Oorlog in Libië #100: We gaan weer demonstreren in Tripoli.

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Eerste aanval op werelderfgoed in Libië

Ghadames, de stad in het westen van Libië die sinds 1986 op de werelderfgoedlijst van Unesco staat, zou voor het eerst zijn gebombardeerd door troepen van de Libische dictator Moammar Kadhafi. Dat meldden de opstandelingen in Libië zaterdag in een verklaring.

Ghadames ligt circa 600 kilometer ten zuidwesten van de hoofdstad Tripoli, nabij de grens met de buurlanden Tunesië en Algerije. De historische stad ligt in een oase in de woestijn en is wereldberoemd vanwege de elegante witte gebouwen, die stammen uit de tijd van de Romeinen.

'De bevolking van Ghadames doet een beroep op Unesco en internationale organisaties om de historische stad te beschermen', aldus de rebellen. Het bewind van Kadhafi heeft nog niet gereageerd op de beschuldiging.

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Misrata: One day in Libya's rebel stronghold where calm gives way to chaos

The battered Libyan port is coming back to life as a vibrant trading centre with an eye for a deal. But on its outskirts, frontline fighters struggle against Gaddafi's professional army

The sun is shining in Misrata on Friday morning, and in Tripoli Street they're selling souvenirs. On a trestle table, little flags, buttons and hats emblazoned in the Libyan tricolour – red, black and green – provide an island of brightness in the blasted grey landscape of pulverised buildings and wrecked tanks that is now downtown Misrata. "We're a business-minded city," says Ali, a slim young trader in a long brown robe.

Indeed they are. With the enemy now pushed back beyond artillery range, this battered city is shaking itself back to life. Squads of boys too young to fight are out tidying the streets, painting white lines along the highways and manufacturing souvenirs.

Ali's stand, a trestle table, is crowded with key fobs, T-shirts and hats, all in the official colours – the ancient Libyan tricolour which had replaced the despised plain green flag of the Gaddafi regime.

Shops are open and sell a bizarre array of goods: fresh fruit is rare, but there is HP sauce, After Eights and Cornettos. With 11,000 tonnes of grain in the elevator nobody goes hungry and there are no humanitarian aid workers here because, fighting apart, there is no humanitarian crisis.

There is also a bit of the "What did the Romans do for us?" in the ritual hatred people have for Muammar Gaddafi. "He gave us nothing," says an engineer, who formed a little gang which goes to hospitals and schools fixing the shelling damage, as we pass smart cars and prosperous houses. "The roads he made are a mess," he adds, as we cruise along an elegant cloverleaf intersection over a wide immaculate freeway. In fact, the city did very well under Gaddafi.

The bigger truth may be that people in this city managed to work around the repression, and prospered. The hatred is more for what Gaddafi has inflicted on them since they dared to protest against his rule.

Along with the business acumen of a city that has a centuries-old tradition as a trading centre go pride and machismo. The rebel fighters who call themselves shebab – youth – insist that they will be proud to die.

Mohamed Salum, a bearded 50-year-old oil engineer wandering around Liberation Square, says it would be the greatest honour for his 20-year-old son to fall in the struggle, which will make him shaheen – roughly translated as martyr. "We have jihad. If you die in jihad, you go the heaven, it is the highest thing we have. It is an honour."

"Oh really?"

Well, more or less. A longer conversation reveals his acute anxiety about his son going to the battlefield. Parental consent was finally given when his son delivered an unquashable argument. "He said, 'If we win this war [and] I am not involved, I am going to have to wear a skirt and live with my sister'."

The conversation takes place to the familiar thump of Grad rockets landing in the outskirts, but nobody bothers too much. An army press conference the night before spoke of confidence in coming victories, with Gaddafi's forces beaten and demoralised.

Back at the media centre, a cramped room in a guarded compound, comes news that Apache helicopter gunships have struck targets overnight near Misrata. The Ministry of Defence website features tweets from a British colonel about how the Gaddafi forces are being taught a sharp lesson. The war seems almost won.

Then a Reuters TV correspondent comes in, slumping into a chair, face masked in sweat. He has been at the front and says that this is no ordinary shelling. "A disaster," he says. "The dead are everywhere. Bodies. I saw a pick-up with six bodies."

I hitch a ride to Misrata's Hikma hospital to find bedlam; so many people have arrived, either to give blood or to search for relatives, that the road has been cleared to make way for the ambulances. They arrive, brakes screeching, at regular intervals, doctors rushing to unload the fragile smashed human cargoes.

The hospital is working at full stretch, operating theatres set up in tents in the courtyard full, the staff so overworked that female nurses, in headscarves and mascara, are treating the men, a rare exception to the rule.

Bodies with terrible wounds are brought in. A teenage boy sits crying in the corner, having seen his cousin carried in with shrapnel wounds to the head, body and legs. "I told him to be quiet," says a hospital volunteer. "Your cousin is not yet shaheen."

Inside the tents, doctors work frantically. A female nurse holds the forearm of a young fighter who stares into the middle distance. The arm is almost severed and she must hold his forearm to stop it flopping to his side while a splint is arranged. The boy soon drifts into sedation and the doctors say that the arm will have to come off. I follow a gurney being wheeled into the car park to be washed, sunlight glinting on blood sloshing around on the fabric.

At the media centre, the bad news keeps coming. Patrick Wells, a British cameraman, arrives from the frontline field hospital in shock, reporting that mangled bodies came in so fast they were using brooms to clear the blood from the floor. "A young guy, maybe 18 years old, had had his leg blown apart. Doctors were sticking their hands into the open muscles, trying to clamp the femoral artery," he says.

Finally, noticing the less badly wounded left on stretchers untended, he stopped filming and went over to hold their hands: "It's funny how taking a guy's hand makes him calmer."

Video arrives from the frontline showing the shebab standing around in groups as Grads and mortars crash around them. And a terrible truth dawns: the rebels, however brave they are, have no idea what they are doing. Professional armies dig in, but not the shebab; the result is a human abattoir.

By the day's end the toll is 31 dead with 120 wounded. The city is in shock; this after a week of constant attacks with a combined toll in excess of 300 casualties.

The sun goes down to the thud of Grads mixed with the beautiful, sad wailing from the minarets – the city imams singing Allah's name to bring comfort to the inhabitants. A driver taking me from the hotel tells me that two of his cousins have died, then asks in polite tones: "Where is Nato?"

Where indeed? For weeks the alliance ramped up its promise of Apaches. Finally they struck, and Friday's bombardment was Gaddafi's response — one which saw no countermove from Nato, apparently because the Apache is too vulnerable to ground fire to be risked in daylight operations,

In other words, Nato bit Gaddafi and the dictator bit back twice as hard, leaving the alliance to make a choice. Either it stops fighting a war with one arm behind its back or it gets out and lifts the arms embargo to allow the shebab to buy the weapons they need. But something has to give. The shebab of Misrata cannot take many more days like Friday.

What have the Romans ever done for us

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Hevige gevechten tussen Tripoli en grens Tunesië

Dit weekeinde zijn hevige gevechten uitgebroken in de stad Zawiyah aan de voor de Libische hoofdstad cruciale weg Tripoli - Tunesië. Daarbij zijn gisteren zeker 13 rebellen en burgers gedood, aldus een zegsman van de opstandelingen tegen het regime van Muammar Kaddafi.

De regeringstroepen hebben de weg geblokkeerd om te voorkomen dat de burgerbevolking richting Tunesië vlucht. De stad heeft 250.000 inwoners, waarvan een deel al is gevlucht. Zawiyah ligt 40 kilometer ten zuidwesten van de Libische hoofdstad, aan de weg naar Tunesië die nu de belangrijkste levensader van Tripoli vormt.

Een woordvoerder van de 'rebellenregering' in de oostelijke stad Benghazi, Guma al-Gamaty, zei gisteren dat goed getrainde rebellen de regeringstroepen bij Zawiyah volkomen hebben verrast. Wanneer de aanval leidt tot de inname van Zawiyah en omgeving 'implodeert Tripoli', aldus een opgetogen al-Gamaty. Een regeringswoordvoerder deed de strijd af als wat schermutselingen.

Zawiyah in de West-Libische regio Tripolitania werd in maart veroverd door opstandelingen, maar zij konden de plaats slechts twee weken in handen houden. De rebellen moesten de meeste veroveringen in Tripolitania prijsgeven, zoals destijds Zawiyah onder druk van aanvallen van een elite-eenheid onder bevel van een zoon van Kaddafi, Khamis. Al-Gatamy zei vandaag dat de rebellen weer terug in de stad waren.

De rebellen hebben vandaag ook melding gemaakt van gevechten tussen Kaddafigetrouwen en leden van de Awlad Suleimanstam in de oasis Sabha, 750 kilometer ten zuiden van Tripoli. Verder stelden ze dat bij NAVO-bombardementen bij Tripoli gisteren een naaste medewerker van Kaddafi, Al-Khauwildy al-Ahmeildy, gewond is geraakt.

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Strijd om Libische oliestad Brega – Zeker vier doden

Opstandelingen die vechten tegen de Libische leider Gaddafi zijn teruggedreven door de regeringstroepen in de strijd om de oostelijk gelegen oliestad Brega. Ten minste vier strijders kwamen om het leven.

In het westen vechten de opstandelingen voor de derde dag op rij in Zawiyah. Gisteren liep het dodental van de gevechten in de west-Libische stad volgens een woordvoerder op tot meer dan honderd. Zawiyah ligt slechts vijftig kilometer ten westen van hoofdstad Tripoli.

Volgens de opstandelingen kwamen ten minste vier mensen om het leven bij de gevechten tussen Brega en Ajdabiyah. Minstens 65 strijders raakten gewond, aldus doktoren in een ziekenhuis in Benghazi gisteravond laat.


“Wij vielen hen eerst aan, maar zij sloegen terug. We hebben geprobeerd om Brega te bereiken, maar dat was moeilijk”, aldus Haithan Elgwei, een opstandeling, gisteren na zijn terugkeer uit de frontlinie.

“De NAVO (-vliegtuigen) gaven ons bescherming van bovenaf, maar Gaddafi’s troepen vuurden raketten en mortieren af buiten Brega”, aldus Akram, een 24-jarige gewonde strijder. “Wij zullen niet terugtrekken. We kijken ernaar uit om Tripoli in te nemen”, voegde hij eraan toe.