Revolutie in Libië #112: Waar Gadaffi zijn aanhangers weer toespreekt

quote:

Op woensdag 21 september 2011 03:18 schreef Schenkstroop het volgende:
Zo.. is Al Qaeda nu geinstalelerd als kop van Libie?
Dan kunnen we nu weer beginnen met aftellen tot de volgende invallen!

quote:

The Surreal Ruins of Qaddafi’s Never-Never Land

[ .... ]

Unlike Benghazi, the old opposition stronghold in eastern Libya where the rebellion began in February, Tripoli had been a relative bastion of support for Qaddafi. Even the bravest dissidents, who risked their lives for years, often posed as smiling backers of Qaddafi and his men. Now the masks were off, but another game of deception was under way. At all the military bases I visited, I found soldiers’ uniforms and boots, torn off in the moments before they had, presumably, slipped on sandals and djellabas and run back home. Even the prisoners I spoke with in makeshift rebel jails had shed their old identities or modified them. “I never fired my gun,” they would say. “I only did it for the money.” “I joined because they lied to me.”

Everyone in Tripoli, it seemed, had been with Qaddafi, at least for show; and now everyone was against him. But where did their loyalty end and their rebellion begin? Sometimes I wondered if the speakers themselves knew. Collectively, they offered an appealing narrative: the city had been liberated from within, not just by NATO’s relentless bombing campaign. For months, Qaddafi’s own officers and henchmen had quietly undermined his war, and ordinary citizens had slowly mustered recruits and weapons for the final battle. In some cases, with a few witnesses and a document or two, their version seemed solid enough. Others, like Mustafa Atiri, had gruesome proof of what they lived through. But many of the people I spoke with lacked those things. They were left with a story; and they were telling it in a giddy new world in which the old rules — the necessary lies, the enforced shell of deference to Qaddafi’s Mad Hatter philosophy — were suddenly gone. It was enough to make anyone feel a little drunk, a little uncertain about who they were and how they got there.

In a sense, the battle for Tripoli began long ago in Qaddafi’s mind and was foreshadowed in the elaborate layers of defense he built up between himself and ordinary Libyans. These were not just physical — the city within a city that was Bab al Aziziya and the underground tunnels that may have allowed him to escape — but virtual. He built an extraordinary network of surveillance and control, hiring French, Chinese and South African companies to help monitor the phones and Internet and employing a vast network of informants and contract killers who could track his domestic opponents and critics to the ends of the earth. After the rebellion broke out in February, that network flared up in a last, furious effort to monitor and neutralize the discontent.

I met one of the men who worked in this apparatus, a 27-year-old former computer hacker named Omar. He was a big man with a plump babyish face and a constant, faint smile that gave him the look of a mischievous, overweight child. We met through an acquaintance and talked several times at my hotel for a number of hours. He had worked for four years monitoring telephone and e-mail traffic in the Revolutionary Committees’ Communications Office, one of several branches of the sprawling intelligence bureaucracy. Omar (who asked me not to use his full name) told me that he never wanted to work there; the government drafted him as he was applying for a tech job at a bank and then blocked his efforts to apply for other jobs. But he conceded that it was a sought-after and cushy post. He earned 5,000 Libyan dinars a month (about $4,000) plus a car, a laptop and an AK-47.

“The serious work began on Feb. 6,” Omar said.       verder ...

quote:

A guide to Libya’s surveillance network

After repeated interrogations lead by Reflets.info, OWNI, the Wall Street Journal and the Figaro, Amesys, the French company that sold Internet surveillance systems to Gaddafi’s Libya tried to calm things down with a statement posted on its website (mirror):

"The contract only concerned the sale of materials capable of analysing a fraction of existing internet connections, only a few thousand."

However, the documents in OWNI’s possession tell a different story, in fact, the exact opposite story. In contrast to traditional surveillance systems that target specific connections, the “massive” (sic) Amesys surveillance system is used to intercept and analyze the entirety of the telecommunications network, to the scale of an entire country.

In its presentations for the high-end surveillance service, Amesys flaunts EAGLE as having been conceived to monitor the whole spectrum of telecommunications: IP traffic (internet), mobile and landline telephone networks, WiFi, satellite, radio and micro waves thanks to its “passive waves, invisible and inaccessible to any intruder.”

"The massive system (EAGLE GLINT, GLobal INTelligence, which was the system sold to Libya), was conceived to respond to interception and surveillance needs at a national level and to be capable of aggregating all kinds of information and analyzing, in real time, a national data flow, from a few terabytes to a few dozens petabytes [1 peta-octet = 1024 tera-octets, 1 tera-octet = 1024 giga octets and that the total amount of everything ever written by the human race in all languages is estimated at 50 peta-octets...]"



Hele artikel op OWNI.eu

quote:

Op woensdag 21 september 2011 18:50 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Al Qaida heeft NATO en de UN geïnfiltreerd, heeft Ghaddafi verdreven en is binnenkort alleenheerser in het MO.

quote:

Op donderdag 22 september 2011 15:01 schreef HAKIM_1988 het volgende:

Aldus RussiaToday!

quote:

Op donderdag 22 september 2011 13:37 schreef meth77 het volgende:
een zegen voor de mensheid als die man weg is en er weer een democratie bij is

quote:

Reuters:
LIBYA'S FORMER PRIME MINISTER ARRESTED IN TUNISIA - ARABIYA TV

quote:

Op donderdag 22 september 2011 15:32 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

Ik zie maar één vat met een stickertje, nog in het Engels ook.

twitter:

FromJoanne twitterde op donderdag 22-09-2011 om 21:29:48 #Gaddafis secret stash of chemical weapons were found in #Ruwagha in Al-Jufra area where G kept abt 9.5 tonnes of mustard gas #Libya reageer retweet

quote:

Libyans Hope Revolution Leads to Better Quality of Life

The men who lined the potholed road were so overjoyed that they cheered, sang, danced and wept as Libyan fighters from the country's new leadership for the first time rolled into this impoverished hamlet deep in the southern deserts.

But while Libya's new rulers focus on replacing Muammar Qaddafi's regime with a democratic government, many here hope the revolution will first bring amenities that have long been rare in this sun-baked inland region: Paved roads, medical care and flush toilets.

"We've been waiting for them for a long time," said Mohammed Saleh, 43, who flashed a V-for-victory sign as the fighters passed his simple concrete house late last week. "Now we expect the electricity and the water to come back on."

The uprising that toppled Qaddafi's regime last month was fueled in part by widespread frustration with how little the country's oil wealth has translated into better lives for Libya's 6.5 million people.

Aware of the potency of economic grievances, the leaders of the National Transitional Council, the closest thing the country has to a government, have vowed to use Libya's resources for the general good. Council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said recently he seeks to create a "state of prosperity" where even the unemployed would receive salaries.

The council's ability to fulfill such promises will largely determine its success at extending its control over the country, especially in areas where support for Qaddafi remains.

Libya boasts Africa's largest proven oil reserves and produced 1.6 million barrels daily before the anti-Qaddafi revolt erupted in mid-February. Last year, Libya raked in $40 billion from oil and gas exports -- a fortune from which many Libyans say they've seen little benefit.

Libya expert Ronald Bruce St John said Qaddafi's regime wasted money over the years in countless ways: Spending lavishly on ill-designed building projects; stocking unsustainable arsenals; and bankrolling the lavish lifestyles of Qaddafi's family members and associates.

At the same time, the regime failed to invest in education, develop the economy and build strong communications and transportation infrastructure.

"This is the major development failure of the Qaddafi regime," he said.

Before the uprising, Libya ranked 53 out of 169 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index, just behind Uruguay, Palau and Cuba, countries with no significant oil wealth. Most Gulf Arab nations ranked higher, with per capita incomes more than twice as high -- though Libya slipped in ahead of oil giant Saudi Arabia because of a longer life expectancy and longer schooling, despite the kingdom's higher per capita income.

Even in the relatively affluent coastal cities where most Libyans live, residents bemoan their bumpy roads, bad schools and poor infrastructure.

But the complaints ring louder further south in Libya's desert stretches, in areas like the parched Wadi al-Shati region some 440 miles (700 kilometers) south of Tripoli.

Over the past week, hundreds of fighters have been driving through the region's 22 villages in a preliminary attempt to spread the NTC's control.

Most of the fighters are young men from Tripoli who say the region's poverty shocks them. Some of the villages -- with names like "Cat," "Sons of Yellow" and "Burnt" -- consist of no more than simple, cinderblock houses surrounded by date palms and connected by dirt roads. Some homes lack running water, and few have central sewage. Jobs are lacking, with those not employed by the government raising goats and camels in the desert.

The war made matters worse by cutting the area's supply lines. Most villages haven't had regular electricity or phone service for months, leaving them unclear about what has happened in the rest of the country. Meanwhile, gas prices have skyrocketed and banks have run out of cash, leaving many unable to cross the large distances that separate their towns.

Despite the poverty, support for Qaddafi remains strong, a phenomenon locals who have joined the revolution blame on ignorance and government propaganda.

"All the messages these people have received for the last 42 years have trained them to think a certain way, and that will be very hard to change," said Col. Bashir Awidat, head of the region's new military council.

That has complicated the "liberation" of the area.

In the town of Mahrouqa, Arabic for "Burnt," crowds of cheering locals watched on a recent afternoon as fighters fired rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at an abandoned security building, blasting chunks of plaster off the facade. Locals then commandeered a cement mixer to topple a large statue of The Green Book, Qaddafi's largely unintelligible vision of the perfect government.

Soon after, however, locals in another neighborhood fired on the convoy, killing one fighter. Another was shot dead in a nearby village that night.

Elsewhere, the rebels fought among themselves about how to handle a family they heard was armed and flew a green flag on their home.

In the end, they didn't search the home, though a commander told the angry men standing at the door they'd have to give up their guns and not fly Qaddafi's flag.

"That flag has been there 20 years, so why should we take it down now?" one replied. "In this house, we still love Moammar."

Awidat, the military council head, said the fighters planned to chip away at the remaining support for Qaddafi by bringing aid. Once the villages are secure, he said, the fighters will truck in gasoline, food and medicine.

The aid is badly needed -- as is longer term development.

Abdel-Qadir Hussein, a high school teacher in the 3,000-person town of Tarut, said plumbing was only installed in part of the town last year and that the local clinic hadn't had a doctor in years, forcing locals to drive long distances for medical care.

Still he said, only about half the town supported the revolution -- something the arrival of services could change.

"Most of the people here are very simple," he said. "If they see that the gas and electricity come back and that they are treated well by the revolutionaries, they'll slowly start to support the revolution."

http://www.foxnews.com/wo(...)-life/#ixzz1YipSwhYB

quote:

Libyans with no leadership quit Bani Walid front

WADI DINAR, Libya (AP) — Many revolutionary fighters are abandoning one of the main fronts in the battle to rout Moammar Gadhafi's loyalists, saying they're not afraid of dying in the face of heavy resistance but are tired of the disorganization and lack of ammunition among their own ranks.

Bani Walid has proven impenetrable in part because of its daunting natural defenses — the town of 100,000 is strung along mountain ravines where loyalists hold the high ground. But the nearly month-old assault has only underscored the disarray in the forces of Libya's new rulers, which include both a relatively organized military and brigades of untrained volunteers.

The regular forces have already pulled back from the Bani Walid siege to focusing on Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, further east on the Mediterranean coast, and other strongholds further south.

Weeks after Tripoli fell and Gadhafi went into hiding, revolutionary forces have struggled with his loyalists' strongholds in Bani Walid and Sirte. Further south deep in the desert lies another bastion, Sabha, and several desert towns in between remain in the hands of the ousted regime — an obstacle as the country's new ruler, the National Transitional Council, tries to solidify its control.

In recent days, even the volunteer fighters who had remained at Bani Walid, determined to continue, have begun to filter away in frustration.

Mohammed Andar, a 35-year-old former police officer, said he decided to return to his home in Zawiya after he was wounded by shrapnel in the back of his leg in an ambush on his brigade. He was being rushed to the hospital Wednesday, the same day his twins celebrated their first birthday.

His wounds were not serious enough to keep him from battle, but he felt it was pointless.

"A martyred father would be an honor for my children, but not in this chaotic, ill-planned way," he said while resting near a revolutionary checkpoint about 25 miles (45 kilometers) north of Bani Walid.

To enter Bani Walid from the northwest, coming from Tripoli, the revolutionary fighters must cross a steep valley, some 400 yards (meters) wide, that divides the city. Gadhafi loyalists hold the high ground on the other side, enabling them to rain down with rockets, mortarts and cluster bombs on fighters trying to approach the valley.

Osama al-Fasi, a field commander from Bani Walid, said his fighters were not prepared for such fierce resistance and blamed the NTC's military leadership for not providing the necessary ammunition, weapons and leadership to sustain a real attack on the city.

"We were shocked at the force of the resistance we faced," al-Fasi told The Associated Press, referring to Gadhafi loyalists as garbage. "Bani Walid is filled with the garbage of Libya and we don't even have heavy weapons to fight them with."

On Friday, leaders of al-Fasi's brigade, the Martyrs of 28 May, decided to officially abandon the northern front and move their base to the southern front because the terrain is easier to fight through.

Five Russian tanks made in the 1970's and seized by fighters when Tripoli fell last month arrived in Wadi Dinar at the revolutionaries' positions on the city's northern outskirts last week, but have sat idle in desert checkpoints requiring maintenance. Fighters spend their days lounging on them, posing for photos from cell phones and using them to dry laundry.

"Can you believe that I enter the front line here with only one magazine for my Kalashnikov?" Hassan Abdel-Qadir, another fighter from the city of Zawiya, east of Tripoli, said in disbelief. "We feel very deflated and frustrated — where is the military council with its leaders and ammunition and help? We've been left to fend for ourselves here."

Military rebel commander Daw Saleheen said it was impossible for the army to inform everyone of movements or information because the resources were not available.

"There are so many fighters and we can't communicate to all of them," he said. "This is a revolution — of course it's going to be chaotic."

Andar said the lack of communication was proving fatal.

On Wednesday, a number of leaderless fighters attempted to push the northernmost checkpoint deeper into the city and enter the center via off-road routes.

Abdel-Salam Genouna planned the attack, which backfired when Gadhafi loyalists armed with heavy machinery ambushed the 10 cars on the expedition from hidden valleys, killing eight fighters, according to Alaa Shafori, a doctor at a field hospital.

"We ran out of ammunition because we were just planning to make this a patrolling expedition," he said. "It was a shock and we are lucky many of us survived."

The remaining fighters have been left shell-shocked and uncertain if Bani Walid is worth the fight.

"I want to die for Libya and for freedom, not for this kind of mess," said Bassam Turki, a 33-year-old fighter from Tripoli who went home after last week's battle.

Fighters besieging Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, further east on the Mediterranean coast appear much more organized, though they too have faced stiff resistance. On Saturday, they pushed into the western side of the city under heavy fighting. They have also moved around the city to try to cut off supply lines through the desert to the loyalists.

Andar, the former police officer who quit the fight at Bani Walid, said tribal loyalty also was proving stronger in the city than other areas, making it harder to gain local support for the revolution.

"In all the cities we liberated, the people inside the city rose up and helped us — except in Bani Walid," Andar said.

Field commander Fathi Kirshadz said the Bani Walid forces had been diminished because local fighters were worried about their families and defected.

Al-Fasi said he was a wanted man inside Bani Walid. He said Gadhafi forces have his name as well as a number of other Bani Walid fighters on a "wanted for execution" list and were attacking their families.

The fighters are too week to hold positions inside the city, making families that raise the tri-color revolutionary flag vulnerable. Al-Fasi said sources inside Bani Walid have told him about 15 civilians have been killed in raids since last Friday.

"We are responsible for the souls of those dead civilians," al-Fasi said, putting his hand to his neck. "Those families greeted us with celebration, and we left them to die."

quote:

Libyan NTC forces thrust deep into Gaddafi home town

(Reuters) - Libyan interim government forces backed by NATO warplanes have mounted their deepest thrust into Muammar Gaddafi's home town of Sirte, getting as close as half a kilometre from the centre of the deposed leader's coastal stronghold.


Anti-Gaddafi fighters stand guard as they celebrate the taking over of El-Khamseen gate, the eastern gate of Sirte September 24, 2011.

Gunfire could be heard coming from the town centre and black smoke rose as National Transitional Council (NTC) forces massed in Zafran Square on Saturday and moved up tanks and mortars. Pick-up trucks mounted with machineguns and loaded with fighters raced in.

Field medics said two NTC soldiers had been killed and more than 20 wounded in the fighting against pro-Gaddafi forces.

"They have snipers above the mosques, above the buildings. They're using the houses and public buildings," NTC fighter El-Tohamy Abuzein told Reuters from his position in Zafran Square.

The NTC assault plan has divided Sirte into three zones. "They took area number one and they are fighting in area number two and they are holding there until morning," NTC commander Fathi Bafhaaga told Reuters.

Reuters journalists at the scene said it was the deepest NTC fighters had got into Sirte, but it was not possible to verify whether the NTC was holding onto its gains overnight.

Taking Sirte would be a huge boost for the NTC as it tries to establish credibility as a government, and a devastating blow for Gaddafi, widely believed to be on the run inside Libya.

NATO, whose warplanes played a vital role in the six-month war that toppled Gaddafi, said its planes had hit a number of targets in Sirte in the previous 24 hours, including an ammunition depot and an anti-aircraft gun.

It said in a statement the air attacks had been mounted to protect civilians from Gaddafi forces inside the town.

"Among the reports emerging from Sirte are executions, hostage-taking, and the calculated targeting of individuals, families, and communities within the city," NATO said.

Previously, NTC forces have retreated from Sirte and the other final Gaddafi stronghold, Bani Walid, after poorly organised assaults met fierce resistance from his loyalists.

Though NTC forces have tightened their grip in the past few days on southern oasis towns that sided with Gaddafi, that progress has been overshadowed by unsuccessful efforts to take the last strongholds.

NTC commanders say their advance on Sirte has been hampered by the presence of large numbers of civilians, many of whom have fled in the past week.

A Gaddafi spokesman has accused NATO of killing several hundred civilians in strikes on Sirte. Communications have been largely cut off since the fall of the capital Tripoli last month.

"FORBIDDEN" WEAPONS FOUND

NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said on Saturday interim government forces had found suspected internationally banned weapons near the towns of Sabha and Wadan, but he gave no details about them.

"There are weapons believed to be internationally forbidden, and they are under our control," he told a news conference at the NTC's headquarters in its eastern Benghazi base.

"We will seek help from local experts and the international community to get rid of these weapons in a suitable way."

The NTC, the political leadership of the rebel movement that rose up against Gaddafi's 42-year-rule and drove him from power with support from the West and several Arab nations, faces a challenge in trying to impose its authority across Libya.

It said last week it would move to Tripoli only after its forces were in full control of Libyan territory, contradicting an earlier pledge to move the interim administration from Benghazi around mid-September.

Raising a new challenge, Abdelraouf al-Kurdi, a representative of fighters from a Tripoli district, said arms seized from sites in the capital had been taken to other parts of Libya by fighters who filled the city to overthrow Gaddafi.

Interim government forces operate in disparate units based on their home towns, with little overall command.

NTC officials have said Gaddafi used mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa to bolster his ranks during the war.

Tanks were seen moving beyond the gate towards Sirte and Reuters journalists said NTC forces got to within 40 km of the city and were planning to hold that position after nightfall.

"We are coming for you, wild-haired one," fighters chanted, referring to Gaddafi.

On Thursday, the NTC said it had taken full control of Sabha, which was the traditional base for Gaddafi's own tribe. About 800 km (500 miles) south of Tripoli, it had been occupied by fighters loyal to him.

The NTC says it also controls Jufra, to the northeast of Sabha, and the nearby oasis towns of Sokna, Waddan and Houn.

The manhunt for Gaddafi, who has been in hiding for weeks occasionally issuing audio messages through Syrian-based Arrai TV, is drawing closer to its target, NTC officials say.

quote:

Op donderdag 22 september 2011 15:32 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
Ik zie maar één vat met een stickertje, nog in het Engels ook.

quote:

Op zondag 25 september 2011 16:11 schreef HiZ het volgende:

[..]

Duits

quote:

Earth yields bones, grief at Libyan (1996) massacre site

* Grave found about two weeks ago, after Gaddafi ousted

TRIPOLI, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Libya's new rulers on Sunday revealed a grave site they said contained the bodies of more than 1,270 people killed by Muammar Gaddafi's security forces in a 1996 massacre at Tripoli's Abu Salim prison.

The bloodletting at the prison -- which looms over a district of the capital known for its loyalty to Gaddafi -- has taken on iconic significance for Libya's new rulers, whose uprising against him first erupted when families of inmates killed at Abu Salim demonstrated in the eastern city of Benghazi to demand the release of their lawyer.

_{--- meer in de spoiler ---}

SPOILER: Het uitgebreide artikel

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

quote:

Reuters - WRAPUP Libya - Sept 25

TRIPOLI, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Libya's interim rulers said on Sunday they had found a mass grave containing the bodies of 1,270 inmates killed by Muammar Gaddafi's security forces in a 1996 massacre at a prison in southern Tripoli.

To the east of Tripoli, NATO bombers hit the city of Sirte to clear the way for fighters with the National Transitional Council (NTC) who are trying to capture Gaddafi's hometown.
Gaddafi forces stopping residents from leaving city -reports.

But Gaddafi loyalists showed they were still a threat by attacking the desert oasis town of Ghadames, on the border with Algeria, NTC officials said.
_{--- verder in spoiler ---}

SPOILER: Vervolg artikel

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.