- Golbez
- Oct 9, 2002
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1 2 3!
If you want to take a shot at me get in line, line
1 2 3!
Baby, I've had all my shots and I'm fine
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Patter Song posted:
Tripoli, being a fifth of Libya population-wise, is going to be the most difficult part of this for the rebels. How are they going to crack this nut?
Would the regime simply fall if Gaddafi were killed? Cut off the head, the body withers? Add in his general sons too if necessary.
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Jul 26, 2011 14:18
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Apr 28, 2024 17:15
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- Warbadger
- Jun 17, 2006
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scamtank posted:
I don't think so, no. It looks like a Soviet AA missile system to me, but I'm a little fuzzy on the exact model.
The closest match I can find on Wikipedia is the 2K12 Kub.
Correct, it's an SA-6. Not particularly threatening to western aircraft in the 80s and much less so now.
Interestingly enough it looks like the only thing Libyan SA-6's have shot down were their own heavy bombers after a battery was captured by Chad.
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Jul 26, 2011 14:31
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Mubarak is ill:
quote:Egypt's ousted president Hosni Mubarak is suffering "weakness and severe infirmity" and is refusing to eat ahead of his trial next week, according to a hospital official.
Reuters reports:
quote: Mubarak "is completely refusing to eat food but consumes some liquids and juice only. He lost a lot of weight and suffers weakness and severe infirmity," MENA quoted the head of the hospital where Mubarak is being treated as saying.
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Jul 26, 2011 16:00
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- Xandu
- Feb 19, 2006
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It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.
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Is that the same source who lied about him being in a coma last week?
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Jul 26, 2011 16:02
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- Young Freud
- Nov 26, 2006
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Golbez posted:
Would the regime simply fall if Gaddafi were killed? Cut off the head, the body withers? Add in his general sons too if necessary.
I'd like to say "yes", but there's still too many unknowns. We know that Qaddafi is paying people out of pocket to be loyal, but there are many that are have bought into the so-called "Jamahiriya" system of his regime ("Jamahiriya" means "state of the people" or "people's revolution"). I do think that if Qaddafi and his close family are killed, the regime would likely collapse since he's made himself such a lynchpin. The problem is that whether someone would come up in his place and continue the war or if there would be a "Wehrwulf" problem with diehards.
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Jul 26, 2011 17:56
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- cgeq
- Jun 5, 2004
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Brown Moses posted:
Mubarak is ill:
I'd stop eating too if it meant I could get out of going to court.
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Jul 27, 2011 00:59
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- Tiny
- Oct 26, 2003
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My leg hurts....
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Is he on suicide watch? Is this the hospital / cronies BS'ing trying to garner sympathy by making it look like he's lost the will to live?
Or is he simply an old poo poo dying because humans do that after half a century?
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Jul 27, 2011 08:27
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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NATO Report
quote:Sorties conducted 26 JULY: 134
Strike sorties conducted 26 JULY: 46
Key Hits 26 JULY:
In the vicinity of Brega: 5 Military Vehicles, 1 Tank, 1 Military Facility.
In the vicinity of Tripoli: 1 Military Facility, 4 Anti-Aircraft Systems.
In the vicinity of Waddan: 1 Ammunition Storage Facility.
In the vicinity of Zlitan: 1 Military Ammo Supply Node, 2 Military Facility, 4 military Supply Vehicles.
In the vicinity of Misratah: 4 Military Supply Vehicles .
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Jul 27, 2011 09:11
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Live Blogs July 27th
Guardian
Feb17.info
AJE Libya
Benghazi
quote:Libyan expats have become the first to take a stab at forming a political party in Benghazi, headquarters of the widely recognised National Transitional Council and stronghold of rebels fighting to oust the Libyan leader.
“We call ourselves the New Libya Party because everything was destroyed,” said Ramadan Ben Amer, 53, a co-founder of the party, which is the offshoot of an online news website that he helped launch in late February to support the revolution.
“Gaddafi says he has built Libya brick by brick but, especially Benghazi, he has destroyed it brick by brick,” Ben Amer – who is now a resident of the UAE – told AFP hours before presenting his party at the Uzu Hotel.
He said that of the 2,000 individuals who have joined the party in Libya so far, the majority hail from his native Benghazi or Derna, the hometown of co-founder Rajad Mabruk, 65, who lives in Dallas, Texas.
New Libya, he added, also has some 20,000 supporters among Libyan expats living in the United States, Canada and Germany.
Tripoli
quote:The former Libyan intelligence agent convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing over Scotland made a rare public appearance on Tuesday at a rally in support of Muammar Gaddafi.
Libyan state television showed Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who returned to Libya in 2009 after being freed from a Scottish jail on the grounds he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer, wearing traditional local garb and sitting in a wheelchair at a tribal meeting in Tripoli.
Diplomacy
quote:The international criminal court has dismissed suggestions by Britain and France that Gaddafi could be allowed to remain in Libya as part of negotiated deal to remove him from power, insisting that a new government would be obliged to arrest the dictator under warrants issued by the court. "He has to be arrested," said Florence Olara, spokeswoman for the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. quote:Parties to the crisis in Libya remain deeply divided on how to reach a political solution the United Nations envoy Abdul Ilah Al-Khatib said after visits to Benghazi and Tripoli. His spokesman said: "The Special Envoy said it is clear from the discussions in Tripoli today and in Benghazi yesterday with representatives of the Libyan Transitional National Council, that both sides remain far apart on reaching agreement on a political solution,"
Egypt
quote:The trial next week of the ousted president Hosni Mubarak comes at a dangerous moment, writes Jeffrey Fleishman for the LA Times
quote:But any move that appears to allow Mubarak to slip from justice is sure to provoke an outraged backlash from Egyptians who regard their former leader as a tyrant. They want him called to account for filling jails with political opponents and running a government that enriched tycoons and friends in the ruling party …
But the prevailing view is that the reports of poor health are a ruse, with Egyptians believing his ailments, including reports that he has stomach cancer, slips in and out of comas and refuses to eat, are theatrics to save him from prison. Many are skeptical that Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib Adli, who is also charged with the murder of protesters, will be tried beginning Aug. 3. The holy month of Ramadan begins next week, and some say Mubarak's lawyer will announce a new health crisis in the hours before the judge is to take the bench.
quote:Potential presidential hopeful Mohamed ElBaradei called for a broad-based coalition, that would include the Muslim Brotherhood, to contest the parliamentary elections. The former UN weapons inspector wants to ensure parliament fairly represents many of the new parties, dominated by younger activists, according to the Egyptian daily al-Masry al-Youm.
IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei
He said:
quote:We don't have the luxury today to enter into fierce competition between the different streams, especially when we are building the house from the start … At this stage, there must be a parliament that represents all Egyptian forces.
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Jul 27, 2011 10:14
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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quote:All Libya's remaining diplomats in the UK are being expelled, the Foreign Office has confirmed to PA.
Sky News foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall claims this will allow the National Transitional Council to put its representatives in the embassy.
quote:More than 30 members of Libya contact group, including Britain and the US, agreed to recognise the NTC [national transitional council] as the legitimate authority in Libya earlier this month.
PA has this on the expulsion of the Gaddafi's diplomats:
quote:It is understood that eight representatives of Muammar Gaddafi's regime are still staffing the Libyan Embassy in London's Knightsbridge, more than four months after Britain joined international air strikes.
The Libyan charge d'affaires was today being summoned to the Foreign Office to be told he and his staff must leave the UK.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We can confirm that the Libyan charge d'affaires has been called to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is being informed that he and the remaining Libyan diplomats in the UK are expelled."
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the embassy building may be offered to the opposition Transitional National Council in a mark of its increasing recognition as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.
Foreign Secretary William Hague is expected to give further details of the move in a press conference later this morning.
quote:The Guardian's Nicholas Watt confirms that the NTC will be invited to establish a London embassy.
quote: William Hague: Libyan charge d'affaire and all embassy staff to be expelled. NTC to be invited to establish embassy #libya
Nick will be covering Hague's press conference which is due to start in the next 20 minutes. Both Sky News and BBC will be taking a live feed quote:Interesting:
Sky's Tim Marshall tweets:
quote: Sky Sources. Some Libyan staff expelled from London embassy say they will go to Benghazi because they support rebels.
quote:The expulsion of the Libyan diplomats, which is in line with the conclusions of the international contact group, is a rare step for Britain which normally recognises states and not governments, writes Nick Watt.
[quote]At the start of the conflict Britain declined to follow the example of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who recognised the council as the legitimate government of Libya.
A foreign office source explained the change of heart. "We dragged in the charge d'affaires. He and his colleagues are now packing their bags.
"We now regard the NTC as the legitimate expression of the Libyan people. We have invited them to set up shop and represent the Libyan people with full diplomatic status. This is the next obvious step in showing our support for the NTC." Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jul 27, 2011
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Jul 27, 2011 10:30
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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quote:Hague says Britain now regards the NTC as the sole authority for Libya.
"We will deal with the NTC on the same basis as other governments around the world," he said. He also confirmed the expulsion of Gaddafi's remaining diplomats from London and the invitation to the NTC to form an embassy. quote:Hague says the expulsion is a political statement of intent to Libya.
He said Britain would have expelled diplomats earlier but had to first ensure that Libyan students living in the UK would continue to receive funds.
On the appearance of Megrahi at that rally, Hague said it confirmed the "mistake" of the Scottish government decision to release him two years.
On a possible political settlement to the conflict he said Britain supports the work of the UN envoy. Hague repeated that Gaddafi's fate is a matter for the Libyan people. "The best solution involves Gaddafi leaving Libya ... but it is not one we can guarantee," he said.
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Jul 27, 2011 11:19
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- Jut
- May 16, 2005
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by Ralp
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Of course the proper thing to do would be to expel the Libyan diplomats and wait for the conflict to end before inviting new parties to the table.
There is a drat good reason the UN charter prevents countries from intervening in a civil war...but I guess people will do whatever they want even if it prolongs a conflict.
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Jul 27, 2011 13:43
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- pantslesswithwolves
- Oct 28, 2008
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Ba-dam ba-DUMMMMMM
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Algeria: Never really got off the ground after some fairly large demonstrations after Ben Ali and Mubarak fell. Now, anytime anyone goes out to protest, security forces usually beat/arrest the lot of them. Anti-government sentiment seems to be at a low boil, but not really in danger of flaring up.
Bahrain: GCC and Bahraini forces pushed most of the demonstrators into Shia' villages on the outskirts of Manama. Protests have continued in those areas, especially in Sitrah and Karzakan, but the cops have used pretty brutal means to keep them there and outside of the capital. The Khalifa regime has also held this weird "national dialogue" event, which has seemingly been a lot of gloating by the government and freaked out Sunnis about how they disrupted an Iranian/American plot (yeah, seriously) to destabilize their country. Absolutely none of the grievances that started the unrest have been resolved, and I believe that when the protesters regroup (probably within a few years), any demonstrations are going to be much more forceful than they were before.
Morocco: Morocco has been a weird case. The protest movement there has been mostly about reform rather than revolution, and protests have occurred on pretty much every Sunday since February. The king has tried to paint himself as a reformer by introducing a number of measures in a referendum that appeared to limit his powers, but really didn't do much. The government had this big "everyone vote yes and show your support for these unprecedented reforms!" campaign that meant to play up patriotism, but the opposition had been telling people to vote no due to the superficiality of the referendum. When the vote actually took place last month, the government claimed something like a 75% turnout with 98% voting yes. Unsurprisingly, the opposition has challenged these figures, and protests have continued.
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Jul 27, 2011 16:15
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- Hefty Leftist
- Jun 26, 2011
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"You know how vodka or whiskey are distilled multiple times to taste good? It's the same with shit. After being digested for the third time shit starts to taste reeeeeeaaaally yummy."
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suboptimal posted:
Algeria: Never really got off the ground after some fairly large demonstrations after Ben Ali and Mubarak fell. Now, anytime anyone goes out to protest, security forces usually beat/arrest the lot of them. Anti-government sentiment seems to be at a low boil, but not really in danger of flaring up.
Bahrain: GCC and Bahraini forces pushed most of the demonstrators into Shia' villages on the outskirts of Manama. Protests have continued in those areas, especially in Sitrah and Karzakan, but the cops have used pretty brutal means to keep them there and outside of the capital. The Khalifa regime has also held this weird "national dialogue" event, which has seemingly been a lot of gloating by the government and freaked out Sunnis about how they disrupted an Iranian/American plot (yeah, seriously) to destabilize their country. Absolutely none of the grievances that started the unrest have been resolved, and I believe that when the protesters regroup (probably within a few years), any demonstrations are going to be much more forceful than they were before.
Morocco: Morocco has been a weird case. The protest movement there has been mostly about reform rather than revolution, and protests have occurred on pretty much every Sunday since February. The king has tried to paint himself as a reformer by introducing a number of measures in a referendum that appeared to limit his powers, but really didn't do much. The government had this big "everyone vote yes and show your support for these unprecedented reforms!" campaign that meant to play up patriotism, but the opposition had been telling people to vote no due to the superficiality of the referendum. When the vote actually took place last month, the government claimed something like a 75% turnout with 98% voting yes. Unsurprisingly, the opposition has challenged these figures, and protests have continued.
Ah, thanks for the fast response! Shame about Algeria and Bahrain, really. I'm hoping when Gaddafi is arrested, Egypt/Tunisia manages to elect a president and whether Assad and/or Saleh get out and so on it'll kick up some dust around the Middle East again extending the protests.
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Jul 27, 2011 16:45
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- Lascivious Sloth
- Apr 26, 2008
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by sebmojo
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Nalut
quote:More on the planned rebel offensive in the western mountains:
A Reuters correspondent reports seeing at least 20 heavily armed trucks moving in the direction of the town of Nalut.
Another group of about 30 pickup trucks, camouflaged with mud, were seen congregating further east.
"We are reinforcing the position around Nalut and we will attack Ghezaia tomorrow or the next day for sure. We plan to
take it," Omar Fakkan, a rebel commander, told Reuters.
He said that forces from several rebel-held towns in the mountains were gathering in Nalut in preparation for the attack.
quote:More on the fighting near Nalut: a rebel spokesman told Reuters that a small attack had been launched against pro-Gaddafi forces earlier on Wednesday, resulting in the destruction of three of their tanks. He said that Gaddafi's forces had fired Grad rockets, but that no casualties had been reported.
US
quote:The United States says that it is reviewing a request from the NTC to open an embassy in Washington DC, the US capital.
Mark Toner, the US State Department's spokesman, said on Wednesday that a formal request had been filed, and that while the US was sympathetic to it, certain legal practicalities (such as accreditation) had to be worked out.
"They did send an official request regarding the reopening of their embassy and we're reviewing that request. And we'll work through these issues," Toner told reporters.
Ali Aujali, the Libyan ambassador to the United States, defected from supporting Gaddafi's government in the early days of the uprising, siding with the rebels and backing their council.
Gaddafi
quote:Muammar Gaddafi says that he is ready to "sacrifice" in order to defeat NATO and the rebels who are trying to force him from power, according to a new audio message.
"We are not afraid. We will defeat them ... We will pay the price with our lives, our women and our children. We are
ready to sacrifice [ourselves] to defeat the enemy," he said in the message to loyalists in the town of Zaltan, near the Tunisian border.
"Traitors, surrender your weapons... Choose: death or surrender."
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Jul 27, 2011 23:33
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- mr. nobody
- Sep 25, 2004
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Net contents 12 fluid oz.
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Lascivious Sloth posted:
Gaddafiquote:"Traitors, surrender your weapons... Choose: death or surrender."
That line should have been the NTC response.
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Jul 28, 2011 00:43
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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James Bay of AJE in Nafusa has confirmed the rebel advance is well under way, with reports of heavy fighting.
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Jul 28, 2011 07:39
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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More from James Bay:
quote:This is a multi-front operation. Fighters from the mountains heading to Al Jawsh, Tiji, Badr, and Ghezaia.
#LIBYA this is biggest operation by the opposition in this part of Libya so far
If you look at this map you can see that rather being in the east, where Gaddafi's forces have been heavily mining and reinforcing the frontlines, the rebels are attacking small towns to the north of the Nafusa mountain ridge, which might actually take Gaddafi's forces by suprise.
Ghezaia, as you might remember, is the base for a large number of Gaddafi artillery, which has been pounding the Wazin border crossing and Nalut for a long time, and was recently the source of a failed attack by Gaddafi troops. By captured Al Jawsh, Tiji and Badr it cuts off the main source of reinforcements for Ghezaia as well.
He's put up an audio report about it too
Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Jul 28, 2011
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Jul 28, 2011 08:22
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Live Blogs July 28th
Guardian
Feb17.info
LibyaFeb17.com
AJE Libya
NATO Report
quote:Sorties conducted 27 JULY: 133
Strike sorties conducted 27 JULY: 54
Key Hits 27 JULY:
In the vicinity of Brega: 3 Armed Military Vehicles, 2 Military Facility. 1 Multiple Rocket Launcher.
In the vicinity of Tripoli: 2 Surface to Air Missile Launcher, 1 Surface to Air / Surface to Surface Missile Launcher, 3 Fire Control Radar.
In the vicinity of Waddan: 1 Ammunition Storage Facility.
In the vicinity of Zlitan: 1 Military Facility, 1 Ammunition Storage Facility, 2 Military Supply Vehicles.
In the vicinity of Zintan: 1 Self-Propelled Artillery Piece, 1 Anti-aircraft gun.
In the vicinity of Nalut: 1 Multiple Rocket Launcher.
Nafusa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RGaeeXeyJQ
quote:Libyan rebels fighting in the western mountains said on Wednesday they planned to launch a major offensive on the strategic town of Ghezaia near the Tunisian border in the next day or two.
A Reuters correspondent saw at least 20 heavily armed trucks moving in the direction of Nalut, close to the border. Another group of around 30 pickup trucks camouflaged with mud, congregated further east, and were preparing to join the assault.
“We are reinforcing the position around Nalut and we will attack Ghezaia tomorrow or the next day for sure. We plan to take it,” Omar Fakkan, a rebel commander, told Reuters.
He said that forces from a number of rebel-held towns in the western Nafusa Mountains were gathering in Nalut, ready for the attack.
quote:Libyan rebels launched on Thursday an offensive against a strategic government-held town near the Tunisian border, a spokesman said.
“We have started attacking Ghezaia with rockets and tanks,” Mohammed Maylud told Reuters, adding that rebels had also hit four other villages along Libya’s western mountains.
Diplomacy
quote:: US is consulting with the Libyan rebels about giving it diplomatic accreditation or representation including opening an Embassy in Washington, a senior administration official said, a day after Britain expelled eight remaining Gaddafi diplomats in UK .
“We did yesterday receive an official request from the Transitional National Council (TNC) regarding the reopening of the Libyan embassy here in Washington, and we’re reviewing that request,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told.
“We are consulting with the Transitional National Council on a broad range of issues, and that includes diplomatic accreditation and representation.
quote:Libyan government spokesman Khaled Kaim condemned the UK for recognising the NTC as the "sole governmental authority" in Libya. He said the decision was "unprecedented in diplomatic history" and that he considered it "a stain on the forehead of Britain".
Syria
Iran
Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jul 28, 2011
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Jul 28, 2011 09:44
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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quote:More war reporting on Twitter from al-Jazeera's James Bays in the Nafusa mountains.
Here are his last five updates on the battle from the last 50 minutes:
quote:
#LIBYA Grads being fired back by Gaddafi forces.
#LIBYA Just seen a body of opposition fighter on back of truck leaving Al Jawsh. But no idea yet of overall casualty figures.
#LIBYA Grads came in close to our truck. Temporarily retreated, but mainly to catch our breath.
#LIBYA Just seen four Gaddafi prisoners captured - all Libyans - not injured. Taken on edge of Badr.
#LIBYA opp forces are on edge of Badr, but still battles in al Jawsh. They say they are "cleaning it"
#LIBYA I can only reliably give info from this front of the operations. Battles raging along this valley road, all way to Tunisian border.
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Jul 28, 2011 10:20
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Here's the latest audio update from Nafusa.
Really sounds like this is a major offensive, should be interesting to see what the Nafusa rebels are capable of.
More from Reuters:
quote: At a checkpoint outside the nearby rebel-held town of Nalut, they sounded optimistic as the fighting began.
"We are confident we can beat Gaddafi now, we have captured more weapons from the Libyan army, mostly AK-47s," said Mohammed Ahmed, 20, a market trader turned fighter.
Basim Ahmed, a fighter coming back from the front, said rebels had taken control of parts of three villages and many government troops had fled, but this was not possible to verify.
As sustained bombardments could be heard in the distance, an ambulance raced to Nalut hospital. A rebel with a gunshot wound to the shoulder was brought into the emergency room, where he lay semi-conscious.
Minutes later a commotion could be heard in the parking lot. A government soldier who had been captured was led to a hospital bed a few feet away from the rebel. He was missing a hand and was barefoot.
The soldier, who gave his name as Hassan, told Reuters that the army was losing the will to fight.
"We don't want to keep fighting. Everybody is against us." he said.
Blood seeped through the bandage bound around the stump of his missing hand but a rebel nonetheless tried to interrogate him, asking him his unit and where he was from.
Eight wounded combatants lay in the hospital in total - four rebels and four Gaddafi soldiers. Six other Gaddafi soldiers had been taken prisoner, witnesses said. Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 11:29 on Jul 28, 2011
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Jul 28, 2011 11:24
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Bit more from Nafusa:
quote:Rebels fighters in the Nafusa mountains appear to have been forced out of the town of al-Jawsh by Gaddafi's rockets and snipers, according to the latest battle tweets from al-Jazeera's James Bays.
quote:LIBYA opp fighters say they did not retreat from Al Jawsh. It was "a strategic withdrawal"
#LIBYA opp fighters now in a position close to Al Jawsh, but Grads landing nearby.
#LIBYA Fighters say in the town they were prevented from fighting back because of "human shields"
#LIBYA opp fighters have all pulled out of Al Jawsh. They say they were targeted by snipers.
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Jul 28, 2011 13:16
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Interesting report:
quote:Ali Hashem (Al Jazeera reporter) tweets: “Gen. Abdulfatah Yunis is under arrest, i dont know why but this piece of news was confirmed to me by sources in Benghazi. He was arrested today morning by a military force headed by Gen. Jala Dogheili in benghazi.” There has been no further confirmation.
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Jul 28, 2011 14:42
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- Golbez
- Oct 9, 2002
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1 2 3!
If you want to take a shot at me get in line, line
1 2 3!
Baby, I've had all my shots and I'm fine
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Thank you very much for these updates, Brown Moses, you're by far the best news source on this thing.
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Jul 28, 2011 14:47
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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This article from the Arabist contains excellent examples of the regime's terrible propaganda efforts:
quote:Libya Dispatch: Lies, drat Lies and Government-sponsored Trips (3)
As the bus pulled up to what was described as the site of a NATO airstrike, we could see the burly cameraman from Libyan state TV hurriedly stashing khaki military uniforms onto the roof of a nearby shed ahead of our arrival. It was the culmination of a truly farcical day.
Perhaps the collapsed building was just, as they said, an office and some apartments hit by a NATO missile, killing… one person? At least two people, said a bystander trotted out for the visiting journalists, others were not so sure. Maybe it was, but then why did someone have to run ahead and hide a bunch of tattered military uniforms and, as we later discovered, a helmet. Was it perhaps actually a military target?
We were in the town of Zlitan on another government organized trip, in what should have been a fascinating journey to a front line town facing an assault of rebels who had broken out of the besieged city of Misrata and were headed towards Tripoli with vengeance on their minds.
This was the war. This was the story. And even if this would be from the government’s point of view, we were ready to report it. All sides of the story. Instead, after a two and a half hour drive (through some very picturesque country, Libya alternates between olive groves, date palm orchards and deserts), we arrived in a seemingly peaceful town of bland concrete buildings and stopped at a hotel… for three hours.
They never told us why and in the distance we could hear the rumble of explosions and the sound of circling aircraft, but we were stuck in a hotel watching reruns of rallies on state TV. Finally, with little notice, the increasingly fed up pack of journalists was loaded back on the bus and taken to — a three-day-old bombing site attributed to NATO.
We had spent the day listening to the rumbles of what were probably strikes and I knew from friends on the other side that somewhere out there, maybe 10 kilometers away, there was a front line. But all we got to see was some crushed pre-fab warehouses belonging to a Turkish road building country.
“This shows how NATO wants to destroy Libya’s infrastructure,” bellowed an older man with a tribly hat that came out of nowhere. Then we recognized him, he’d been wearing a uniform at the hotel. Who are you? Part of the company? No, he was a member of the local broadcast channel, come to tell us about the perfidy of NATO.
So we wandered about, the area was littered with shell casings, not really clear what these were doing at a construction site. “Libyans fire guns in the air in defiance of NATO,” said a diminutive woman with a headscarf and mirrored sunglasses, apparently also from the local channel.
Inside the buildings, there was none of the obvious furniture associated with offices. The rooms were mostly bare, and it appeared that all the documents had been dumped in a pile in one small room. There were papers from the Turkish Nural construction company and stacks of photocopies of Turkish passports. The one I checked, however, had a visa that expired in April.
Then, I found a room covered in Arabic graffiti shouting the praises Abdel Rahman, a martyr of the 32nd Brigade (Armored) from Kharbouli town. The 32nd was the notorious Khamis Brigade led by one of Gadhafi’s bloodthirstier sons. “We took part in the events of Misrata,” read another message. A scrawled date on the wall suggested these guys had been living here since May 20, another inscription read the “Popular Revolutionary Committee Communications Department.”
Once upon the time this was a Turkish road construction company, but they probably left when the fighting started months ago and it had since been taken over by a military unit — which was probably why it was bombed. So perhaps not a blow against Libya’s infrastructure after all.
Then came the fiasco with the uniforms at the next site and finally, an increasingly tired, sun-scorched and cynical bunch of journalists were dragged to a hospital to meet victims of the airstrikes. We met a dozen men, who all loudly called themselves civilians, and said they had been injured when NATO bombed a civilian neighborhood a few days ago.
A neighborhood that apparently no one thought it was worth taking us to.
The steady diet of propaganda shoved at the captive audience of correspondents has left us all bitter and a bit shellshocked, just automatically disbelieving everything that is said. “This is not government propaganda, this is a true genuine appeal to the international community,” said the government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim one day at a press conference, almost suggesting that everything up until that point had been propaganda.
Watching state television involves a neverending stream of images of planes taking off, explosions and dead children. The impression is that hundreds if not thousands of Libyan children are dying every day from the NATO bombings. Which I suppose is possible, but why aren’t we seeing them?
For the three out of the past four days, I’ve been yanked out of the edges of sleep at 2am by loud explosions outside my window. I climb over the balcony and stand on the hotel’s bizarrely grassy roof and we listen to planes streak overhead and watch flashes in the distance.
“Now when you hear the boom, count the seconds until the flash and then divide that number by three, that will tell you how many kilometers away it is,” said one of the TV technicians that I normally see sunbathing out there during the day. Engineers, always flaunting their knowledge of physics.
But in all these bombings, many in Tripoli, the best they can do is a bogus three-day old site all the way in Zlitan? It suggests that NATO’s gunners are actually hitting their targets, despite Ibrahim’s increasingly shrill press conferences about NATO’s depredations.
While they are not exactly convincing the journalists, the government does seem to have hit upon something with the focus on NATO. The whole popular uprising and civil war was always a bit of an awkward topic. You could call them al-Qaida, or armed gangs of foreign agents, but in the end most people realized that it was Libyans fighting each other.
But with NATO here was an undeniable case of foreign aggression, something everyone could unite against. The programs on TV juxtapose black and white images of the Italian conquest and massacre of 1/3 of the population during the Fascist era, with the images of NATO planes, explosions and dead, dust-covered children. People in the streets will talk about misguided brothers in the east, but save their real vitriol for the NATO jets that shake their neighborhood and wake up their children crying at 4am.
It’s hard to know where people’s real concerns and feelings begin and where the rent-a-mob takes over. A few man on the street interviews gave me some reserve, guarded views on the subject of daily life, which was a refreshing change from the spittle-flecked rantings we’ve been subjected to almost daily at a series of demonstrations.
With the recognition of the rebels internationally, Qadhafi staged a series of huge pep rallies around the towns of his rump Libya, with thousands of people in each place cheering wildly while one of his speeches is broadcast. A way to boost morale, it seemed.
But are these crowds bused in? We certainly saw plenty of buses on the way there. Are these people even from these towns? Do they really love the Brother Leader that much? Hard to say, because any attempt at a conversation immediately attracts a circle of shouting youth mindlessly screaming “God, Moammar, and Libya only.”
For several of the demonstrations, they drove the bus into the middle of the crowd, making us the focus of the demonstration so that soon a thousand people were all screaming at us, chanting their slogans (the people, want, Moammar the Colonel… it rhymes in Arabic) and pounding the sides of the bus.
Then we have to get off.
Maybe this is a bit like the Freedom Riders in Mississippi must have felt as they descended their buses to the roar of an unfriendly crowd (alright, fine no one beat us up, but still) and the minders form a narrow corridor for us to squeeze through the shouting crowds as everyone shoves Qadhafi pictures at us or screams Sarkozy gently caress you! into our faces.
I’m not sure if it’s meant to intimidate us or just drown us in the wild enthusiasm of wholehearted Qadhafi love to show us what it’s all about, but all it’s really given me is a profound unease of crowds.
I did manage to have some kind of conversation with people at a few of these, in some cases I’d be approached by English speakers or someone was patient enough to work through my Arabic and I ask them: But why do you love the Brother Leader so much? Might as well ask why people loved their mothers or life itself. One man told me how he drove out the Italians and gained Libya its independence (an unusual argument from an historical perspective), another said he’d freed the black slaves of southern Libya. One woman just stopped, and said, “I don’t know why we love him, he’s just in our blood.”
One kindly old man guided me out of a close pressed crowd to the edges when he saw I’d had enough… but then when he started talking about Qadhafi his eyes started from his head and almost began to whirl in circles like a manic cartoon character. “Libya has already had its revolution, we don’t need another!” he said before breaking into the usual chant.
The rebels say most people in Tripoli and the surrounding areas oppose Qadhafi. Others say there is a hard core for and against, and then a vast middle ground of people who just want to be left alone. As journalists sent here to observe and report, I feel like we are so smothered and blindfolded by the competing propagandas that we are left groping in the dark and reporting gut feelings that could be gravely mistaken.
Postscript: A few hours after I wrote this, we were taken back to Zlitan to see a burning warehouse full of sacks of flour and a destroyed flu clinic they said had been hit that morning by NATO airstrikes. How to know? People describing themselves as residents rushed to the site after journalists arrived, waved green flags and chanted about God and Moammar.
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Jul 28, 2011 15:23
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- Burt Sexual
- Jan 26, 2006
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by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
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Switchblade Switcharoo
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Nice updates. I was wondering how this worked.
"“We have started attacking Ghezaia with rockets and tanks,” Mohammed Maylud told Reuters, adding that rebels had also hit four other villages along Libya’s western mountains."
How does this work with civilians, I presume, still in the towns? Are the civilians simply fleeing leaving the towns empty but the CQ soldiers? I mean I know they are targeting civilians but you'd think firing unguided rockets into a population zone would cause issues for the UN. Thankfully, I have no idea what its like to live in a war zone, but I guess I'd GTFO if any rumor of attack was coming.
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Jul 28, 2011 15:35
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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Gaddafi troops have been there for a long time, and are regulary attacked by NATO, so if I was a civilian I'd get out of there.
In younis news:
quote:Hold fire on that Younis story for now. Younis told the rebel site Thawralibya.com [Arabic] that reports of his arrest are false rumours being spread by Gaddafi's forces.
"They are trying to falsify the truth... the Libyan people will not be fooled by such nonsense," he said in a telephone call.
quote:Confusion reigns on Younis. A source in Benghazi claims he has been arrested and that special forces loyal to him are threatening to use guns to get him out of jail. Again this is unconfirmed.
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Jul 28, 2011 15:44
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- Jut
- May 16, 2005
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by Ralp
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Darth123123 posted:
Nice updates. I was wondering how this worked.
"“We have started attacking Ghezaia with rockets and tanks,” Mohammed Maylud told Reuters, adding that rebels had also hit four other villages along Libya’s western mountains."
How does this work with civilians, I presume, still in the towns? Are the civilians simply fleeing leaving the towns empty but the CQ soldiers? I mean I know they are targeting civilians but you'd think firing unguided rockets into a population zone would cause issues for the UN. Thankfully, I have no idea what its like to live in a war zone, but I guess I'd GTFO if any rumor of attack was coming.
The rule of thumb seems to be CQ attacking a town = threat to civilians, rebels attacking a town = oh we're are sure everyone has left.
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Jul 28, 2011 16:47
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- Jut
- May 16, 2005
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by Ralp
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RizieN posted:
Can someone clear things up for me? I haven't been following closely, just what I hear on NPR.
Britain recognizes the rebels as in control correct? Do other countries?
Is Gaddafi holed up in Brega? Is this his final stand? Does he have troops spread out elsewhere? Is it oil burning in the front lines or something nastier/bio ?
Britain recognise the NTC as the sole authority in Libya. I think a couple of others do to.
CQ is not in Brega, his forces are, and the rebels have been trying to take Brega for the last two weeks. After the initial offensive and the predictable cries of "We captured Brega", news out of the city has crawled to a halt. My prediction is that the rebels don't have the manpower or experience to capture a fairly well secured defensive position from CQ's forces.
He has troops on two other fronts, plenty of back and forth movement. Some minor villages being captured by rebels, nothing significant though.
Tripoli is locked up tight.
I can see this dragging on to the new year.
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Jul 28, 2011 17:24
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- Burt Sexual
- Jan 26, 2006
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by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
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Switchblade Switcharoo
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Jut posted:
Britain recognise the NTC as the sole authority in Libya. I think a couple of others do to.
CQ is not in Brega, his forces are, and the rebels have been trying to take Brega for the last two weeks. After the initial offensive and the predictable cries of "We captured Brega", news out of the city has crawled to a halt. My prediction is that the rebels don't have the manpower or experience to capture a fairly well secured defensive position from CQ's forces.
He has troops on two other fronts, plenty of back and forth movement. Some minor villages being captured by rebels, nothing significant though.
Tripoli is locked up tight.
I can see this dragging on to the new year.
But CQ doesn't have resupplies? I'd imagine the population will start to rise up more as food/fuel/money goes away.
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Jul 28, 2011 17:42
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- Xandu
- Feb 19, 2006
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It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.
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Brown Moses posted:
In younis news:
More people are confirming he's actually been arrested. It looks to be the result of an internal dispute amongst the rebels, but it's not clear about the specifics.
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Jul 28, 2011 17:59
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- J33uk
- Oct 24, 2005
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Darth123123 posted:
But CQ doesn't have resupplies? I'd imagine the population will start to rise up more as food/fuel/money goes away.
The trouble with this is that everyone was saying the same thing in April. There are certainly reports that at night Tripoli gets a little more rebellious, but again, we've been hearing that since April as well. One of the reasons this thread isn't getting a huge amount of posts for an ongoing international effort to support a rebellion is that the news is effectively the same every day. Brown Moses does a hell of a great job of keeping us up to date, but the pattern is the same every week. The Rebels have great big offensive that's going to start the end game, they capture a few villages, get repulsed and eventually grind their way to the target they're actually aiming for over the course of a month or so. The process then starts again. Oh and NATO loving hates any storage building in Waddan.
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Jul 28, 2011 18:02
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- Warcabbit
- Apr 26, 2008
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Wedge Regret
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Watch the south.
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Jul 28, 2011 18:13
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- Pureauthor
- Jul 8, 2010
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ASK ME ABOUT KISSING A GHOST
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Even if you're new to how a civil war usually operates I'd think that by this point people should have accepted that victory is going to come about via a gradual grind and not sudden, sweeping successes.
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Jul 28, 2011 18:17
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- pylb
- Sep 22, 2010
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"The superfluous, a very necessary thing"
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Darth123123 posted:
But CQ doesn't have resupplies? I'd imagine the population will start to rise up more as food/fuel/money goes away.
Gaddafi hasn't opened fire on massive protests in Tripoli in a while. Libyan state TV is airing documentaries on NATO crusaders bombing hospitals and schools, seeking a genocide of the Libyan people. There have been fuel shortages for a while already, and if a famine hits, I'm not sure the population won't accuse the "Crusaders".
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Jul 28, 2011 20:00
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- Brown Moses
- Feb 22, 2002
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The whole thing about Younis is causing all sorts of rumours to fly about, some people are saying he's arrested, others killed, some that he's been murdered by a member of the NTC, and there's been no offical word yet.
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Jul 28, 2011 20:06
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- Adbot
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ADBOT LOVES YOU
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Apr 28, 2024 17:15
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- Golbez
- Oct 9, 2002
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1 2 3!
If you want to take a shot at me get in line, line
1 2 3!
Baby, I've had all my shots and I'm fine
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pylb posted:
Gaddafi hasn't opened fire on massive protests in Tripoli in a while. Libyan state TV is airing documentaries on NATO crusaders bombing hospitals and schools, seeking a genocide of the Libyan people. There have been fuel shortages for a while already, and if a famine hits, I'm not sure the population won't accuse the "Crusaders".
And that's maybe the genius of committing solely to air strikes - can't really up against troops that aren't there. The only troops they'll see are their countrymen, who curiously don't look like the crusaders.
(Then again, didn't we commit solely to air strikes in the former Yugoslavia? That didn't get us far...)
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Jul 28, 2011 20:17
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Jul 26, 2011 14:18
