ANOTHER TYRANT – GADDAFI FALLS VII
Kyaemon
The Frame: NATO forces helping rebels in hunt for Gadhafi
http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/08/nato-forces-helping-rebels-in.html#more
CLICK THE LINK FOR MORE PICTURES
NATO forces helping rebels in hunt for Gadhafi
TRIPOLI (AP) — British warplanes struck a large bunker Friday in Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte, his largest remaining stronghold, as NATO turned its attention to loyalist forces battling advancing Libyan rebels in the area.
The airstrikes came a day after fierce clashes erupted in the Libyan capital, which remained tense as rebels hunted for the elusive leader and his allies. Pro-Gadhafi forces were shelling the airport and sporadic shooting was reported elsewhere, but the streets of Tripoli were relatively calm on Friday.
The rebel leadership has offered a $2 million bounty on Gadhafi’s head, but the autocrat has refused to surrender, fleeing to an unknown destination as his 42-year regime crumbles in the North African nation. (25 images)
********YOU CAN SEE THAT THE REBELS ARE WELL ARMED WITH THE BEST WEAPONS.********
7 comments
Kyaemon
September 7, 2011 at 2:20 am
Libyan rebels, Bani Walid dignitaries reach no-fighting deal: TV
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09/06/c_131106362.htm
TRIPOLI, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) — Libyan rebels reached a deal on Tuesday with dignitaries of the town of Bani Walid, south of Tripoli and one of the last strongholds of forces loyal to fallen leader Muammar Gaddafi, to enter the town without fighting, al- Jazeera TV reported.
The dignitaries taking part in the meeting told the pan-Arab TV that they need more time to convince the residents in the town as they went in off-camera talks with rebels.
Kyaemon
September 7, 2011 at 11:46 pm
Libya conflict: Niger border ‘cannot be closed’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14825541
Niger’s foreign minister says his country is unable to close its border with Libya to prevent fugitive Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fleeing south.
Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum told the BBC that Col Gaddafi had not crossed the border or asked to cross.
He said Gaddafi loyalists who have arrived in Niger’s capital, Niamey, would be free to stay or move on.
Libya’s transitional authorities have said they are seeking Niger’s help to stop Col Gaddafi from fleeing.
Political Affairs head Fathi Baja said the National Transitional Council (NTC) had sent a delegation to Niger to discuss “securing our borders to stop any kind of infiltration of Gaddafi troops to Niger, to stop any attempt by Gaddafi or his family to escape to Niger”.
Asked if Niger might close its border, Mr Bazoum said: “We have no means to close the border… It is too big and we have very, very small means for that.”
He said he hoped that Col Gaddafi would not try to cross the border, but that Niger had not yet taken any decision on whether it would accept him – or whether it would hand him over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) – if he did attempt to enter Niger.
Niger recognises the ICC, which is seeking the arrest of Col Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his former intelligence chief Abdullah Sanoussi.
‘Humanitarian’ gesture
Mr Bazoum said at least three convoys had crossed from Libya into Niger, and that none of Col Gaddafi’s sons was travelling in them…..
Kyaemon
September 9, 2011 at 9:54 am
Noted Political Analyst Pepe Escobar and some people say that this is Sarkozy’s War. He gave a reason why. See below:
THE ROVING EYE
Why Gaddafi got a red card
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MI01Ak02.html
Surveying the Libyan wasteland out of a cozy room crammed with wafer-thin LCDs in a Pyongyang palace, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, must have been stunned as he contemplated Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s predicament.
“What a fool,” the Dear Leader predictably murmurs. No wonder. He knows how The Big G virtually signed his death sentence that day in 2003 when he accepted the suggestion of his irrepressibly nasty offspring – all infatuated with Europe – to dump his weapons of mass destruction program and place the future of the regime in the hands of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Granted, Saif al-Islam, Mutassim, Khamis and the rest of the
Gaddafi clan still couldn’t tell the difference between partying hard in St Tropez and getting bombed by Mirages and Rafales. But Big G, wherever he is, in Sirte, in the central desert or in a silent caravan to Algeria, must be cursing them to eternity.
He thought he was a NATO partner. Now NATO wants to blow his head off. What kind of partnership is this?
The Sunni monarchical dictator in Bahrain stays; no “humanitarian” bombs over Manama, no price on his head. The House of Saud club of dictators stays; no “humanitarian” bombs over Riyadh, Dubai or Doha – no price on their Western-loving gilded heads. Even the Syrian dictator is getting a break – so far.
So the question, asked by many an Asia Times Online reader, is inevitable: what was the crucial red line crossed by Gaddafi that got him a red card?
‘Revolution’ made in France
There are enough red lines crossed by The Big G – and enough red cards – to turn this whole computer screen blood red.
Let’s start with the basics. The Frogs did it. It’s always worth repeating; this is a French war. The Americans don’t even call it a war; it’s a “kinetic action” or something. The “rebel” Transitional National Council” (TNC) is a French invention.
And yes – this is above all neo-Napoleonic President Nicolas Sarkozy’s war. He’s the George Clooney character in the movie (poor Clooney). Everybody else, from David of Arabia Cameron to Nobel Peace Prize winner and multiple war developer Barack Obama, are supporting actors.
As already reported by Asia Times Online, this war started in October 2010 when Gaddafi’s chief of protocol, Nuri Mesmari, defected to Paris, was approached by French intelligence and for all practical purposes a military coup d’etat was concocted, involving defectors in Cyrenaica.
Sarko had a bag full of motives to exact revenge on The Big G.
French banks had told him that Gaddafi was about to transfer his billions of euros to Chinese banks. Thus Gaddafi could not by any means become an example to other Arab nations or sovereign funds.
French corporations told Sarko that Gaddafi had decided not to buy Rafale fighters anymore, and not to hire the French to build a nuclear plant; he was more concerned in investing in social services.
Energy giant Total wanted a much bigger piece of the Libyan energy cake – which was being largely eaten, on the European side, by Italy’s ENI, especially because Premier Silvio “bunga bunga” Berlusconi, a certified Big G fan, had clinched a complex deal with Gaddafi.
Thus the military coup was perfected in Paris until December; the first popular demonstrations in Cyrenaica in February – largely instigated by the plotters – were hijacked. The self-promoting philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy flew his white shirt over an open torso to Benghazi to meet the “rebels” and phone Sarkozy, virtually ordering him to recognize them in early March as legitimate (not that Sarko needed any encouragement).
The TNC was invented in Paris, but the United Nations also duly gobbled it up as the “legitimate” government of Libya – just as NATO did not have a UN mandate to go from a no-fly zone to indiscriminate “humanitarian” bombing, culminating with the current siege of Sirte…..
Kyaemon
September 9, 2011 at 10:22 am
Libyan professor rises to role of rebels’ prime minister
Ali Tarhouni, an economics professor in Washington state, has become one of the new Libya’s most high-profile leaders. His first task is to get Tripoli up and running again.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-libya-professor-20110908,0,3206828.story
Reporting from Tripoli, Libya— Ali Tarhouni could use some sleep. Fatigue has eclipsed elation for the U.S. business school professor who has become one of the new Libya’s most high-profile leaders.
“Caffeine and nicotine [are] what is keeping me going,” Tarhouni acknowledged Wednesday in the wood-paneled office where Moammar Kadafi’s prime minister was once ensconced.
His portfolio for Libya’s transitional government comprises economics and the energy sector, no small matters in an oil-rich nation embarking on an ambitious makeover of Kadafi’s peculiar strand of crony socialism.
But in the absence of top interim leaders here in Tripoli, Tarhouni has been serving as a kind of stand-in prime minister. His first task: getting a battered capital that initially lacked security, running water, power, public services and gasoline up and running again.
Today, the capital seems to be coming out of its post-revolutionary slumber. Shops are opening, traffic is picking up, a sense of security is growing. But the hard work of putting things back together has taken a toll on Tarhouni.
“I’m really, really exhausted,” he said, the bags under his eyes visible evidence. “This is the exhilaration,” he said, with irony.
But it seems safe to say that Tarhouni, 60, wouldn’t have it any other way. That he now stands near the pinnacle of power in his native land is an astonishing turn of fortune for the veteran economics lecturer at the University of Washington.
Reports from Seattle indicate that Tarhouni was a popular professor. But, unknown to most students, he was also a longtime activist in the disparate Libyan opposition, a loose network of exiles who worked to topple a regime that seemed intent on sticking around forever. Tarhouni left Libya as a young man in 1973, about the time the glow began to fade from Libya’s 1969 revolution and its charismatic leader.
Once in the United States, Tarhouni earned a doctorate in economics and finance and landed at the University of Washington in 1985. But the cause of his homeland stayed with him. Like other exiled critics, Tarhouni reportedly ended up on a Kadafi death list.
Tarhouni continued his double life until the “Arab Spring” breathed new life into Libya’s long-quiescent opposition. On Feb. 27, as protesters took to the streets of Benghazi, Tripoli and other cities, Tarhouni sent an email to friends and former students.
“As most of you know, I spent the better part of my life fighting to bring democracy to Libya and just about everything that I attempted failed,” Tarhouni wrote in the message, published by the Seattle Times. “Out of nowhere a volcano erupted. These young people who are marching only with stones in their hands facing grenades and live bullets are writing a new chapter for Libya similar to their brethren in Tunisia and Egypt…. I am not sure who is alive and who is dead but I feel that I need to go back to help as much as I can.”
He returned to Libya for the first time in decades and was named finance minister of the Libyan opposition council, based in Benghazi. He traveled abroad with fellow council members, trying to drum up support and persuade foreign capitals to turn over some of the billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets.
Then Tripoli fell with unexpected suddenness.
Tarhouni says he has been looking into what he terms “mind-boggling” corruption that squandered “billions and billions” of dollars.
“Kadafi plundered the wealth,” Tarhouni said. “I can’t believe some of the documents that I see, come across, how they managed the money of the Libyan people. It was just like their private bank or farm.”
Once captured, Kadafi would be held responsible for the “stolen public treasure,” Tarhouni pledged.
What shape Libya’s future government will take remains uncertain. Many interests are jockeying for power. Not all are Jeffersonian democrats. But Tarhouni vowed that “transparency” will be a hallmark and that Libya will become “a country that our kids and grandkids are proud of.”
The phone rang. It was time for another meeting, this time with Tripoli’s rebel military commander. Tarhouni took another drag on his cigarette, the weariness yielding to a sense of mission in these heady days of the Libyan revolution.
Kyaemon
September 9, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Special Libyan unit hunting down Gadhafi
http://news.yahoo.com/special-libyan-unit-hunting-down-gadhafi-195931739.html
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Determined to hunt down Moammar Gadhafi, Libya’s new rulers say they have dedicated a special unit of fighters to track the elusive former leader, listening in on his aides’ phone calls, poring over satellite images and interviewing witnesses.
Although leads come mostly from on-the-ground tips, help is also coming from France and other Western countries, according to a French intelligence official. Satellite-based transmission intercepts of suspicious phone calls try to pinpoint where Gadhafi might be. Small CIA teams are also assisting in the manhunt, according to former U.S. officials.
Gadhafi, who hasn’t been seen in public for months, went underground after anti-regime fighters swept into Tripoli on Aug. 21. Capturing the ousted ruler would allow the former rebels to seal their grip on the country and shut the door on the possibility of Gadhafi’s inspiring an insurgency against the new leaders.
After more than four decades under his authoritarian rule, Libyans are haunted by the question of Gadhafi’s whereabouts, and the country has been awash with rumors that have put him everywhere from deep in a bunker under Tripoli to safe in exile in neighboring Niger or Algeria. On Thursday, Gadhafi himself dismissed talk of his flight, saying in an audio broadcast that he’s still in Libya, and exhorting followers to keep fighting.
An anti-Gadhafi fighter, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said revolutionary forces stormed a villa on Tripoli’s outskirts last week acting on a tip.
The fighter, who took part in the operation, said they believe Gadhafi was at the villa and escaped less than an hour before the raid through a secret tunnel. Computers were on and cups of tea were still warm, he said, indicating the occupants had just fled…….
Kyaemon
September 17, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Libya: Cameron And Sarkozy Visit New Rulers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/15/libya-cameron-sarkozy_n_963663.html
TRIPOLI, Libya — British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered broad support for Libya’s new rulers Thursday, promising to unfreeze billions in assets and give help in finding Moammar Gadhafi, even as revolutionary forces attempted their first significant assault on the ousted leader’s hometown.
The Western leaders – the first to visit since Tripoli fell late last month – got a welcome worthy of rock stars from jubilant Libyans grateful for NATO airstrikes that helped turn the tide of the war in their favor.
Staff at a hospital in Tripoli applauded the two men as they visited patients who had been wounded in the fighting, and schoolchildren in the eastern city of Benghazi wore T-shirts that said “Generations will never forget the favors and support from Great Britain” and “Sarkozy: Benghazi loves you.”
But tight security in both cities was a reminder of the fact that Gadhafi is still on the run and his supporters are holding out in three major strongholds, including his hometown of Sirte.
Gadhafi’s spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, chided the foreign leaders for their short trip, claiming that pro-Gadhafi fighters “are everywhere.” He told the Syrian al-Rai TV station late Thursday, “This visit by Sarkozy and Cameron is a launch of an imperialist project in Libya.” Ibrahim did not say where he was, nor where Gadhafi was hiding.
In a surprise advance, revolutionary forces entered the outskirts of Sirte, 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli along the Mediterranean coast, on Thursday and were facing rocket fire, according to a member of the military council from the nearby city of Misrata, which was leading the assault.
Ali Gliwan said fighters crossed a major highway overpass at the southwestern entrance of the city of about 100,000 people, met by rocket fire from Gadhafi loyalists. Jalal el-Gallal, a spokesman for Libya’s new leaders, said several thousand fighters were involved, backed with tanks and mechanized vehicles.
The fighters advanced into the city center, clashing with snipers holed up in a high-rise office tower – and with members of an elite unit of Gadhafi troops barricaded in a residence of the leader on the beach, Gliwan said. He reported four fighters on his side had been killed and seven wounded.
An Associated Press Television News reporter saw the bodies of four Gadhafi loyalists near a vehicle that apparently had been struck by NATO. Snipers fired at fighters in the center of town, although the revolutionary forces had largely pulled back to the outskirts by nightfall.
Kyaemon
September 25, 2011 at 4:21 pm
YOUTUBE VIDEOS OF THE BATTLE FOR TRIPOLI
Battlefield video: Libya rebels fight Gaddafi forces – YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5l0k4_EGB0&feature=related
Mutinous army units in pickup trucks armed with machine guns and rocket launchers deployed around the strategic oil installation at Brega on Thursday, a day after the opposition foiled an attempt by loyalists of leader Moammar Gadhafi to retake control of the port in rebel-held east Libya. Recent amateur video uploaded to YouTube shows groups of armed men fighting in the desert, although it is unclear exactly when the video was filmed. In the footage, heavy gunfire and the sound of explosions can be heard and large plumes of smoke are seen rising in the distance.
Libya Latest: Rebels Take Over Tripoli – YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kybRda6qK-w&feature=related
Rebel forces took control of much of Tripoli and thousands flooded the streets of the Libyan capital.
Heavy fighting in Libya continues – no comment – YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjyEeBE3xFo&feature=related
Volunteers are on their way to the frontline to fight Gaddafi’s militia and mercenaries. By the gates of the town Ajdabia they receive bags of provisions and ammunition supplies. In the other direction a truck load of Egyptian guest workers are shouting with joy at having made it to the border alive….