GADDAFI KILLED IN LIBYA – X
KyaemonSEE PICTURES AND VIDEOS INSIDE VARIOUS NEWS ARTICLES:
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Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi dies of wounds, NTC field commander tells Xinhua
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-10/20/c_131203056.htm
TRIPOLI/SIRTE, Libya, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) — Libya’s fallen leader Muammar Gaddafi died of his wounds on Thursday, a National Transitional Council (NTC) field commander told Xinhua.
The commander, Momhemed Buras Ali Al-Maknee, told Xinhua earlier that a group of fighters from the western Libyan city of Misrata captured Gaddafi in Sirte, who was then severely injured.
The Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV reported Gaddafi’s corpse had arrived in Misrata.
Earlier Al-Jazeera TV said NATO jets fired at a convoy of cars, probably with Gaddafi onboard, fleeing Sirte.
The pan-Arab TV, meanwhile, quoted Abdel Hakim Belhaj, NTC’s military chief in Tripoli as confirming that Gaddafi had been killed. NTC spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga also confirmed Gaddafi’s death.
There are conflicting information on the circumstances surrounding his death. The death has yet to be officially announced by the NTC, with NTC chief Mustafa Abdul-Jalil expecting to address the Libyan people soon.
The NTC troops and the people of the war-torn country were celebrating following reports on Gaddafi’s death, cheering and hoisting NTC flags, Xinhua reporters said.
The 69 year-old leader, whose forces were driven out of capital Tripoli by the now ruling NTC on Aug. 23, had been “leading resistance” against his foes from an undisclosed place in Libya for the past months, according to his spokesman.
On June 27, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity, and on Sept. 9, the international police agency INTERPOL issued Red Notice for the three as requested by ICC.
Meanwhile, al-Jazeera said Gaddafi’s fourth son Mutassim was captured also on Thursday in Sirte, several hours after his father was killed, besides, the TV footage also showed a body which it said belonged to Gaddafi’s defense minister Abu Bakr Younus.
Earlier on Thursday, the same satellite TV had said forces of Libya’s NTC have reportedly overrun the last position held by troops loyal to Gaddafi in Sirte, the fallen leader’s hometown.
NTC confirms Gaddafi’s death, int’l reactions mixed
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-10/20/c_131203178.htm
TRIPOLI/SIRTE, Libya, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) — Libya’s ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi died of wounds Thursday after being shot in gun battles in his hometown, Sirte.
His death was confirmed by officials of the National Transitional Council (NTC), including head of its executive committee Mahmoud Jibril, and backed up by pictures of his corpse with eyes half-open, shirt torn apart and a bloodied face, televised by the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV.
At a press conference held in Tripoli, Jibril also announced that the NTC would announce the liberation of entire Libya later Thursday or Friday.
Earlier Thursday, Momhemed Buras Ali Al-Maknee, an NTC field commander, told Xinhua a group of fighters from the western Libyan city of Misrata captured Gaddafi in Sirte, who was then severely injured.
The Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV reported Gaddafi’s corpse had arrived in Misrata.
Earlier, Al-Jazeera said NATO jets fired at a convoy of cars, possibly with Gaddafi onboard, fleeing Sirte.
The NTC troops and the people of the war-torn country celebrated as reports of Gaddafi’s death filtered out, cheering and hoisting NTC flags, Xinhua reporters said.
The 69-year-old former leader, whose forces were driven from the capital Tripoli by the now ruling NTC on Aug. 23, had since been “leading resistance” against his foes from an undisclosed place in Libya, according to his spokesman.
On June 27, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity, and on Sept. 9, the international police agency, Interpol, issued a Red Notice for the three as requested by ICC.
Meanwhile, the NTC field commander told Xinhua that Gaddafi’s son Mutassim was killed in Sirte, several hours after his father died of wounds. He had earlier said Mutassim was captured alive inside the town after NTC fighters overran Sirte’s Number Two neighborhood where Gaddafi’s loyalists had been cornered.
The commander also said NTC fighters had surrounded a place in Sirte where Gaddafi’s second son, Saif al-Islam, was believed to be hiding.
The al-Jazeera TV footage also showed a body which it said belonged to Gaddafi’s defense minister, Abu Bakr Younus.
Earlier Thursday, the network said NTC forces had reportedly overrun the last position held by troops loyal to Gaddafi in Sirte.
Gaddafi’s death has drawn mixed international reactions, with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailing that it “marks a historic transition of Libya.”
In Brussels, a joint statement by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Gaddafi’s death “marks the end of an era of despotism and repression from which the Libyan people have suffered for too long.”
“Today, Libya can turn a page in its history and embrace a new democratic future,” it said.
The European Union called on the NTC to “pursue a broad-based reconciliation process which reaches out to all Libyans and enables a democratic, peaceful and transparent transition in the country.”
In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Gaddafi’s death held out the promise of a better future for the people he ruled for four decades. ‘ In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped peace would eventually arrive in Libya.
“All those who represent this country, various representatives of Libyan tribes, will be able to reach a final agreement on a configuration of power, and Libya will turn into a modern political country,” Medvedev said at a joint press conference with Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte in Moscow.
“Otherwise, all the efforts taken recently are senseless,” Medvedev said.
In New Delhi, visiting French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe hailed Gaddafi’s death as the “end of 42 years of tyranny.”
“The announcement of the death of Gaddafi and the collapse of Sirte is the end of a very difficult period for the Libyan people. It’s the end of 42 years of tyranny, of a military conflict that has been very difficult for the Libyan people,” Juppe said.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota voiced hope Thursday that violence in Libya would end soon following Gaddafi’s death.
“Brazil expects violence in Libya to stop, military operations to cease, and the Libyan people to be able to follow its aspirations and wishes in a spirit of dialogue and national reconstruction,” Patriota said.
The foreign minister made the remarks while accompanying President Dilma Rousseff on a trip to Angola. The president, however, has yet to make an official statement on the issue.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told Xinhua earlier in the day that Washington “can not confirm at this time” the capture or death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Nuland made the remarks through an e-mail to Xinhua.
In Addis Ababa, the African Union (AU) said it would seek to verify the death of Gaddafi.
AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra told reporters “We will check it, there are a number of press dispatches, even the one that stated he may have been killed; so let us find out from the authority incumbent.”
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GADDAFI KILLED IN LIBYA
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15389550
BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Sirte: “I have spoken to the man who says that he captured him… he was brandishing a golden pistol”
Libya’s ex-leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has been killed after an assault on his birthplace of Sirte, officials say.
National Transitional Council (NTC) Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference in Tripoli it was time to launch a new, united Libya.
Col Gaddafi was toppled in August after 42 years in power.
The interim authorities plan to announce Libya “liberated” before indicating the next steps towards democratic elections.
Mr Jibril said NTC forces were now pursuing Saif al-Islam, Col Gaddafi’s most prominent son, who fled Sirte in a convoy before Sirte fell.
Golden gun
After a day of conflicting reports and rumours, Mr Jibril told the news conference: “We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Gaddafi has been killed.”…
Gadhafi Killed, Libyan Officials Say
Col. Moammar Gadhafi died from wounds sustained during a final push to seize control of his hometown of Sirte, the last remaining stronghold of the former leader, according to Libyan military and political leaders.
Col. Gadhafi was shot and wounded in Sirte and died in an ambulance en route to Misrata, said Misrata Military Council spokesman Fathi Bashagha. Western allies haven’t confirmed Col. Gadhafi’s death.
The council, which has been commanding the fighters leading the two-month siege of Sirte, reported around noon Thursday that Col. Gadhafi had been caught while their troops were conducting mopping-up operations around the coastal city. Shortly afterward, the council reported that Col. Gadhafi was dead.
Libyan officials were doing a DNA analysis of what they believe was Col. Gadhafi’s body to confirm its identity, according to Mr. Bashagha.
“Gadhafi is dead 100%. I saw his body with my own eyes,” Mr. Bashagha said. “Gadhafi’s death is the best news for Libya. The whole world should rejoice.”
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Moammar Gadhafi has been killed,” Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference in the capital Tripoli, according to the Associated Press…..
With Muammar Qaddafi killed, is Libya’s war over?
12:25 pm ET –
Muammar Qaddafi was killed today by guerrillas near his hometown. His death dramatically limits the chances of a long-running insurgency in Libya.
- Terrorism & Security: Qaddafi killed, say Libya’s interim leaders; US, NATO scramble to confirm
- The Monitor’s View: How Qaddifi killing affirms Arab Spring principles
The details of Muammar Qaddafi‘s death are still trickling out of Sirte. While the full circumstances of his killing aren’t yet clear, beyond the fact that he appeared to meet his end at the hands of Libyan revolutionaries, a new chapter in Libyan history has been opened.
There were early claims that he’d been found cowering in a sewage pipe outside his hometown of Sirte and was murdered by rebels, a bit of poetic justice given that he was fond of describing his opponents as scuttling rats and cockroaches that would be hunted to their death down every alley, inside every home in the country he ruled with an iron fist since seizing power 42 years ago. That detail seems so perfect, from the Libyan rebel’s perspective, to be entirely trusted. There were also reports that his convoy came under NATO attack as he tried to flee Sirte, and that he and his followers were then overwhelmed by rebel fighters. NATO confirmed that it attacked a pro-Qaddafi convoy near Sirte this morning.
But that Qaddafi is dead, as his hometown and last bastion was overrun by an army of shopkeepers, students, and laborers, can now be taken to the bank.
Reporters and rebel fighters in Libya also said that a number of his officials and family members were either killed or captured near Sirte. Reuters quotes a rebel military commander, Abdel Majid Mlegta, as saying Qaddafi’s military chief, Abu Bakr Younis, was killed, and that one of his sons and his chief spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, were taken alive.
11 comments
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 12:29 am
Qaddafi Is Dead, Libyan Officials Say
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/africa/libyan-fighters-say-qaddafi-stronghold-has-fallen.html?_r=1&hp
TRIPOLI, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan strongman who fled into hiding after rebels toppled his regime two months ago, was killed Thursday as fighters battling the vestiges of his loyalist forces wrested control of his hometown of Surt, the interim government announced.
Al Jazeera television showed gruesome footage of what it said was Colonel Qaddafi, alive but wounded and bloody, being dragged around by armed men in Surt. The television also broadcast a separate clip of his half-naked corpse, with lifeless open eyes and an apparent gunshot wound to the side of the head, as jubilant fighters fired automatic weapons in the air.
The images punctuated an emphatic and violent ending to his four decades as a ruthless and bombastic autocrat who had basked in his reputation as the self-styled king of kings of Africa.
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Qaddafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril, the prime minister of the Transitional National Council, the interim government, told a news conference in Tripoli. Mahmoud Shammam, the council’s chief spokesman, called it “the day of real liberation. We were serious about giving him a fair trial. It seems God has some other wish.”
Libyans rejoiced as news of his death spread. Car horns blared and residents poured into the streets in Tripoli and in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion against Colonel Qaddafi began in February and escalated into the most violent of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Fighters from Misurata, the port city that suffered enormously at the hands of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces during the uprising, were in possession of Colonel Qaddafi’s body and had taken it to a morgue in their hometown, foreign press photographers in Surt said. There were unconfirmed reports that they intended to display it in Misurata’s central square.
Within an hour of the news of Colonel Qaddafi’s death, the Arab twittersphere lit up with gleeful comments, many of them hinting at a similar fate awaiting other Arab dictators — most notably President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. One of them read: “Ben Ali escaped, Mubarak is in jail, Qaddafi was killed. Which fate do you prefer, Ali Abdullah Saleh? You can consult with Bashar.” Another was more direct: “Bashar al-Assad, how do you feel today?”
A popular link showed a cartoon with portraits of the five dictators — the first three with big red X’s painted over them — while below them walks an angry-looking man toting a large brush covered with red paint. Written on the man’s clothing is the word “the people,” in Arabic.
Mr. Jibril said he had no details on how Colonel Qaddafi had been killed, saying those would be provided when the government had a clearer picture of the chaotic events. But Mr. Jibril said he was confident that he had not been killed by NATO warplanes — one of several rumors flying as news of Colonel Qaddafi’s death was first reported.
In a statement from NATO’s Libya operations headquarters in Naples, Italy, Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, confirmed that its aircraft had struck two armed Libyan military vehicles near Surt but that NATO officers had no idea who may have been in them. “It is not NATO policy to target specific individuals,” he said.
Mohamed Benrasali, a member of the national council’s Tripoli Stabilization Committee, gave a differing account of Colonel Qaddafi’s end, saying that fighters from Misurata who were deployed in Surt told him that Colonel Qaddafi was captured alive in a car leaving Surt. He was badly injured, with wounds in his head and both legs, Mr. Benrasali said, and died soon after.
Al Jazeera quoted an unidentified official of the Transitional National Council as saying Mussa Ibrahim, the former spokesman of Colonel Qaddafi, had been captured near Surt……
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 12:34 am
Kadafi is dead; jubilation erupts in Tripoli
http://www.latimes.com/
Libya’s prime minister says Moammar Kadafi is dead
REPORTING FROM BEIRUT — Libya’s provisional prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, said Thursday that ousted leader Moammar Kadafi has been killed.
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Jibril told a news conference in the capital, Tripoli, according to the Associated Press. “Moammar Kadafi has been killed.”
Unconfirmed reports of Kadafi’s capture and death have been filtering out since fighters for the transitional government captured Kadafi’s home town of Surt on Thursday. The coastal city, the last major bastion of support for Kadafi, fell two months after rebel forces took over Tripoli, sending the former strongman and many of his supporters into hiding or on the run.
Photos: Moammar Kadafi reportedly killed in fall of Surt
Photos: Moammar Kadafi through the years
There are conflicting accounts of how Kadafi was captured and apparently killed. One report indicated that he had been found hiding in Surt in what appeared to be a cement drainage pipe. Another said he was in a convoy bombed by NATO warplanes.
NATO said its aircraft struck two pro-Kadafi “military vehicles” early Thursday but did not immediately confirm Kadafi’s death.
Al-Jazeera TV obtained video footage of what appeared to be a bloodied Kadafi, lying dead or severely wounded on the ground. The authenticity of the footage hasn’t been verified.
Word of Kadafi’s capture and demise prompted celebratory gunfire in Tripoli and Surt.
Reports that Kadafi had been hiding in Surt came as somewhat of a surprise. Most observers had assumed that he had fled to the southern Libyan hinterlands, a vast expanse where Kadafi was still said to have many allies and that could have provided a quick escape to sub-Saharan nations such as Niger and Chad.
Instead, he apparently decided to make a last stand in his hometown………
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 12:38 am
Many videos and pictures inside links:
GADDAFI KILLED
Libyan Officials: Dictator Died Following Battle In Sirte
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/muammar-gaddafi-killed_n_1021462.html
Longtime dictator of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, reportedly has been killed. Following the capture of Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, contradictory reports emerged that Colonel Gaddafi may have been killed or captured in Libya.
[CLICK HERE FOR LIVE UPDATES]
Al Jazeera and Libyan state television are reporting that the Libyan dictator has been killed during a gunbattle in Sirte. A senior National Transitional Council official, Abdel Majid, told Reuters by telephone that Gaddafi has died of wounds suffered during his capture in Sirte. Reuters reports that he was wounded in both legs as he “tried to flee in a convoy which NATO warplanes attacked.”
The U.S. State Department has not confirmed Colonel Gaddafi’s capture or death. “The State Department cannot at this time confirm media reports on the capture or killing of Muammar Qadhafi,” spokesperson Victoria Nuland said, according to Politico.
The Associated Press reports:
The Misrata Military Council, one of multiple command groups for revolutionary forces, says its fighters captured Gadhafi in Sirte. Another commander, Abdel-Basit Haroun, says Gadhafi was killed when an airstrike hit a convoy trying to flee.
In Tripoli, celebrations are already underway with gunfire and honking. “We’ve heard quite a lot of celebratory gunfire,” Caroline Hawley reports for the BBC.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Libya on Tuesday to offer a new aid package. She told students during a gathering in Tripoli, “We hope [Gaddafi] can be captured or killed soon so that you don’t have to fear him any longer.”
Gaddafi was ousted from power in August, and his whereabouts have been unknown for months. The Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, accused Libya’s former ruler of crimes against humanity.
Reuters is also reporting that an official from the National Transitional Council, Libya’s interim government, has confirmed the death of Abu Bakr Yunis Jabr, Gaddafi’s Minister of Defense.
This is a breaking news update, further information will be added as it becomes available.
Below, follow live updates:……..
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 12:45 am
Gaddafi was captured alive (before his death)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44971257/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Images of a captured Gadhafi, bloodied and dazed, broadcast
‘We have been waiting for this moment for a long time,’ Libya prime minister says after dictator dies
SIRTE, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi, the man who ruled Libya with a dictatorial grip for 42 years, was seen on Arab television pinned against a car, being struck on the head with a pistol while a group of fighters manhandled him.
Video of Pres Obama’s speech inside
Video footage showed Gadhafi, dazed and bloodied but still clearly alive and gesturing with his hands as he was dragged from a truck by jostling government soldiers who hit him and pulled his hair.
He then appeared to fall to the ground and was enveloped by the crowd. NTC officials later announced Gadhafi had died of his wounds after capture.
One of Gadhafi’s sons, Muatassim, also was killed and had been hiding with his father, Libya’s interim government information minister told Reuters. The fate of his other son, Seif al-Islam, as well as other top figures of his regime remained unknown.
President Barack Obama was to make his first comments on Gadhafi’s death during a Rose Garden appearance Thursday afternoon. A White House official said Obama would cite the fact that Libyan officials had announced Gadhafi’s death. The U.S. has received similar reports through diplomatic channels and has confidence in those reports, the official said.
Al Jazeera TV broadcast the images of Gadhafi on Thursday, hours after the embattled leader was killed during an invasion by revolutionary forces in his hometown, Sirte, the last major bastion of resistance….
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 12:54 am
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE:
The US power grab in Africa
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MJ21Dj03.html
Beware of strangers bearing gifts. Post-modern Amazon and United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally landed in Tripoli – on a military jet – to lavish praise on the dodgy Transitional National Council (TNC), those pportunists/defectors/Islamists formerly known as “North Atlantic Treaty Organization rebels”.
Clinton was greeted on Tuesday “on the soil of free Libya” (her words) by what the New York Times quaintly described as an “irregular militia” (translation: a heavily armed gang that is already raising hell against other heavily armed gangs), before meeting TNC chairman Mustafa Abdel-NATO (formerly known as Jalil).
The bulk of the US gifts – US$40 million – on top of the $135
million already disbursed since February (most of it military “aid”) is for a missile scramble conducted by “contractors” (ie mercenaries) trying to track the tsunami of mobile anti-aircraft rockets that by now are already conveniently ensconced in secret Islamist warehouses.
Clinton told students at the University of Tripoli, “We are on your side.” She could not possibly connect the dots and note that the shabab (young people) who started demonstrating against Muammar Gaddafi in February have absolutely nothing to do with the TNC’s opportunists/defectors/Islamists who hijacked the protests. But she did have time to unveil another US foreign policy “secret” – that the US wants Gaddafi “dead or alive”, George W Bush-style (or as the beneficiary of targeted assassination, Barack Obama-style).
The new Fallujah
In her exhausting six-and-a-half hours on “free Libya” soil, Clinton couldn’t possibly find the time to hitch a helicopter ride to Sirte and see for herself how NATO is exercising R2P (“responsibility to protect” civilians).
A few hundred soldiers and no less than 80,000 civilians have been bombed for weeks by NATO and the former “rebels”. Only 20,000 civilians have managed to escape. There’s no food left. Water and electricity have been cut off. Hospitals are idle. The city – under siege – is in ruins. Sirte imams have issued a fatwa (decree) allowing survivors to eat cats and dogs.
What Gaddafi never did to Benghazi – and there’s no evidence he might have – the TNC is doing to Sirte, Gaddafi’s home town. Just like the murderous US offensive in Fallujah in the Iraqi Sunni triangle in late 2004, Sirte is being destroyed in order to “save it”. Sirte, the new Fallujah, is brought to you by NATO rebels. R2P, RIP.
It gets much nastier. Libya is just one angle of a multi-vector US strategy in Africa. Wacko presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann, during Tuesday’s Republican debate in Las Vegas, may have inadvertently nailed it. Displaying her geographical acumen as she referred to Obama’s new US intervention in Uganda, Bachmann said, “He put us in Libya. Now he’s putting us in Africa.” True, Libya is not in Africa anymore; as the counter-revolutionary House of Saud would want it, Libya has been relocated to Arabia (ideally as a restored monarchy).
As for Obama “putting us in Africa” (see Obama, King of Africa Asia Times Online, October 18, 2011), those 100 special forces in Uganda billed as “advisers” should be seen as a liquid modernity remix of Vietnam in the early 1960s; that also started with a bunch of “advisers” – and the rest is history.
Murderous mystic crackpot Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is now a rag-tag bunch of no more than 400 warriors (they used to be over 2,000). They are on the run – and not even based in Uganda, but in South Sudan (now a Western protectorate), the Central African Republic and the long border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
So why Uganda? Enter London-based Heritage Oil, and its chairman Tony Buckingham, a former – you guessed it – “contractor” (ie mercenary). Here’s Heritage’s modus operandi, described by Buckingham himself; they deploy “a first mover strategy of entering regions with vast hydrocarbon wealth where we have a strategic advantage”.
Translation: wherever there’s foreign invasion, civil war, total breakdown of social order, there are big bucks to be made. Thus Heritage’s presence in Iraq, Libya and Uganda.
Profiting from post-war fog, Heritage signed juicy deals in Iraqi Kurdistan behind the back of the central government in Baghdad. In Libya, Heritage bought a 51% stake in a local company called Sahara Oil Services; this means it’s now directly involved in operating oil and gas licenses. Pressed about it, TNC honchos have tried to change the conversation, alleging that nothing is approved yet.
What’s certain is that Heritage barged into Libya via a former SAS commando, John Holmes, founder of Erinys, one of the top mercenary outfits in Iraq apart from Xe Services, former Blackwater. Holmes cunningly shipped the right bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label to Benghazi for the right TNC crooks, seducing them with Heritage’s mercenary know-how of enforcing “oil field security”.
Got contractor, will travel
Obama’s Uganda surge is also a classic Pipelineistan gambit. The possibly “billions of barrels” of oil reserves discovered recently in sub-Saharan Africa are located in the sensitive cross-border of Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Believe it or not, Heritage was the top oil company in Uganda up to 2009, drilling on Lake Albert – between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo – and playing one country against another. Then they sold their license to Tullow Oil, essentially a spin-off, also owned by Buckingham, bagging $1.5 billion in the process and crucially not paying 30% of profits to Washington’s bastard, the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
Enter Libya’s state oil company, Tamoil, which was part of a joint venture with the Ugandans to build a crucial oil pipeline to Kenya; Uganda is landlocked, and badly needs the pipeline when oil exports start next year. The NATO war on Libya paralyzed the Pipelineistan gambit. Now everything is open for business again. Tamoil may be out of the picture – but so may be other players.
Trying to sort out the mess, the parliament in Uganda – slightly before Obama’s announcement – decided to freeze all oil contracts, hitting France’s Total and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, but especially Tullow oil.
But now, with Obama’s special forces “advising” not only Uganda but also the neighbors, and linking up with Heritage – which is essentially a huge oil/mercenary outfit – it’s not hard to fathom where Uganda’s oil contracts will eventually land. …………
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 1:11 am
VIDEOS & PICTURES INSIDE LINK:
Libya says Gadhafi son Muatassim killed
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.
(another Gadhafi son, his one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, was captured wounded)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/18/international/i021340D46.DTL
Libya’s information minister says Moammar Gadhafi’s son Muatassim has been killed in Sirte.
Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam told The Associated Press by telephone that Muatassim Gadhafi, his father’s former national security adviser, was dead. The transitional government also said another Gadhafi son, his one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam, was captured wounded by revolutionary fighters and is in a hospital.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
SIRTE, Libya (AP) — Libya’s justice minister says Moammar Gadhafi’s son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, has been captured wounded by revolutionary fighters and is in a hospital.
The minister Mohammad al-Alagi said Thursday he was shot in the leg.
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 1:19 am
VARIOUS VIDEOS AND PICS INSIDE LINK
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/libya/
Muammar Gaddafi killed as Sirte falls
Former Libyan leader dies as last bastion falls, but questions remain about the circumstances of his death.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/20111020111520869621.html
Muammar Gaddafi has been killed after National Transitional Council fighters overran loyalist defences in Sirte, the toppled Libyan leader’s hometown and final stronghold.
But questions remained on Thursday of the circumstances over Gaddafi’s death as footage appeared to show he had been captured alive.
“We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Muammar Gaddafi has been killed,” Mahmoud Jibril, the de facto Libyan prime minister, told reporters on Thursday in Tripoli, the capital.
Asked what would be done with Gaddafi’s body, he said: “It doesn’t make any difference, as long as he disappears”.
Crowds took to the streets of Sirte, Tripoli and Benghazi, the eastern city that spearheaded the uprising against Gaddafi’s 42-year rule in February, to celebrate the news, with some firing guns and waving Libya’s new flag.
“I’m so proud now,” a Tripoli resident told Al Jazeera.”It’s a new era. Look to our eyes and you’ll see happiness, finally”.
Abdul Hakim Belhaj, an NTC military chief, said Gaddafi had died of his wounds after being captured.
Earlier, Abdel Majid, another NTC official, said the toppled leader had been wounded in both legs.
Son killed
Later on Thursday, the Libyan information minister said Gaddafi’s son Mutassim had been killed after hiding with his father.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports from Sirte
“Mutassim is dead. I can confirm it,” Mahmoud Shammam told Reuters.
Earlier reports had suggested that he had been captured alive but injured.
The news came shortly after the NTC captured Sirte after weeks of fierce fighting.
Fighters flashing V for victory took to the streets in pick-ups blaring out patriotic music.
“Thank God they have caught this person. In one hour, Sirte was liberated,” a fighter said.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley, reporting from Sirte, said Libyans there celebrating the beginning of a “new Libya”.
“This is bringing a form of closure,” he said. “Gaddafi stayed true to his words, that he would stay in Libya till the end.
“It was surprising to many that he did actually stay here in Sirte – it’s taken such a bombardment in the last 13 days. Nothing could survive in here for very long. I think they were starved of food, starved of ammunition, and finally there was nothing to do but to run”.
Saif al-Islam ‘arrested’
In Tripoli, Jibril said he had received unconfirmed reports that Gaddafi’s most prominent son, Saif al-Islam, was trying to flee from Sirte but had been tracked down by NTC fighters who were attacking his convoy. Later reports suggested that Saif had been injured and arrested.
Footage had emerged earlier in the day of the body of Abu Bakr Younus, Gaddafi’s defence minister.
Abdul Hakim Al Jalil, commander of the NTC’s 11th brigade, said that Moussa Ibrahim, the former spokesman for Gaddafi’s fallen government, had been captured near Sirte.
Ahmed Ibrahim, a cousin of Gaddafi, was also reportedly captured.
Reaction from world leaders was swift, with Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, saying Gaddafi’s death marked “a historic transition for Libya”.
“In the coming days, we will witness scenes of celebration as well as grief for those who lost so much,” Ban said in New York.
“Now is the time for all Libyans to come together. Libyans can only realise the promise of the future for national unity and reconciliation.”
The European Union said the death “marks the end of an era of despotism” and “repression from which the Libyan people have suffered for too long”.
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 1:33 am
FROM AN AFRICAN/MUSLIM PERSPECTIVE:
(SIMILAR TO ATIMES.COM ARTICLE ON AN ASIAN PERSPECTIVE – ABOUT NATURAL RESOURCES)
EXTRACT
“the opposition is drooling at the prospect of Western intervention in the aftermath of the fall of Gaddafi.” (If there is oil, etc?…)
What does Gaddafi’s fall mean for Africa?
As global powers become more interested in Africa, interventions in the continent will likely become more common.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201182812377546414.html
When the UN Security Council passes resolutions allowing intervention, third parties such as NATO can carry out the interventions without accountability to anyone [EPA]
“Kampala ‘mute’ as Gaddafi falls,” is how the opposition paper summed up the mood of this capital the morning after. Whether they mourn or celebrate, an unmistakable sense of trauma marks the African response to the fall of Gaddafi.
Both in the longevity of his rule and in his style of governance, Gaddafi may have been extreme. But he was not exceptional. The longer they stay in power, the more African presidents seek to personalise power. Their success erodes the institutional basis of the state. The Carribean thinker C L R James once remarked on the contrast between Nyerere and Nkrumah, analysing why the former survived until he resigned but the latter did not: “Dr Julius Nyerere in theory and practice laid the basis of an African state, which Nkrumah failed to do.”
The African strongmen are going the way of Nkrumah, and in extreme cases Gaddafi, not Nyerere. The societies they lead are marked by growing internal divisions. In this, too, they are reminiscent of Libya under Gaddafi more than Egypt under Mubarak or Tunisia under Ben Ali.
Whereas the fall of Mubarak and Ben Ali directed our attention to internal social forces, the fall of Gaddafi has brought a new equation to the forefront: the connection between internal opposition and external governments. Even if those who cheer focus on the former and those who mourn are preoccupied with the latter, none can deny that the change in Tripoli would have been unlikely without a confluence of external intervention and internal revolt.
More interventions to come
The conditions making for external intervention in Africa are growing, not diminishing. The continent is today the site of a growing contention between dominant global powers and new challengers. The Chinese role on the continent has grown dramatically. Whether in Sudan and Zimbawe, or in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria, that role is primarily economic, focused on two main activities: building infrastructure and extracting raw materials. For its part, the Indian state is content to support Indian mega-corporations; it has yet to develop a coherent state strategy. But the Indian focus too is mainly economic.
The contrast with Western powers, particularly the US and France, could not be sharper. The cutting edge of Western intervention is military. France’s search for opportunities for military intervention, at first in Tunisia, then Cote d’Ivoire, and then Libya, has been above board and the subject of much discussion. Of greater significance is the growth of Africom, the institutional arm of US military intervention on the African continent.
This is the backdrop against which African strongmen and their respective oppositions today make their choices. Unlike in the Cold War, Africa’s strongmen are weary of choosing sides in the new contention for Africa. Exemplified by President Museveni of Uganda, they seek to gain from multiple partnerships, welcoming the Chinese and the Indians on the economic plane, while at the same time seeking a strategic military presence with the US as it wages its War on Terror on the African continent.
In contrast, African oppositions tend to look mainly to the West for support, both financial and military. It is no secret that in just about every African country, the opposition is drooling at the prospect of Western intervention in the aftermath of the fall of Gaddafi.
Those with a historical bent may want to think of a time over a century ago, in the decade that followed the Berlin conference, when outside powers sliced up the continent. Our predicament today may give us a more realistic appreciation of the real choices faced and made by the generations that went before us. Could it have been that those who then welcomed external intervention did so because they saw it as the only way of getting rid of domestic oppression?
In the past decade, Western powers have created a political and legal infrastructure for intervention in otherwise independent countries. Key to that infrastructure are two institutions, the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court. Both work politically, that is, selectively. To that extent, neither works in the interest of creating a rule of law.
The Security Council identifies states guilty of committing “crimes against humanity” and sanctions intervention as part of a “responsibility to protect” civilians. Third parties, other states armed to the teeth, are then free to carry out the intervention without accountability to anyone, including the Security Council. The ICC, in toe with the Security Council, targets the leaders of the state in question for criminal investigation and prosecution.
Africans have been complicit in this, even if unintentionally. Sometimes, it is as if we have been a few steps behind in a game of chess. An African Secretary General tabled the proposal that has come to be called R2P, Responsibility to Protect. Without the vote of Nigeria and South Africa, the resolution authorising intervention in Libya would not have passed in the Security Council.
Dark days are ahead. More and more African societies are deeply divided internally. Africans need to reflect on the fall of Gaddafi and, before him, that of Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire. Will these events usher in an era of external interventions, each welcomed internally as a mechanism to ensure a change of political leadership in one country after another?
One thing should be clear: those interested in keeping external intervention at bay need to concentrate their attention and energies on internal reform.
Mahmood Mamdani is professor and director of Makerere Institute of Social Research at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, New York. He is the author most recently of Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War and the Roots of Terror, and Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror.
Kyaemon
October 21, 2011 at 4:37 am
WARNING: THE VIDEO SCENES MAY BE GRAPHIC.
#
Moammar Gadhafi’s Capture Caught on Tape
4 hrs ago – ABC News 0:57 | 32,248 views
Video appears to show the bloodied Libyan dictator surrounded by rebel forces.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/moammar-gadhafi-s-capture-caught-on-tape-27015949.html#crsl=%252Fvideo%252Fworld-15749633%252Fmoammar-gadhafi-s-capture-caught-on-tape-27015949.html
Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi killed in battle
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/moammar-gadhafi-s-capture-caught-on-tape-27015949.html#crsl=%252Fvideo%252Fworld-15749633%252Flibya-s-moammar-gadhafi-killed-in-battle-27014798.html
Warning, graphic video content. Moammar Gadhafi, who ruled Libya with a dictatorial grip for 42 years until he was ousted by his own people in an uprising that turned into a bloody civil war, was killed Thursday by revolutionary fighters. (Oct. 20)
Kyaemon
November 13, 2011 at 4:14 am
စစ်ကြျိုခေတ်က ရေနံထုတ်လုပ်မှုစံနှုန်းကို ဇွန်လတွင် မှီနိုင်မယ်လို့ လစ်ဗျားကပြော
Libya Sees Return to Prewar Oil Production Levels by June – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/business/energy-environment/libya-sees-return-to-prewar-oil-production-levels-by-june.html?ref=world
TRIPOLI, Libya — The acting Libyan oil minister, Ali Tarhouni, said on Thursday that so much progress was being made in resuscitating the country’s oil fields that production would return to more than 40 percent of its prewar level by the end of the year and completely recuperate by June.
“Things are going very well,” he told reporters at a news conference. “The oil sector is ahead of our expectations and everyone’s expectations. We will surpass 700,000 barrels a day by the end of this year.”
Officials say Libya’s production is 500,000 barrels a day.
Before fighting erupted last winter, Libya produced 1.6 million barrels a day and exported 1.3 million barrels, mostly to Europe. But during the war, the rebels were able to export only a trickle with the help of the gulf nation of Qatar as they tried to gain badly needed cash….
Since the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last month, violence in the country has been reduced greatly, especially in the cities and most of the countryside. But deep in the desert, where many of Libya’s largest oil fields are, there are reports of roaming bands of armed people.
Kyaemon
November 14, 2011 at 3:36 am
လစ်ဗျား တော်လှန်ရေးစစ်ပွဲ မှာကိုယ်တိုင် ပါဝင်ပြီး မသေဘဲ ကံကောင်းလို့ပြန်ရောက်လာတဲ့ အမေရိကန်သတင်းထောက် ကိုကြိုဆိုခြင်း
Baltimore Journalist Matthew VanDyke Returns Home From Libya
Sun, Nov 6, 2011 – WJZ 13 Baltimore 2:21 | 1,641 views
Matthew VanDyke spent more than five months in a Libyan prison. Then, he joined rebel forces to overthrow dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Saturday night, he’s back home in Maryland. Weijia Jiang has more.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/baltimorewjz13-15750602/baltimore-journalist-matthew-vandyke-returns-home-from-libya-27171446.html