger.

Some 60 vehicles are reported to have driven over the Libyan border into Niger, only to be impounded in the town of Agadez.

...


A similar report was carried by the French magazine, Jeune Afrique, which said a column of 10 trucks crossed into Mali.


Last March, the BBC spoke to officials in Mali who said the Tuareg were being paid $10,000 to join the Libya government forces and a further $1,000 (£613) a day to fight.

...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14693343

[pinboy3niner]

77. Libyan rebels are reported to have taken Bin Jawad, 140 km from Sirte

Libyan rebels are reported to have taken Bin Jawad, a town about 140 km from Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace and a key stronghold.


Sam Kiley, Sky's Security Editor, is reporting from close to the town that the rebels have broken through much quicker than anticipated, after using rockets salvos to clear pro-Gaddafi forces out.


He added that there has been rebel intelligence that a defensive line had been prepared a few kilometres outside Bin Jawad. If so, those positions are likely to be the target of NATO airstrikes.


"The momentum is now very much with the rebels and, in military parlance, you never want to lose the initiative," he said, predicting that the rebels would want to "push on" quickly.


Sky are also reporting that there may have been more NATO airstrikes close to the southern suburbs of Tripoli, where rebels say that mercenaries are holding out in a village.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middle-east-live/2011/aug/27/libya-hunt-gaddafi-live-blog#block-25

[Iterate]

78. #Ajeilat is liberated - again

EmadDlala Emo Libya
Breaking: Official: Finally #Ajeilat is liberated for real after several battles back and forth between FFs and G brigades. #Libya 2 hours ago

EmadDlala Emo Libya
#Ajeialt #Libya Jubilation and joy of the people of Ajeilat when FFs liberated the city http://t.co/xfYeHw6 7 minutes ago

If any negotiations or offers of negotiations with GFs have ever succeeded they don't quickly come to mind.

[Iterate]

79. Looks like someone took his hat.

Insiders say he's been grumpy ever since.

[tabatha]

80. Zuma needs a democratic Zimbabwe to gain credibility over Libya

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1826273

Comment on AJE - sadly there is truth in it

The problem for the few african leaders democratically elected is that they seem to need to work with other african leaders who are despots. For business to happen at the AU you need the despots support. Nothing goes without the dicators' support. Instead of AU it should be called DDU (Dictators and Despots Union). The major functions of the AU are as follows in decreasing order of importance:

1) Keep the current dictators in power.
2) Allow the despots to loot their nations wealth without sanction
3) Turn a blind eye when the despots persecute their citizens.
4) When there is famine in a region call a conference, get all the leaders to spend millions of dollars to fly to one destination. The conference does not produce any tangible results. No pledges or donations. Budgets cannot support aid, they are only enough to support the despot.
5) When democratic opposition parties arise label them as western puppets and recolonisers.

[tabatha]

81. Sudan on Libya

Saturday, August 27, 2011 - 19:59 GMT+3 - LibyaSudan's Foreign Minister Ali al-Karti says Muammar Gaddafi played a part in the Sudanese division, as he pledges support for Libyan rebels during a visit to Benghazi.Al-Karti said:The previous regime caused us harm. It had connections with the rebel movement in the south of Sudan, which caused the split. It used to support different groups in the south of Sudan to help them split from the country. This makes us stand with the rebels and makes Sudan give them what it gave them. We clarified our position to the head of the NTC." - Reuters

[tabatha]

82. ODE TO ALEX

There have been some great TV journalists during the conflict between the #Libya people and the #Gaddafi family Regime.

James Bays @baysontheroad – Jackie Rowland @jackyaljaz - and Anita McNaught @anitamcnaught – all of whom filed many outstanding reports that undermined the Regime spin peddled by the folically challenged, but telegenic, #MoussaIbrahim – stood out for ALE.

Mark Stone @Stone_SkyNews - who threw off his #Rixos chains and was fearless and unrelenting in his pursuit of the truth for SKY – and even the initially tame David Mckenzie @McKenzieCNN of #CNN – who soon saw the light after a little encouragement – and filed a Regime rattling report – that promptly resulted in his expulsion.

Outstanding though these reporter’s were – there was one exceptional reporter that stood above them all – SKY’s Special Correspondent – a title she justified every day she was there - @AlexCrawfordSky – who enmeshed herself into the front lines of the Libya revolution – like no reporter in history has ever managed to do before – and entranced the eyes of the world with her riveting, graphic, and dramatic accounts of day to day life, front line experience, and the harsh realities facing - a brave and determined people who refused to submit to a tyrant.

@AlexCrawfordSky – was an outstanding UK reporter before the Libya revolution – the winner of many journalist professional awards – as this brief Wiki bio confirms - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Crawford - but after Libya – she now stands as the world’s preeminent international field reporter.

http://alexblx.posterous.com/ode-to-alex

[pinboy3niner]

83. Tripoli faces severe shortages of food, fuel

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI and PAUL SCHEMM - Associated Press | AP – 11 mins ago


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Rebel fighters pushed increasingly leaderless regime gunmen to the outskirts of Tripoli on Saturday, as severe shortages of fuel, water and electricity paralyzed the battle-scarred capital and the stench of growing piles garbage filled the air.

The rebels, who now control most of Libya, said they are preparing for an assault on Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, his last major bastion, if negotiations with tribal leaders there fail. Rebels deployed in Bin Jawad, a town about 100 miles (150 kilometers) east of Sirte, said they are waiting for NATO to bomb Scud missile launchers and possible weapons warehouses there.

...


Gadhafi's whereabouts is unknown, but there has been speculation he may have sought refuge in his tribal area.

...


Rebel fighters were also trying to open up the coastal road from Tunisia to Tripoli, a major supply route. Rebels have taken control of the Tunisian-Libyan border crossing on the Mediterranean, but have been unable to ferry goods from Tunisia because regime loyalists were shelling the coastal road near the city of Zwara, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) from Tripoli, on Saturday.


A large ferry chartered by the International Organization for Migration docked in Tripoli's harbor on Saturday, unloading food, water and medical supplies. On Sunday, the vessel is to take aboard 1,200 stranded foreigners, an IOM official said.

...


http://news.yahoo.com/tripoli-faces-severe-shortages-food-fuel-203801408.html

[pinboy3niner]

84. LIBYAN REVOLUTION DAY 192: CURRENT TIME IN LIBYA = 12:01 AM SUNDAY, AUGUST 28

Libya time = EDT +6 hours, PDT +9 hours, UTC +1 hour, GMT +2 hours

[tabatha]

85. Libyan boy starts his own news agency, elbowing past foreign correspondents

Since the uprising began in Libya six months ago, hundreds of foreign reporters have descended on the rebel capital in the east. In the midst of them, at nearly every press conference held by the opposition council, one can find Malik Mohamed, a slight 14-year-old who has started his own news agency.

Malik looks much younger than his age, but he holds his own amid all the experienced foreign correspondents, wearing his official press pass and pushing his way through hordes of journalists to get photos and ask questions of rebel officials. After a recent press conference by the rebels’ military spokesman, Malik followed him down the hall, where the official put his arm on the youth’s shoulders and engaged him in a private chat.

Malik publishes his stories and photos on the Facebook page of his Brega News Agency. Since he’s too young to drive, he takes taxis to the press conferences or gets his dad to drive him. He recently published a story about the visits of Moroccan and Tunisian foreign ministers to Benghazi for discussions with the opposition leaders. Malik also covers the story of wounded rebel fighters, going to the hospital to interview them.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2011/0826/Libyan-boy-starts-his-own-news-agency-elbowing-past-foreign-correspondents

[pinboy3niner]

86. Arab League restores Libya's membership, turns seat over to NTC

The Arab League has restored Libya's membership in the bloc, turning over the country's seat to the rebels' political leadership.


The 22 member League had suspended Libya's membership in February to protest Muammar Gaddafi's crackdown on protesters.


At a Friday League session, the bloc's chief, Nabil Elaraby, called on Arab countries to release Libyan assets in Arab banks to support the rebels' National Transitional Council.


Mahmoud Jibril, who led the Libyan delegation, praised the Arab League position against Gaddafi' and urged the Arabs to help rebuild and stabilize his country.


Outside the Arab League building in Cairo, a man replaced Gaddafi's green flag with the rebels' flag beside the other members' flags.


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-0055

[pinboy3niner]

88. PHOTO: Libyan citizens hold a rebel flag as they attend the Arab league meeting

Libyan citizens hold a Kingdom of Libya flag as they attend the Arab league meeting in its headquarters in Cairo August 27, 2011. - (Reuters)





http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-0334

[pinboy3niner]

87. Libya’s Interim Leadership Releases Its Members’ Names

Source: New York Times

By ROD NORDLAND

Published: August 27, 2011


BENGHAZI, Libya — The Transitional National Council, recognized by 57 nations as the legitimate interim government of Libya, released the names of all of its members on Saturday for the first time and promised to increase its roster rapidly to provide representation to newly liberated parts of the country.

...


Throughout most of the rebellion, the 31-member council revealed the names of only 13 of its members, citing security reasons. That led some critics to express concern that some of the others might be Islamic extremists who had previously been in the forefront of the internal struggle against Colonel Qaddafi.


The list released Saturday, of a council expanded to 40 members, did not appear to support that concern. Most of its members were relative unknowns. The only known Islamist on the list is Lamin Bel Haj, described by politicians in Benghazi as a member of the previously banned Muslim Brotherhood, which most Libyans regard as moderates. Mr. Bel Haj was described as taking charge of Tripoli for the rebels, and was one of five Tripoli names on the new council.


No women were added. Salwa Fawzi el-Deghali, one of four council members from Benghazi, remained the only woman.


Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the council, said it planned to increase its membership to 80.

...


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/world/africa/28benghazi.html

[pinboy3niner]

89. Gaddafi's end … and Libya's new beginning

Source: The Observer via The Guardian

Stalemate had lasted for months, but within a week a stunned population found itself free at last


Martin Chulov in Tripoli, Chris Stephen at Kilometre Sixty, Daniel Boffey in London and Chris McGreal in Washington



The crucial blow came as Muammar Gaddafi and much of the world looked the wrong way. The Libyan revolutionaries who swept out of the western mountains and into Tripoli, turfing a hated tyrant from power in a matter of days, had been regarded as bit players: by Gaddafi as he concentrated his forces to fend off the threat from rebels in Benghazi and Misrata in the east and by European and American politicians as they questioned the point of Nato's daily bombing raids after months of military stalemate.


But far from view, the rebels in the west were armed by the French, trained by the British and led into battle by Qatari special forces as they gained enough ground to seize the town of Zawiya, then pounce on the capital. By then rebel supporters in Tripoli, secretly armed, were ready to rise up and revolutionaries from Misrata had moved on the city from the east.


The scale of the astonishing victory, as the rebels swept in with such speed and force that they took most of the capital before Gaddafi could organise a defence, surprised the revolutionaries, even if the dictator still eludes them and his loyalists hold out in pockets of resistance.


"I admit that we did not expect such a pace in the military operation," said Ali Tarhouni, a member of the National Transitional Council and aspiring oil minister.

...


The capture of Sirte, urgent now that Gaddafi's men are launching Scud missiles against Misrata, is viewed here as the final battle and one these bearded fighters hope will not need to be fought. "We've had enough, believe me," said Mateeg. "Nobody wants to fight. Ask yourself truly why we went to Tripoli. We went there to end this subject."

...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/28/gaddafi-end-libya-new-beginning

[tabatha]

90. Senior Islamist rebel is veteran Gaddafi foe

(Reuters) - A senior Islamist rebel reported to have helped depose Muammar Gaddafi is a skilled guerrilla leader and veteran dissident who led a failed revolt in Libya in the 1990s and once spent time with al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, security experts say.

Abdel Hakim Belhadj, reported by Arab media to have been prominent in the assault on Tripoli, helps lead an Islamist group that has fought in close cooperation with the main rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), analysts say.

The Libyan Islamic Movement for Change (Al-Haraka Al-Islamiya Al Libiya Lit-Tahghir), is made up of former members of the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) that once plotted against Gaddafi from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
.......
In an August 3 briefing paper published by the British Quilliam think tank where he now works, Benotman said al Qaeda-style global jihadists were present in the rebellion but they were a minority.

In contrast, Belhadj's Libyan Islamic Movement for Change accepted the idea of a new democratic Libya and "they have made it clear they will engage in and participate in any political process in the post-Gaddafi era.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/26/uk-libya-islamist-idUKTRE77P5XD20110826

[defendandprotect]

91. Late K/R ---

[pinboy3niner]

92. Inside Gaddafi's torture chamber:

Source: Daily Mail

The bloodstained cells inside a former primary school used to brutalise his enemies



Mark of terror: The horrific scene inside one of the torture cells



By Ian Birrell

Last updated at 11:31 PM on 27th August 2011


...


As we went downstairs, there was a door made of heavy iron bars. Inside were four tiny – and empty – cells, about 5ft by 3ft. With their tiled floors, they looked like nothing more than shower rooms. But several prisoners were often stuffed inside, their crimes perhaps nothing more than uttering a word out of place in a nation ruled by fear.


Chillingly, they were still smeared with blood, marking where brutalised prisoners had lain in agony on the ground after the torment of torture. Most terribly of all, in the first cell, there were two bloodstained handprints sliding down a wall.


These bloody handprints from an unknown victim of Gaddafi serve as a potent symbol for his vicious regime. He imposed his 42-year rule on Libyans using the terror of such neighbourhood torture chambers as much as his infamous prisons.

...


Now men such as Rapti are forming town councils and preserving such places as testimony to that reign of fear. Encouragingly, there has been little looting, apart from that which has taken place at Gaddafi’s massive compound at Bab al-Aziziah and some government buildings.

...


Sitting on a treatment table was a stunned seven-year-old boy with bandages on his head. He was being comforted by his older brother and had been waving a new flag from his car window when a sniper shot his mother and younger brother dead. He was lucky to have survived, a bullet grazing his skull.

...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2030931/Libya-Inside-Gaddafis-torture-chamber-The-bloodstained-cells-inside-primary-school-used-brutalise-enemies.html

This was NOT an exaggeration:

[pinboy3niner]

93. SYRIA: Arab League to step up pressure on Assad

Foreign ministers and representatives of foreign ministries of the Arab world attend an Arab league meeting in its headquarters in Cairo August 27, 2011. Arab governments will step up pressure on Syria's President Bashar al-Assad at the meeting on Saturday with a demand he end a crackdown on protesters trying to remove him, a delegate said. (Reuters)




http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-0337

[pinboy3niner]

96. Arab League abruptly cancels press conference without expected strong statement on Syria

According to the video report below, the AL instead handed out a very short written statement saying only that AL chief Nabil El-Araby will make an urgent trip to Syria and that he will present an "Arab Initiative" for ending the violence and bloodshed.

After the regional bloc re-admits Libya's membership, turning over the country's seat to the rebels' political leadership, it abruptly cancels a press briefing.

But not before releasing a one page, two point statement. It is believed the protests outside the meeting may have effected the change of heart.

Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh reports on the summit in Cairo (2:23). You can follow her on twiiter: @RawyaRageh


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-0412

[tabatha]

94. Going, going ......

[pinboy3niner]

95. "Now on ebay"

:rofl:

[Amonester]

104. gawd, I'm gonna keep that one!

Thanks tabatha! :thumbsup:

[pinboy3niner]

97. Success of armed Libya revolt adds new leaf to 'Arab Spring'

The Libyan rebels' astonishing televised success may alter what unfolds in rebellions so far characterized by peaceful disobedience in Syria and Yemen, which have endured bloody crackdowns.


By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times

August 27, 2011, 5:46 p.m.


Reporting from Cairo— Artillery shells and airstrikes, not placards and peaceful protests, sent Moammar Kadafi fleeing from his fortress: The Libyan uprising has made it clear that even the most brutal leaders may be endangered icons in a region reshaped since the first stirrings of revolt late last year.


The 6-month-old Libyan revolt tapped into the spirit of revolutions that swept Egypt and Tunisia, but its darker narrative sobered the early euphoria of the so-called Arab Spring. Libyan protesters began peacefully but were quickly confronted with the tactics of a leader who bombed hospitals and unleashed tanks on mosques.


There was worry that violent resistance would damp world support, especially after young Egyptians armed with Twitter accounts instead of assault rifles emerged as rebel darlings. That has not happened. As fighters backed by NATO warplanes roll into the Libyan capital, Tripoli, the rebels with their raised Kalashnikovs are the new heroes.


Their astonishing success — caught in real time on satellite television across the Middle East — may alter what unfolds in rebellions in Syria and Yemen, which have endured months of bloody crackdowns. It is not clear whether the dissidents in these nations will shift from peaceful disobedience to armed insurrection, but Libya has shown that the Arab Spring can be set to harsher rhythms.


Some detect such rumblings in Syria, where President Bashar Assad has battered protesters with tanks and gunboats, killing at least 2,200 people, according to the United Nations.

...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-arab-spring-20110828,0,831375.story

[pinboy3niner]

98. Taking stock of Libya's war-torn capital during a lull in the fighting

Photojournalist Benjamin Lowy spent Thursday in 12 hours of firefights while covering the rebellion in Tripoli, Libya. But Friday an eerie calm occurred, as fighters took a break for Friday prayers.

See his Hipstamatic images from the city streets, Moammar Gadhafi's now-abandoned compound and the airport where he found scenes both gruesome and surreal.

Video: Inside Gadhafi's compound

Latest news from Libya: Tripoli buries dead as battle toll emerges; Gadhafi still missing


http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/27/7499916-taking-stock-of-libyas-war-torn-capital-during-a-lull-in-the-fighting

[pinboy3niner]

99. Gaddafi spokesman Ibrahim says Gaddafi still in Libya, offers to negotiate thru son Saadi

By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI and PAUL SCHEMM - Associated Press | AP – 2 mins 13 secs ago


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) —

...


In a call to The Associated Press, the regime's spokesman said Gadhafi is still in Libya.

...


Moussa Ibrahim, Gadhafi's chief spokesman, called AP headquarters in New York late Saturday and said Gadhafi is offering to negotiate with the rebels to form a transitional government. In the past, Gadhafi referred to the rebels as "thugs" and "rats."


Ibrahim, identified by his voice, said Gadhafi appointed his son al-Saadi to head the negotiations.


Ibrahim said he saw Gadhafi on Friday but would say only that he is in Libya. Ibrahim said he himself was in Tripoli.

...


http://news.yahoo.com/tripoli-faces-severe-shortages-food-fuel-203801408.html

Tell Ibrahim to tell the Gaddafi-rat, in what ever sewer he's hiding, that it's 'Game Over.' The only deal is this one: his supporters must lay down their arms and Gaddafi-rat and his family must surrender. Period.

[pinboy3niner]

100. Libya rebels bask in victory and look to the future

Two working-class cousins who took up arms against Moammar Kadafi's forces reflect on their improbable victory and the challenges facing the country they helped remake.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times

August 28, 2011


Reporting from Tripoli, Libya—


The two cousins still couldn't believe it. Just six months ago, they were working-class guys in the coastal town of Misurata making ends meet in Moammar Kadafi's Libya. Now they were in their pickup cruising around the capital. A capital they controlled.


Abdul Hamid Issa, 46, was a construction worker, Mohammad Issa, 45, a carpenter. But then came the Arab Spring.


In February, inspired by the revolutions in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, the two men were among the first to take part in peaceful protests against the man who had ruled their country since they were children.


Then, confronted by the full force of Kadafi's military, they and thousands of others took up arms, organized themselves into a ragtag army, built homemade armored vehicles, set up satellite Internet connections and mobile hospitals, and began to fight for their lives.


And they won.

...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-dream-20110828,0,3111404,full.story

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1817519&mesg_id=1828480

[pinboy3niner]

101. Mutassim Gaddafi's girlfriend tells of the final days of Libyan regime

Wow! A facscinating and credible read--highly recommended!

Source: The Telegraph

Mutassim Gaddafi's former girlfriend, Dutch glamour model Talitha van Zon, talks to Nick Meo about the dying days of the Gaddafi regime.


By Nick Meo, Tripoli

6:00AM BST 28 Aug 2011



Filipino servants wearing spotless white jackets mixed his favourite Jack Daniels whisky and coke, and then Mutassim Gaddafi raised his glass and toasted the victory that he was sure was close.


Relaxing in one of his Tripoli homes just over a week ago, during a break from commanding at the front, the fifth son of Libya's ruler was in a defiant mood. Soon, he boasted to the blonde foreigner sitting with him, he would lead his father's regime to a victory over the "rats".


The woman at his side was Mutassim's ex-girlfriend Talitha van Zon, a Dutch glamour model who still regularly visited him in the Libyan capital.


Her most recent trip, however, proved to be a far cry from the luxury break she was used to - as the Libyan regime crumbled last week and her male companion took flight, she endured several days of utter terror as battles raged around her five star hotel.

...


Her penultimate visit to him was in February, just before the uprising, when she remembered him complaining about the "ungrateful people" in Libya's restive east. As the uprising unfolded, she found it hard to believe the accounts of civilians being killed by the regime - but when she talked to Mutassim on the phone, she heard a different man to the one she had known. He now used phrases like "wipe them out" or "show them no mercy".

...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8726797/Mutassim-Gaddafis-girlfriend-tells-of-the-final-days-of-Libyan-regime.html

[pinboy3niner]

103. 'Scuse me while I whip this out...

Sorry, but it became necessary to finally pull out the Jimmy... :evilgrin:

[pinboy3niner]

105. Why the fall of Tripoli will not be another Baghdad

Source: The Telegraph

Despite the chaos and bloodshed in Tripoli, Andrew Gilligan believes the demise of Colonel Gaddafi will prove far more orderly than the fall of Saddam Hussein.


By Andrew Gilligan, Tripoli

6:00AM BST 28 Aug 2011


For me at least, as a witness to the collapse of both the Iraqi and the Libyan dictatorships, the differences, for now, seem greater than the similarities. In Baghdad in 2003, it took less than 24 hours for the city to crumble into looting and anarchy, a state from which it never really recovered.


In Tripoli, for all the fear and death, things are for the moment curiously orderly. Every main road has its quota of burned-out vehicles, blasted tanks or amateur barricades made out of street signs, rocks and office furniture.

But every few hundred yards there is a checkpoint, manned by friendly and polite rebel fighters. Five days after most of the city fell, there has so far been little or no looting.


The streets are mostly empty, but already, some shops are starting to reopen. The electricity went off for a few hours on Friday night, but has otherwise been continuous, in central Tripoli at least. The phones are mostly working. Even a few of the traffic police, in their white Italian-style uniforms and hats, have reappeared.

...


But most importantly, unlike in those countries, and unlike every other country in the "Arab Spring", Libya's is the first real revolution. In Bahrein, Syria and Yemen, revolutionary attempts have so far failed completely. In Egypt and Tunisia, there has been change at the top, but the essential power structures of the regime, the bureaucracy and the army, have survived intact. In Libya, everything has gone, partly because Gaddafi ensured there was nothing much there, apart from himself and his family, in the first place.

...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8727426/Why-the-fall-of-Tripoli-will-not-be-another-Baghdad.html

[Iterate]

106. Libya: Col Gaddafi 'offers talks on power transfer'

Libya: Col Gaddafi 'offers talks on power transfer'
28 August 2011 Last updated at 06:36 GMT

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi is ready to begin talks to transfer power, according to his spokesman.

He told a news agency discussions would be led by Col Gaddafi's son, Saadi.

Rebel fighters who now control most of the country, including the capital Tripoli, believe Col Gaddafi is still in hiding in the area.

The BBC's Jon Leyne says the latest offer will be seen as just another sign of the delusional state of Col Gaddafi and his followers.

more... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14698388

[pinboy3niner]

107. Libyan forces killed detainees: rights group

By KARIN LAUB - Associated Press | AP – 6 mins ago.


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Evidence indicates that loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi killed at least 17 detainees and arbitrarily executed dozens of civilians as rebels moved into Tripoli, a New York-based human rights group said Sunday.

...


Osama Al-Swayi said he survived a massacre at a building of the Libyan Internal Security service in the Gargur neighborhood on Monday. Al-Swayi said he had been detained by soldiers from the Khamis Brigade, commanded by one of Gadhafi's sons, two days before the shooting. Twenty-five people were detained in the building, he said.

...


He said the soldiers told them to lie on the ground. He said he heard one soldier saying, "Just finish them off." Four soldiers fired at the detainees.


"I was near the corner and got hit in the right hand, the right foot and the right shoulder. In one instant, they finished off all the people with me ... No one was breathing. Some of them had head wounds," he told the rights group.


Human Rights Watch also collected testimony from witnesses who said they saw Gadhafi troops arbitrarily kill civilians, including a doctor and another man pulled from an ambulance at a checkpoint.


http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-forces-killed-detainees-rights-group-064818027.html

[pinboy3niner]

108. Malta preparing to serve as main Libya humanitarian aid hub

Source: Malta Independent Online

Leaders in unanimous appeal for generosity

by Annaliza Borg

Article published on 28 August 2011


After serving as an evacuation hub in the days and weeks following the start of the uprising in Libya, Malta is again preparing to serve as humanitarian aid hub this time for the transportation of life-saving supplies.


Tonnes of water, tinned food and medical supplies are being received and stored at the CPD base in Marsa which will be open till 4pm today.


Moreover, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked Malta to serve as a base for its shipments and cargo is expected to start being received “imminently”, said Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea and CPD director Patrick Murgo, at a press conference yesterday morning.


Identifying ways to facilitate matters for WHO was a main point discussed during the urgent cabinet meeting held at Castille on Tuesday. Moreover, the Prime Minister has published a Legal Notice saying restrictions on the handling of cargo have been simplified and this too has taken place to assist WHO.


The organisation will be sending personnel over to Libya and so as to safeguard the safety of people and make sure supplies truly reach the persons in need, it will be sending specialized vehicles that will be shipped through Malta. Other bullet proof equipment is expected besides medical supplies.

...


http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=131152

[pinboy3niner]

109. Report: Gadhaffi allegedly raped and abused five female bodyguards

Souorce: Ha'aretz

Published 11:17 28.08.11
Latest update 11:17 28.08.11

Women tell Benghazi-based psychologist Gadhafi and sons sexually abused them, then discarded them once they were 'bored'.

By DPA


Five women who formed part of Muammar Gadhafi's select unit of female bodyguards are claiming they were raped and abused by the now hunted dictator, The Sunday Times of Malta reported.


The women told Benghazi-based psychologist Seham Sergewa that they were sexually abused by Gadhafi and his sons before being discarded once the men had become "bored" with them.

...


Eventually she was taken to meet Gadhafi at his Bab Aziziya compound in Tripoli, and led to his private quarters where she found him in his pajamas.


"She could not understand because she saw him as a father figure, leader of the nation, that sort of thing. She refused his advances and he raped her," Sergewa said.


A pattern emerged in the stories. The women would be first raped by the dictator and then passed on to one of his sons and eventually to high-ranking officials for more abuse before eventually being let go, the psychologist said.


http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/report-gadhaffi-allegedly-raped-and-abused-five-female-bodyguards-1.381143

[tabatha]

135. Libyan on AJE blog

most of these women bodyguards (after daffi and co were done with them, as they lost their luster) were forcibly married to some poor shmuck...cash and a home and wedding paid for..

sort of like a cover-up, and an oath of silence from couple lest they get thrown out of their home, or worse.

i personally know of one such arraingement. very sad.

[joshcryer]

147. There was eye witness testimony from one of his top guards a while back.

I'd have to search the thread to find it but that is in fact what she said. Along with young girls and boys, too.

[pinboy3niner]

110. Reuters: Tunisian authorities have opened the main border crossing into Libya & traffic is moving

Humanitarian assistance groups on the Tunisian side of the border now will have a direct ground route for aid delivery. :thumbsup:

[pinboy3niner]

111. Top rebel rejects reported Kadafi offer to negotiate

A spokesman for Libya's ousted leader apparently sought talks on a transfer of power. Rebels offer only 'safety and a fair trial.'

By Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 28, 2011, 4:05 a.m.


Reporting from Tripoli— A top-ranking rebel government official Sunday dismissed a supposed offer by Moammar Kadafi to negotiate a transition, insisting that the country's long-time ruler should turn himself in.


The Associated Press reported that Musa Ibrahim, a spokesman for Kadafi's all but toppled government, had called its New York office to offer talks on a "transfer of power," saying the leader's son Saadi would conduct the negotiations. He said Kadafi remained in Libya but did not specify where.


A top official of the National Transitional Council rejected the offer. "We have no negotiations with Kadafi and we can offer him only two things: safety and a fair trial," said Ahmad Darrat, said to be incoming interior minister of the provisional government now taking the reins of power in Libya.

...


http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fgw-tripoli-kadafi-20110829,0,7483653.story

[pinboy3niner]

112. NATO Foresees ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Libya Soon, French Journal Says

By Mark Deen - Aug 28, 2011 4:06 AM PT


NATO hopes to be able to declare “mission accomplished” in Libya and end operations in the country once there are no further threats to the civilian population, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, according to an interview published in Le Journal du Dimanche.


“We’ll soon be able to declare, I hope, that we’ve accomplished our mission,” Rasmussen was quoted as saying. “Our intention is to end our operations once the situation allows it, which is to say when we’re certain that there is no further threat to civilians.”


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-28/nato-foresees-mission-accomplished-in-libya-soon-jdd-says.html

[pinboy3niner]

113. Gas pipelines are flowing again, NTC military spokesman says

Colonel Ahmed Bani, the NTC military spokesman, is speaking at a press conference in Benghazi and has said gas lines are flowing again from the pipelines.


Al Jazeera's Scott Heidler, reporting from Benghazi, said, "The colonel is also going to address the situation in Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown. In the process rebel forces are advancing into Sirte and we are expecting him (Bani) to give us a briefing about that."

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-1517

[pinboy3niner]

114. Libyan rebels: need over 10 days to take Sirte

By Robert Birsel

BENGHAZI, Libya | Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:08am EDT


(Reuters) - - It will take Libyan rebels more than 10 days to take control of Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi's home town and one of his last major bastions of support along the Mediterranean coast, a rebel commander told Reuters on Sunday.


Rebel troops have advanced to within 100 km (60 miles) of Sirte from the east and are also approaching from Misrata to the west, and will fight for Sirte if negotiations now under way on handing them control of the town fail, he said.


"Our aim isn't bloodshed, our aim is liberation," Colonel Salem Muftah al-Refaidy told Reuters during a visit to Benghazi, saying it would take more than 10 days to 'liberate' Sirte. "We don't want more bloodshed, especially among the civilians -- children, elderly, women."


Observers are concerned fighting in Sirte could be bloodier than that in Tripoli, where many corpses are rotting in the streets after rebels streamed in last week.

...


After Sirte, the rebels say they will turn to Gaddafi's Sabha stronghold in the desert south.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/28/us-libya-sirte-colonel-idUSTRE77R0YG20110828

[pinboy3niner]

115. African Union rattled by Colonel Gaddafi's collapse in Libya

Source: AFP

By Peter Martell in Nairobi

August 28, 20117:37PM


THE toppling of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi by rebels has left the African Union sidelined, members divided and anger high at a Western-led bombing campaign, analysts say.


The AU stands in a contradictory position: several African states have individually acknowledged the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), but the pan-African bloc has shirked from recognition itself.


Misguided efforts for talks between the rebels and Gaddafi - plans rejected by rebels and ignored by the West - damaged the bloc's credibility, said Aloys Habimana of Human Rights Watch.


"Failing to realise that Gaddafi's killings undermined his legitimacy and made him better suited for an international tribunal than for a negotiating table was a terrible mistake," Mr Habimana said.

...


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/african-union-rattled-by-colonel-gaddafis-collapse-in-libya/story-e6frf7jx-1226123967352

[pinboy3niner]

116. 10,000-11,000 prisoners freed from Gaddafi's jails, 50,000 remain missing

AFP - More than 10,000 prisoners have been freed from Gaddafi's jails since the fall of Tripoli but almost 50,000 others are still missing, the Libyan rebels' military spokesman said.

"The number of people arrested over the past months is estimated at between 57,000 and 60,000," Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani told a news conference in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"Between 10,000 and 11,000 prisoners have been freed up until now ... so where are the others?" he asked.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-1820

[pinboy3niner]

121. Link to AFP story:

http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-rebels-free-more-10-000-prisoners-144334965.html

[pinboy3niner]

117. Libya fighters surge towards Gaddafi hometown

Source: Al Jazeera

Rebels encounter fierce resistance as they push towards one of the the last remaining strongholds of the old regime.

Last Modified: 28 Aug 2011 14:24


Libyan fighters are advancing towards Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, and have come under fire from forces still loyal to the embattled Libyan leader, Al Jazeera's correspondents reported.


"The main military push right now is the push towards Sirte... Sirte is certainly the focus for now," Al Jazeera's James Bays said, reporting from the capital, Tripoli, on Sunday.


Sirte is considered the last remaining bastion of support for the man whose decades-long rule of Libya is effectively over, with the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) now widely recognised as the country's legitimate government.


The fighters have gained control of a number of key locations over the last days, including Bin Jawad, which they claimed late on Saturday.

...


http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/08/2011828132830309850.html

[tabatha]

118. Exhausted Libyan Freedom fighter friends tell of battles

The two friends, proudly declaring themselves to be citizens of the Libyan revolution, recount the fierce firefights that preceded the rebel seizure of strongman Moamer Kadhafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capital.

But upon arriving in the small town of Al-Jamil, close to Libya’s border with Tunisia, the pair are at a loss for words to describe their accomplishments.

“It tastes just like the aroma of freedom,” shouts Marwan Meyouf, 30, amid cries of joy and celebratory machine-gun and cannon fire.

Since the initial rebel assault on Tripoli on Saturday night a week ago, they have barely slept, engaging in urban shoot-outs almost without interruption before then traversing the desert in the south.

“We heard Zuwarah was under siege and we’re going to help them,” says Elias Azzabi, a 28-year-old medical student.

“Tomorrow we will join our friends to attack Ghadames, from where Kadhafi supporters are fleeing to Algeria.”

Both admit to not having enjoyed the conflict, conceding that they were initially fearful upon taking up arms.

http://shabablibya.org/news/exhausted-libyan-freedom-fighter-friends-tell-of-battles

[pinboy3niner]

119. Tunisia reopens main border crossing to Libya

By Tarek Amara

RAS JDIR, Tunisia | Sun Aug 28, 2011 9:47am EDT


(Reuters) - - Trucks heaped with food and water and carloads of people streamed into Libya through the main border crossing with Tunisia on Sunday, hours after Tunisian authorities reopened it, a Reuters witness said.


Libyan rebels wrested the Libyan side of the Ras Jdir crossing from soldiers loyal to Muammar Gaddafi on Friday, giving them control of the coastal highway between Tunisia and the war-scarred capital Tripoli.


"Tripoli needs lots of food. There is nothing there ... we're bringing this to them and then we'll do more runs as needed," said Lassad Trabelsi, a Libyan driving a truck loaded with tomatoes, water and fruit.


"The opening of this post will really allow Tripoli and all Libyan towns to resume a normal life after six months without access to necessities," he said.

...


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/28/us-libya-tunisia-border-idUSTRE77R1H220110828

[tabatha]

120. Tunisia foils blast attempt

TUNIS: Tunisian police have arrested a member of Libya's pro-Gaddafi forces and three locals for planning attacks on Libyan refugees and rebel supporters, a spokesman said Sunday.

"Police arrested a Libyan regime loyalist and three Tunisians Friday at noon because they planned to blow up tank lorries heading for Libya on Tunisian territory," interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Hichem Meddeb said.

The Libyan man, who was not named but was said to have confessed under questioning, entered Tunisia on August 11.

His cousin, employed by the Libyan intelligence agency, had asked him to kidnap leading rebel figures residing in Tunisia and take them back to Libya, Meddeb said.

When he failed to carry out the orders, Tripoli "asked him to explode cars in the border region to prompt Tunisia to send back Libyan refugees, most of whom support the rebels", he added.

"Fortunately, he did not receive the explosives because of the intensifying fighting. His cousin then asked him to explode tank lorries headed for Libya," said Meddeb.

A man who hosted the Libyan in the town of Remada informed Tunisian police of the plans.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1149683/1/.html?utm_medium=twitte

[pinboy3niner]

122. Libya oil production to re-start in mid-September

REUTERS - Libya's rebel-controlled AGOCO oil firm said on Sunday it would restart production at its Sarir and Mesla fields in mid-September and load the first crude at its Tobruk terminal by the end of the same month.

"Operations will start on September 15 and by the end of the month we will have the capability to export from Tobruk," Abdeljalil Mayuf, spokesman for AGOCO, told Reuters.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-2001

[tabatha]

123. Massive amounts of #Gaddafi weapons/ammo found under apartments in #Tajoura

RRowleyTucson Robert Rowley
Video: Massive amounts of #Gaddafi weapons/ammo found under apartments in #Tajoura facebook.com/video/video.ph… #Libya #Feb17

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=148213828600134

A very special video page crazy:
After a frank and hard Misurata Tripoli, although it has some difficulties in some of the ways of the rounds fired from the ousted Kadhafi, come and praise God Tajoura and after that we heard the existence of strange things in the rise urban ongoing construction there decided openness that Adehb and see for myself what thing is strange Asraana Ansdmt and that the strange thing is a huge amount of Aldkhaúr which was used by Gaddafi and battalions to the extermination of the Libyan people and the rest leave comment to you. (We Anicol Llano salvation Maadsh Kadhafi has Dkhirh)
Imaging Walid Khchiv Azmasrath.

[pinboy3niner]

124. Libyan rebel fighters surge on towards Muammar Gaddafi's last remaining strongholds

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland is near the frontline of the fighting, in the town of Bin Jawad.


"We are literally watching (the rebels) next move as we speak. We witnessed a huge colum of ambulances men and weapons push forward, this included grad rocket launchers, a tank, etc..They are moving their field opeartions further west.. moving all of their medical facilities closer to the frontline.. which is about 20km ahead of us," she said.


Watch her report on the latest developments here (5:03):


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-2111

[tabatha]

125. An honourable intervention. A hopeful future

Take some of the supposed verities asserted over the six months since the revolutionary euphoria from Tunis and Cairo reached Benghazi. That air power alone could never tip the balance: that Britain and France couldn’t foot the bombing bill for long: that this was a civil war doomed to stalemate and a country carved haplessly in two: that Nato‘s intervention guaranteed hostility across too many Arab streets: that it was yet one more pending disaster in the Iraq or Afghan pattern. Then take another sip from this simple cup.

The motives of Cameron and Sarkozy, as they first ordered their planes into action, seemed more humanitarian and emotional than cynically calculated. There was no urgent reason in realpolitik to oust Gaddafi as winter passed. His last 10 years in power had been quieter than his first berserk three decades. Labour home secretaries spooned his soup and drank his wine. Tony Blair embraced him. Libya‘s oil contracts were not at issue (just as they aren’t today). The survival of Gaddafi’s regime may have been a moral affront, but it was one among many. No: what sent British jets across the Mediterranean was a perceived need to save lives.

Tunisia had risen and its dictator had fled. Egypt had risen and Mubarak was finished. Benghazi had risen and now Gaddafi’s tanks and planes were preparing vengeance. Could those who had the means to stop that stand by and declare what would happen next none of their business? A crucial decision, with Obama on the back foot and too much bruised British opinion feeling twice bitten, thrice shy. There was, and is, no great political dividend to be reaped: just a clear downside with not much of an upside. But, at heart, it was the right thing to do – a judgment call. And the events of the past seven days underline as much.

What do we find inside Gaddafi’s ransacked compounds and villas? The gold-coated bling of wild corruption. Inside his jails? Political prisoners enduring torture and neglect. Inside the boundaries of stronghold Tripoli? See how fast that all fell apart as the rebel advance quickened. Of course there are tough pockets of resistance still. This is messy, block-to-block warfare, with Sirte yet to fall. But Tripoli, en masse, feels much like the Benghazi that seized its own moment. It is glad that Gaddafi is gone. It wants to help create something better – and fit into a wider context.

http://shabablibya.org/news/an-honourable-intervention-a-hopeful-future

[tabatha]

126. Libya: Gaddafi Forces Suspected Of Executing Detainees

August 28, 2011

(Tripoli) – Evidence indicates that forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi killed at least 17 detainees in a makeshift prison as rebel forces began advancing on the neighborhood of Gargur in Tripoli around August 21, 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. According to one witness who survived the killing, Libyan security forces shot the detainees at the Al-Amal al-Akhdar building belonging to the Libyan Internal Security service.

Human Rights Watch has also documented evidence of suspected arbitrary executions of dozens of other civilians, including medical professionals, by Gaddafi loyalists over the past week.

“Torture was rife in Gaddafi’s prisons but to execute detainees days before they would have been freed is a sickening low in the government’s behavior,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch said. “The evidence we have been able to gather so far strongly suggests that Gaddafi government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling.”

Separately, on August 26, Human Rights Watch found 18 bodies rotting in small groups near the Internal Security building in a dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya, Gaddafi’s former compound. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that Gaddafi forces had killed them at different times in the week prior to August 25, when Libyan rebels seized control of the area. It is unclear if any of those killed were armed at the time of their death, but Human Rights Watch observed two among the 18 bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and two were wearing the green scrubs of Libyan doctors and nurses. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that several others were unarmed.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/08/28/libya-gaddafi-forces-suspected-executing-detainees

[pinboy3niner]

127. Expatriate Libyans see a new beginning in the end of Gaddafi

Libyans living outside their their country are following developments from within their home country. Many have families and friends who have been involved in the conflict, and for some the end of a Gaddafi regime signals a new beginning.


Al Jazeera's Emma Hayward reports from London (1:44):


http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya-aug-28-2011-2154

[pinboy3niner]

128. Libyan rebels face test as they deal with hundreds of pro-Gadhafi suspects

By David Enders
McClatchy Newspapers


TRIPOLI, Libya —

...


Libyan rebels who entered Tripoli from three sides last week have taken hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners in the fighting and are now holding them throughout the capital, sometimes in prisons that just a few days ago had held suspected anti-Gadhafi protesters. Perhaps just as often, the jails are makeshift facilities that previously had been schools.



Now the rebel National Transitional Council must figure out what to do with the men in an early test of NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel-Jalil's pledge that the rebels' would not exact retribution on Gadhafi supporters as they seek to remake a country that lived under Gadhafi's mercurial, often brutal, rule for nearly 42 years.


Mohamed al Adi, the rebels' minister of justice, admitted the transitional council has no idea how many prisoners its forces hold or even how many prisons and holding facilities they operate. He acknowledged that there was very little coordination between revolutionary groups within the city or countrywide and that each individual rebel unit was making its own decisions on what to do with its captives.

...


"The prophet did not kill or beat prisoners, he treated them like people," Mohamed el Koreishi, the imam at the Abu Zeineen Mosque in Souk al Jumaa, one of the first neighborhoods freed by rebels, warned his congregation on Friday in the first worship service since rebels had taken the capital. "Don't take revenge. We don't want to have violence in our society."

...


http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/28/v-fullstory/2379182/libyan-rebels-face-test-as-they.html

[pinboy3niner]

129. Libya: Don’t downplay people’s role

Source: Arab News

Those who decry NATO intervention must answer the question: Who else would have done the job?

By URI AVNERY


Though The Bible tells us “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth” (Proverbs 24:17), I could not help myself. I was happy. Muammar Qaddafi was the enemy of every decent person in the world. He was one of the worst tyrants in recent memory.


This fact was hidden behind a façade of clownishness. But basically he was a ruthless dictator, surrounded by corrupt relatives and cronies, squandering the great wealth of Libya.


This was obvious to anyone who wanted to see. Unfortunately, there were quite a few who chose to close their eyes.


WHEN I expressed my support for the international intervention, I was expecting to be attacked by some well-meaning people. I was not disappointed. I have been through this before. When NATO started to bomb Serbian territory in order to put an end to Slobodan Milosevic's crimes in Kosovo, many of my political friends turned against me.

...


All those who decry NATO's intervention must answer a simple question: Who else would have done the job?


21st century humanity cannot tolerate acts of genocide and mass-murder, wherever they occur. It cannot look on while dictators butcher their own peoples. The doctrine of “noninterference in the internal affairs of sovereign states” belongs to the past. We Jews, who have accused mankind of standing idly by while millions of Jews, including German citizens, were exterminated by the legitimate German government, certainly owe the world an answer.

...


http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article494931.ece

[tabatha]

130. How to control the people

GH on AJE


gadaffi and the gdr stasi
is the title of a publikation i bring out in one of the next month.
this will schock all this green book belivers.
there are a lot of hard fakts that daffis only thinking since 30 years is
how i can surpress the people and controll everything.
and now back to the battlefield

[tabatha]

131. Liberals and conservatives both got Libya wrong; Obama got it right

As another Arab dictatorship crumbles into the sand, both liberals and sovereignty conservatives should rethink their critiques of President Obama’s Libya policy.

Conservative complaints over the last few months have seemed particularly opportunistic and contradictory. At various times those on the right said Obama’s rhetoric was too weak, his decision to take action was too impulsive, his willingness to let Europeans take the lead was cowardly, his support for the rebels was too little and his charge into battle without Congressional approval was too imperious.

While that last point, echoed by Democrats, may have some technical merit, events have undercut the rest of the complaints. In fact, it is hard to see how Obama could have done better. For once, Americans did not rush in alone with big talk and blazing guns. NATO, with France and Britain spearheading much of the effort, was given the lead role. It was not a bogus “coalition of the willing,” but a true alliance. There was substantial U.S. involvement, but no American boots on the ground and no broad sense in a suspicious Islamic world that Americans were invaders in another Islamic land.

U.S. diplomacy paid off, as well, winning surprising support from the Arab League and the United Nations. In a truly international effort, Moammar Gadhafi became isolated and friendless, except for his buddy, that equally self-impressed authoritarian Hugo Chavez.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/2011/08/24/liberals-and-conservatives-both-got-libya-wrong-obama-got-it-right/

[tabatha]

132. More depravity related by former Gaddafi security guard

dovenews Libyan™
Abudall Salam Alnadab also said that Gaddafi & sons are on cocaine.
23 minutes ago

That was short tweets from Abudall Salam Alnadab's story which was aired on Libyatv
24 minutes ago

Abudall Salam Alnadab: me 2 write & sign a papr saying I'm traitor & I get paid from CIA, thn told me I hv 1hr 2 leave & we hv the proof 3/3
26 minutes ago

Abudall Salam Alnadab: me up for 20days in Abu Salam prison, a female told, are going to do wht have askd u to do, I said no, thy forced 2/3
29 minutes ago

Abudall Salam Alnadab: Gaddafi used to sleep with the wives/daughters of most ppl who hold high positions in the Libyan gov. v @dovenews
30 minutes ago

Abudall Salam Alnadab: Gaddafi thugs told me; do u want money or high position, bring ur sisters, I refused, they arrested me & locked 1/3
32 minutes ago

Abudall Salam Alnadab: an ex security guard for Gaddafi from 89 - 92. here is what he said
35 minutes ago

[tabatha]

133. We're still a long way from the Africa we want to be

Just exactly what African solution would have prevented Gaddafi from butchering his people is a great mystery.

The fact is that the only way the mad man of the Maghreb could have been stopped was through force. The African Union's road map was a noble attempt to deal with the crisis but it was too late, and unrealistic. It assumed the person being dealt with was a normal guy who could be reasoned with and who would accept the outcome of a negotiation that would most likely have seen him cede power and accept democracy in his country.

It was fantasy stuff which hadn't a snowball in hell's chance of succeeding.

For 42 years Gaddafi had run Libya like the lunatic asylum to which he should long since have been committed. Instead of being shunned by the continent, he was applauded and hailed as a hero in many countries. This was because he mouthed empty and angry rhetoric at the West and - more crucially - lined the pockets of Africa's political leaders and royalty.

........

There will be another Libya some time in the not-too-distant future. The Western powers will march into a country or aid the citizens in removing a despotic government. African leaders and intellectuals will again complain about imperialism.

And this will happen until Africa learns to take herself seriously.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2011/08/28/we-re-still-a-long-way-from-the-africa-we-want-to-be

[tabatha]

134. Inside Story - Why won't the AU back the Libyan rebels?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK_FJ1L0tZ4

[tabatha]

136. Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound

As we were about to leave, one of the staff told us there was a nanny who worked for Hannibal Gadhafi who might speak to us. He said she'd been burnt by Hannibal's wife, Aline.

I thought he meant perhaps a cigarette stubbed out on her arm. Nothing prepared me for the moment I walked into the room to see Shwygar Mullah.

At first I thought she was wearing a hat and something over her face. Then the awful realization dawned that her entire scalp and face were covered in red wounds and scabs, a mosaic of injuries that rendered her face into a grotesque patchwork.

Even though the burns were inflicted three months ago, she was clearly still in considerable pain. But she told us her story calmly.

She'd been the nanny to Hannibal's little son and daughter.

The 30-year-old came to Libya from her native Ethiopia a year ago. At first things seemed OK, but then six months into her employment she said she was burned by Aline.

Three months later the same thing happened again, this time much more seriously.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/28/libya.gadhafi.nanny/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

VIDEO

http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/08/28/rivers.scarred.after.gadhafi.cnn

[Amonester]

138. What Do Female DUers Apparently Supporting gadhafi think of this?

How they believe(d?) that the gadhafi family was protecting women 'secular' rights?

Or how they did not know?

What do they think?




I thank you again, tabatha, for all the sometimes heartbreaking work you do on these threads.

[tabatha]

137. Muammar Gaddafi's son Khamis reportedly visited prisoners hours before they were massacred

SURVIVORS of a massacre in which at least 55 Libyan prisoners were herded into a barn, machine-gunned and set alight by regime loyalists have described how one of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's sons visited the site last week, hours before the order was given to execute the men.

"Khamis Gaddafi was here just before the killings," said Mustafa Abdullah El Hitri, a 27-year-old lawyer who escaped death by hiding under the bodies of his friends and later fleeing with the help of a guard.

"I saw him standing in the middle of the yard with his security detail and two commanders as I was taken from a prison van and marched into the barn. He was giving orders to his men."

The atrocity, one of the worst documented during Libya's revolution so far and part of an escalating trend of vengeance and retribution, may include as many as 140 victims once two suspected mass graves at the scene have been excavated.

It occurred early on Tuesday evening in a yard used to store farm machinery in the Yarmouk area of Tripoli's Salahuddin district, adjacent to the capital's largest military headquarters, "Leewa 32", the command centre run by Khamis.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/muammar-gaddafis-son-khamis-reportedly-visited-prisoners-hours-before-they-were-massacred/story-e6frg6so-1226124330907

[pinboy3niner]

139. LIBYAN REVOLUTION DAY 193: CURRENT TIME IN LIBYA = 5:30 AM MONDAY, AUGUST 29

Libya time = EDT +6 hours, PDT +9 hours, UTC +1 hour, GMT +2 hours

[tabatha]

140. The Crimes of Col. Qaddafi - By Christopher Hitchens

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1835765

[tabatha]

141. Good Riddance, Gaddafi

Many fear turmoil and strife after the dictator’s fall. In fact, there’s reason to believe that Libya will be just fine.
by Dirk Vandewalle | August 29, 2011 1:0 AM EDT

In Benghazi a few weeks ago, I talked to a friend who has lived her entire life in Libya and whose father had, until the uprising began, been very closely linked to Muammar Gaddafi. What had struck her as the finest development since the uprising started? I expected her to talk about newfound freedoms, about the ability to truly speak her mind for the first time. Instead she replied: “Not having to hear Gaddafi’s speeches every day.”

It was a telling detail. While the rebellion swirled around her, she focused on a seemingly minor aspect of life under Gaddafi that she had come to find intolerable: the fact that the Leader—also known as the Guide, and the King of Kings—was someone whose mere voice was asphyxiating.

In the end, in ways we do not yet completely understand, the final days of Gaddafi’s regime came swiftly and somewhat unexpectedly at the hands of rebels in western Libya. Undoubtedly, the steady degrading of the regime’s resources since the NATO-led campaign began in March contributed to the denouement. So did the fact that the western rebels—as opposed to their eastern counterparts—had become better organized and had closed ranks in the weeks before the assault on Tripoli. Added to that was the fact that they enjoyed ample military supplies, contributed by France and Qatar, and that NATO intelligence had been at their disposal.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/good-riddance-gaddafi.html

[catchnrelease]

142. KnR

[pinboy3niner]

143. In Libya, bastions of Kadafi loyalists remain

Working-class Tripoli strongholds are filled with desperation that contrasts with the exultation elsewhere. Many are fearful for the future — and their concerns resonate.

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

August 28, 2011, 6:45 p.m.

...


...pro-Kadafi sentiments are no longer universally voiced in this loyalist stronghold.


"We want our liberty — I am with the rebels," declared one of Ashour's neighbors, businessman Jumma Maclouf, 50.


Rebels say the vast majority of Libyans either laud the new reality or are willing to accept it, even in loyalist districts that house what U.S. officials in a different setting once labeled "dead enders" — Iraqis who continued to support President Saddam Hussein after his 2003 overthrow.


"The people of Abu Salim are with the revolution: Only a few Kadafi people are hidden among the cracks," said Saleh Hussein, a violinist turned rebel now manning a neighborhood checkpoint.


Yet the previous evening, a sniper had fired a bullet at Hussein and a partner, narrowly missing both. That the loyalist resistance has devolved into occasional sniper shots underscores the extent to which the insurgents have consolidated control of the capital only eight days after arriving here.

...


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-libya-kadafi-loyalists-20110829,0,6241756.story

[pinboy3niner]

144. A reminder...

The number of posts in this thread is too damn high!





...And the natives are getting restless





:evilgrin:

[joshcryer]

146. Stop kicking it damnit you're making me nervous, haha.

:P :(

[pinboy3niner]

145. Exclusive: CNN finds Lockerbie bomber

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• CNN tracks Abdel Basset al-Megrahi to his Tripoli villa

• The cancer-stricken Lockerbie bomber is near death, his family says

• Al-Megrahi was released in 2009 after doctors found he was dying

From Nic Robertson, CNN Senior International Correspondent

August 28, 2011 7:32 p.m. EDT

CNN Exclusive: Lockerbie bomber comatose, near death, family says


Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi is comatose, near death and likely to take secrets of the attack on Pan Am Flight 103 to his grave.


CNN found al-Megrahi under the care of his family in his palatial Tripoli villa Sunday, surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip. The cancer-stricken former Libyan intelligence officer may be the last man alive who knows precisely who in the Libya government authorized the bombing, which killed 270 people.


"We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice," his son, Khaled al-Megrahi, told CNN.

...


Story and video report(3:26):
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/28/libya.lockerbie.bomber/index.html?hpt=wo_c1

[joshcryer]

148. Week 28 here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1836380