With Muammar Gaddafi's once-fragile grip on power in Libya suddenly looking stronger, NATO says it's changing strategies. When the alliance entered the conflict, its airstrikes were intended to hasten a rebel victory by holding back forces loyal to Gaddafi. But with rebels struggling to coalesce and the war headed toward a potential stalemate, NATO now says it's expanding its list of targets to include Gaddafi's palaces, communications centers, and other key institutions. The goal is to prevent effective communication, crippling Gaddafi and his army. That won't end the war, but NATO hopes it might erode confidence enough to peel off key aides and even drive Gaddafi into exile.
Read it at The New York Times
Showing posts with label Qadaffi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Qadaffi. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
QaDaffi Using Soldiers as Young as 12
The Libyan government is hiding the bodies of rebels that are being murdered by it in a bid to prevent the outside world from knowing how many Libyans have been killed over the last two weeks.
The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that after pro- Gaddafi militia shot at protesters in the western city of Tajoura, survivors said the bodies of slain protesters were dumped on pickup trucks and taken away. Relatives told the AP that they were searching for relatives to bury but could not find the bodies.
Eljahmi says officials in a hospital near Tripoli told him the bodies of Libyans killed were quickly hidden from view lest they serve as evidence of Gaddafi’s brutality.
“I didn’t just hear it from regular people, I heard it from hospital folks – doctors and nurses,” Eljahmi says. Medical staff told him that they had heard gunfire in the street, but outside the hospital, “they found a lot of blood in the middle of the street but no body.”
Nearby, medical staff found a man dead in his car and another lying on the side of the road. “The one on the side of the road, his head was blown out, his brain was next to him.”
Medical staff told Eljahmi that forces loyal to Gaddafi did everything possible to prevent the wounded from getting help. Last week, they said, gunmen entered the hospital, fired in the air, then went to the blood bank and destroyed the entire blood supply.
“These things are not reported in the media,” Eljahmi says, noting that the incidents in question happened last week when there were almost no foreign reporters in Libya.
Read the whole thing.
Meanwhile, Gadhafi is using 'soldiers' as young as 12:
IN the hospital morgue in the town of Ajdabiya, the fallen soldiers looked as young as 12 years old.
The revelation by a morgue worker came as witnesses told The Times yesterday that soldiers sent by Colonel Gaddafi to fight rebels in the neighbouring eastern oil town of Brega were no more than children. Meanwhile, captives accused of being mercenaries were paraded on the front line.
Faraj Lashrash, an English student who had joined the rebel army two days before and was manning a machine gun on a pick-up truck at the entrance to Brega, said: "It's crazy, he was using children, you know."
Read the whole thing.
I don't see the 'international community' intervening. Not with Obama in the White House.
Labels: Libyan no-fly zone, Libyan regime change, Muammar Gaddafi
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:49 PM
Friday, March 4, 2011
Libyan Protestors Beg Bush to Bomb Qadaffi
Libyan Protesters Beg for Bush: "Bring Bush!"
Has Katie Couric bit off her tongue yet? Not to worry, the jihadists she so enthusiastically defends and abets will do it soon enough.
Just as the world is undergoing a seismic shift in the arab regimes and dictatorships, the American media landscape is desperately in need of a revolution. The old media must be overthrown.
You'll notice that Reuters buried the lede.
"Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes," shouted soldiers
Imagine that. Ayatollah Obama has achieved what would have been thought to be impossible: worldwide calls for the return of George Bush. They pleaded for Bush in Iran, too, when they were being slaughtered in the street while Obama ....... ate ice cream.
Gaddafi bombs oil areas, faces crimes probe Reuters
AL-UQAYLA, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi struck at rebel control of a key Libyan coastal road for a second day Thursday but received a warning he would be held to account at The Hague for suspected crimes by his security forces.
Venezuela said Gaddafi had agreed to its proposal for an international commission to negotiate an end to the turmoil in the world's 12th largest oil exporting nation.
But a leader of the uprising against Gaddafi's 41-year-old rule rejected any proposal for talks with the veteran leader.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France and Britain would support the idea of setting up a no-fly zone over Libya if Gaddafi's forces continued to attack civilians.
The uprising, the bloodiest yet against long-serving rulers in the Middle East and North Africa, has torn through the OPEC-member country and knocked out nearly 50 percent of its 1.6 million barrels per day output, the bedrock of Libya's economy.
[...]
But on the ground, events appeared to turn against Gaddafi, as rebels spearheading the unprecedented popular revolt pushed their frontline against government loyalists west of Brega, where they had repulsed an attack a day earlier.
The opposition fighters said troops loyal to Gaddafi had been driven back to Ras Lanuf, home to another major oil terminal and 600 km (375 miles) east of Tripoli.
They also said they had captured a group of mercenaries.
In an angry scene at al-Uqayla, east of Ras Lanuf, a rebel shouted inches from the face of a captured young African and alleged mercenary: "You were carrying guns, yes or no? You were with Gaddafi's brigades yes or no?"
The silent youth was shoved onto his knees into the dirt. A man held a pistol close to the boy's face before a reporter protested and told the man that the rebels were not judges.
In The Hague, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Gaddafi and members of his inner circle, including some of his sons, could be investigated for alleged crimes committed since the uprising broke out in mid-February.
ARREST WARRANTS
He said a request for arrest warrants over Libya could be made in a few months time.
"We have identified some individuals in the de facto or former authority who have authority over the security forces who allegedly committed the crimes," Moreno-Ocampo said.
"They are Muammar Gaddafi, his inner circle including some of his sons, who had this de facto authority. There are also some people with formal authority who should pay attention to crimes committed by their people."
Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim told BBC Radio the news from The Hague was "close to a joke."
"No fact-finding mission has been sent to Libya. No diplomats, no ministers, no NGOs or organizations of any type were sent to Libya to check the facts ... No one can be sent to prison based on media reports," he said.
As the struggle on the ground intensified, a spokesman for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Gaddafi ally, said the Libyan government had accepted a plan by Venezuela to seek a negotiated solution to the conflict in the North African country,
Information Minister Andres Izarra also confirmed the Arab League had shown interest in the Chavez plan to send an international commission to talk with both sides in Libya
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said earlier that the plan was under consideration. Moussa said he himself had not agreed to it and did not know whether Gaddafi had done so.
Oil fell on news of the plan. Brent crude fell more than $3 to $113.09 per barrel as investors eyed a possible deal brokered by Chavez. It later edged up to $114.78.
Chavez's plan would involve a commission from Latin America, Europe and the Middle East trying to reach a negotiated outcome between the Libyan leader and rebel forces.
Al Jazeera said the chairman of the rebels' National Libyan Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, rejected any talks with Gaddafi.
The rebels, armed with rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and tanks, called Wednesday for U.N.-backed air strikes on foreign mercenaries it said were fighting for Gaddafi.
Opposition activists called for a no-fly zone, echoing a demand by Libya's deputy U.N. envoy, who now opposes Gaddafi.
"Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes," shouted soldier-turned-rebel Nasr Ali, referring to a no-fly zone imposed on Iraq in 1991 by then U.S. President George Bush.
Has Katie Couric bit off her tongue yet? Not to worry, the jihadists she so enthusiastically defends and abets will do it soon enough.
Just as the world is undergoing a seismic shift in the arab regimes and dictatorships, the American media landscape is desperately in need of a revolution. The old media must be overthrown.
You'll notice that Reuters buried the lede.
"Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes," shouted soldiers
Imagine that. Ayatollah Obama has achieved what would have been thought to be impossible: worldwide calls for the return of George Bush. They pleaded for Bush in Iran, too, when they were being slaughtered in the street while Obama ....... ate ice cream.
Gaddafi bombs oil areas, faces crimes probe Reuters
AL-UQAYLA, Libya (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi struck at rebel control of a key Libyan coastal road for a second day Thursday but received a warning he would be held to account at The Hague for suspected crimes by his security forces.
Venezuela said Gaddafi had agreed to its proposal for an international commission to negotiate an end to the turmoil in the world's 12th largest oil exporting nation.
But a leader of the uprising against Gaddafi's 41-year-old rule rejected any proposal for talks with the veteran leader.
In Paris, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France and Britain would support the idea of setting up a no-fly zone over Libya if Gaddafi's forces continued to attack civilians.
The uprising, the bloodiest yet against long-serving rulers in the Middle East and North Africa, has torn through the OPEC-member country and knocked out nearly 50 percent of its 1.6 million barrels per day output, the bedrock of Libya's economy.
[...]
But on the ground, events appeared to turn against Gaddafi, as rebels spearheading the unprecedented popular revolt pushed their frontline against government loyalists west of Brega, where they had repulsed an attack a day earlier.
The opposition fighters said troops loyal to Gaddafi had been driven back to Ras Lanuf, home to another major oil terminal and 600 km (375 miles) east of Tripoli.
They also said they had captured a group of mercenaries.
In an angry scene at al-Uqayla, east of Ras Lanuf, a rebel shouted inches from the face of a captured young African and alleged mercenary: "You were carrying guns, yes or no? You were with Gaddafi's brigades yes or no?"
The silent youth was shoved onto his knees into the dirt. A man held a pistol close to the boy's face before a reporter protested and told the man that the rebels were not judges.
In The Hague, International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Gaddafi and members of his inner circle, including some of his sons, could be investigated for alleged crimes committed since the uprising broke out in mid-February.
ARREST WARRANTS
He said a request for arrest warrants over Libya could be made in a few months time.
"We have identified some individuals in the de facto or former authority who have authority over the security forces who allegedly committed the crimes," Moreno-Ocampo said.
"They are Muammar Gaddafi, his inner circle including some of his sons, who had this de facto authority. There are also some people with formal authority who should pay attention to crimes committed by their people."
Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim told BBC Radio the news from The Hague was "close to a joke."
"No fact-finding mission has been sent to Libya. No diplomats, no ministers, no NGOs or organizations of any type were sent to Libya to check the facts ... No one can be sent to prison based on media reports," he said.
As the struggle on the ground intensified, a spokesman for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Gaddafi ally, said the Libyan government had accepted a plan by Venezuela to seek a negotiated solution to the conflict in the North African country,
Information Minister Andres Izarra also confirmed the Arab League had shown interest in the Chavez plan to send an international commission to talk with both sides in Libya
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said earlier that the plan was under consideration. Moussa said he himself had not agreed to it and did not know whether Gaddafi had done so.
Oil fell on news of the plan. Brent crude fell more than $3 to $113.09 per barrel as investors eyed a possible deal brokered by Chavez. It later edged up to $114.78.
Chavez's plan would involve a commission from Latin America, Europe and the Middle East trying to reach a negotiated outcome between the Libyan leader and rebel forces.
Al Jazeera said the chairman of the rebels' National Libyan Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, rejected any talks with Gaddafi.
The rebels, armed with rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns and tanks, called Wednesday for U.N.-backed air strikes on foreign mercenaries it said were fighting for Gaddafi.
Opposition activists called for a no-fly zone, echoing a demand by Libya's deputy U.N. envoy, who now opposes Gaddafi.
"Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes," shouted soldier-turned-rebel Nasr Ali, referring to a no-fly zone imposed on Iraq in 1991 by then U.S. President George Bush.
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