"Unrest spreads to Libya; police cracking down; Militants freed, raises proposed to quell unrest" by Maggie Michael, Associated Press / February 17, 2011
CAIRO — Egypt-inspired unrest spread yesterday against Moammar Khadafy, Libya’s longtime ruler, with riot police clashing with demonstrators in the city of Benghazi and marchers setting fire to security headquarters and a police station in the city of Zentan, witnesses said.
The government freed 110 Islamic militants who were members of a group plotting to overthrow Khadafy, leaving only 30 members of the group in prison.
Seif al-Islam Khadafy, the leader’s son, orchestrated the release of members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda in the past, as part of a reconciliation plan.
That won't last long.
The government also proposed increasing the salaries of state workers by 100 percent.
Activists using Facebook and Twitter have called for nationwide demonstrations today to demand the ouster of Khadafy, the establishment of a constitution, and comprehensive political and economic reforms
Khadafy came to power in 1969 through a military coup and has ruled the country without an elected parliament or constitution.
Libya’s official news agency did not carry any reports of the antigovernment protests yesterday. It reported only that supporters of Gadhafi Khadafy demonstrated in the capital, Tripoli, as well as in Benghazi and other cities.
Libyan TV showed video of 12 state-orchestrated rallies of government employees and students. The biggest was in Tripoli, where about 3,000 rallied in the streets, chanting: “Moammar is our leader. We don’t want anyone but him.’’
JANA, the official news agency, quoted a statement from the pro-Khadafy demonstrators as pledging to defend the leader and the revolution. The statement described the antigovernment protesters as cowards and traitors.
The Benghazi protest began Tuesday and lasted until around 4 a.m. yesterday. It was triggered by the arrest of an activist but quickly took on an antigovernment tone, according to witnesses and other activists.
The protest was relatively small, but it signaled that antigovernment activists have been emboldened by uprisings elsewhere....
Independent confirmation was not possible because the government controls the media, but video clips posted on the Internet showed protesters carrying signs and chanting: “No God but Allah. Moammar is the enemy of Allah,’’ and “Down, down to corruption and to the corrupt.’’
Police and armed government backers quickly clamped down, firing rubber bullets and dousing protesters with water cannons.
Another video with the same date showed people running away from gunfire while shots are heard. A young man in a white, bloodstained robe was then seen being carried by demonstrators....
Witnesses said the protests were peaceful but came under attack from pro-Khadafy men.
In the southern city of Zentan, 75 miles south of Tripoli, hundreds marched through the streets and set fire to security headquarters and a police station, then set up tents in the town while chanting, “The people want the ouster of the regime,’’ witnesses told activist Fathi al-Warfali of Switzerland.
Resentment against Khadafy is high in Zentan because many of the detained army officers who took part in a failed coup in 1993 are from the city.
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"20 anti-Khadafy protesters reportedly killed; ‘Day of rage’ declared in Libya" by Salah Nasrawi, Associated Press / February 18, 2011
CAIRO — Libyan protesters seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Khadafy defied a crackdown and took to the streets in five cities yesterday on what activists have dubbed a “day of rage,’’ amid reports at least 20 demonstrators have been killed in clashes with pro-government groups....
Khadafy’s government has moved quickly to try to stop Libyans from joining the wave of uprisings in the Middle East that have ousted the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. It has proposed the doubling of government employees’ salaries and released 110 suspected Islamic militants who oppose him — tactics similar to those adopted by other Arab regimes facing recent protests.
An autocrat who has ruled for more than 40 years, Khadafy also has been meeting with tribal leaders to solicit their support.
Tripoli residents said they were having trouble accessing the Internet, although it was not clear whether access had been blocked or the bandwidth reduced. At the height of the protests in Egypt last month, the government shut down the Internet for five days in a bid to curb the protesters’ ability to organize.
The official news agency JANA said yesterday that pro-government rallies were intended to express “eternal unity with the brother leader of the revolution,’’ as Khadafy is known.
Witnesses in the capital said many government supporters were raising Libyan flags from their cars and chanting slogans in favor of Khadafy. They said it was otherwise business as usual in the capital....
The Libyan government maintains tight control over the media and the reports couldn’t be independently confirmed.
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"At least 24 people killed in Libya as thousands protest; Officials deployed mercenaries in east, residents say" by Anthony Shadid, New York Times / February 19, 2011
CAIRO — Thousands gathered yesterday on a third day of violent demonstrations in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, in an unprecedented challenge to the mercurial 41-year reign of Moammar Khadafy.
Human rights groups said 24 people had been killed across the North African country, though activists say the count may be far higher.
The escalating unrest bears the hallmarks of uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, as protesters copy slogans heard there. But as in Bahrain and Iran, the police and the army have moved quickly to crush unrest. Residents say the government has mobilized young civilian supporters in the capital and other towns and deployed foreign mercenaries in eastern Libya, long the most restive region.
Libya demonstrates both the power and the limits of the Arab uprisings. The country, though the most isolated in the region, is not disconnected enough to black out the news of autocrats’ falling in two of its immediate neighbors. But information about what is happening inside Libya — and the ability of protesters to mobilize world opinion on their behalf — is far more limited.
A refrain of opposition leaders was that the world was failing to act, even as they sought to post videos, statements, and testimony on social networking sites with mixed success.
“The international community is watching,’’ said Issa Abdel Majeed Mansour, an opposition figure based in Oslo. “Why isn’t anyone helping us?’’
Since seizing power in a coup in 1969, Khadafy has imposed his idiosyncratic rule on Libya, one of the world’s biggest exporters of oil. With a population of just 6.4 million, the country is one of the region’s wealthiest, though eastern Libya and Benghazi have witnessed periodic uprisings. Tripoli, the capital, has also had sporadic protests but remains firmly in the government’s grip, residents said.
“I don’t see them being easily overpowered, especially at this point, because of the powers of the Libyan security forces and their tendency to crack down very brutally on protests,’’ said Heba Morayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in contact with residents in Libya. “I’m not saying it will never happen, but it won’t happen today.’’
The day after then.
Residents reached by phone said the most intense unrest was in Benghazi and Bayda, a city about 125 miles to the northeast. As many as 15,000 people gathered in front of the courthouse in Benghazi yesterday, and security forces withdrew from at least part of the city by the afternoon, residents said. The residents saw the withdrawal as a sign of withering authority.
“Security has retreated to allow the protesters to march because the masses are in a state of extreme anger,’’ said one of the protesters, Idris Ahmed al-Agha, a writer and activist. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I think it’s going to escalate.’’
Then I hit a wall, readers.
In the background, demonstrators’ chants could be heard. “The people want to topple the government!” they cried, an expression first heard in protests in Tunisia, then picked up by the demonstrators in Cairo’s uprising.
It's SWEEPING the PLANET!
Opposition groups said protesters had wrested control of several towns, including Bayda and Darnah, a northeastern port, though the degree of their authority seemed ambiguous. They said several police stations had been burned across Libya, and Mr. Agha said a military building was attacked in Benghazi....
Known officially as the Brotherly Leader and the Guide of the Revolution, Colonel Qaddafi has gone from a self-styled prophet of third world liberation to an erratic partner of Europe and the United States, which re-established ties with Libya in 2006. In September 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Libya in a tour of North Africa.
His relations with his Arab neighbors are unstable. While he lashed out at Tunisians for overthrowing President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January, his rambling rants at Arab League meetings have long ruffled counterparts, Saudi Arabia among them.
The Libyan news agency said he toured parts of Tripoli early on Friday to rally support for his government, which seemed fully ready to use force to crush dissent...
Which will hasten his demise. Don't these power-mad guys ever learn?
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"Protesters retake Bahrain square as security forces leave" by Michael Slackman, New York Times / February 20, 2011
MANAMA, Bahrain —In Libya, thousands of protesters demonstrated in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, as the death toll rose to 99 after three days of demonstrations across the country and the government moved to shut off Internet access in hopes of disabling the movement’s communications....
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"Snipers hit mourners in Libya, killing 15" by Maggie Michael, Associated Press / February 20, 2011
CAIRO — Moammar Khadafy’s forces fired on mourners leaving a funeral for protesters yesterday in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, killing at least 15 people and wounding scores more, as the regime tried to squelch calls for an end to the ruler’s 42-year grip on power.
I wonder if they were trained by the Brits.
Also see: LIBYA AND SHADOWY GROUPS
The deaths pushed the overall estimated death toll to 99 in five days of unprecedented protests.
Libyan protesters were back on the street yesterday, but Khadafy has taken a hard line toward the dissent that has ripped through the Middle East and swept him up with it. Government forces also wiped out a protest encampment and clamped down on Internet service throughout Libya....
In Benghazi, a hospital official said 15 people were killed, including one man who was apparently hit in the head with an antiaircraft missile. The weapons apparently were used to intimidate the population.
The official said many people were shot in the head and chest. The hospital was overwhelmed and people were streaming to the facility to donate blood....
That must be the reconciliation plan.
About 5 a.m. yesterday, special forces attacked hundreds of protesters, including lawyers and judges, camped out in front of the courthouse in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city.
“They fired tear gas on protesters in tents and cleared the areas after many fled carrying the dead and the injured,’’ one protester said over the phone.
Doctors in Benghazi said Friday that 35 bodies had been brought to hospitals after attacks by security forces backed by militias, on top of more than a dozen killed the day before.
Residents of the city set up neighborhood patrols yesterday after police left the streets....
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"Khadafy foes gain in Libya turmoil; Son of ruler warns of civil war" by David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar, New York Times / February 21, 2011
CAIRO — The son of Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy warned in a nationally televised address early today that continued antigovernment protests could lead to a civil war.
The son, Seif al-Islam Khadafy, said the army continued to support his father, although he acknowledged that protesters had seized some military bases, as well as tanks and weapons.
“We are not Tunisia and Egypt,’’ he said in his rambling and sometimes incoherent address, referring to the successful uprisings that toppled longtime regimes in Libya’s neighbors. But he also acknowledged that the army had made mistakes during the uprising.
Hours earlier, the protests against Khadafy’s 40-year rule spread to the capital, Tripoli, while protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi were celebrating their takeover of the city. A prominent Libyan diplomat said he was quitting to join “the popular revolution.’’
Witnesses in Tripoli interviewed by telephone last night said protesters were converging toward the city’s central Green Square and clashing with heavily armed riot police officers. Young men armed themselves with chains around their knuckles, steel pipes, and machetes.
The police had retreated from some neighborhoods, and protesters were seen carrying police batons, helmets, and rifles. Protesters had set dumpsters on fire in some neighborhoods, blocking roads. In the early evening the sounds and smells of gunfire hung over the center of Tripoli, and by midnight looting had begun.
“The state has disappeared from the streets, and the people, the youth, have practically taken over,’’ said Monsour Abu Shenaf, a resident of Tripoli.
In Benghazi, the country’s second largest city and the starting point of the revolt, three people said special military forces called in as reinforcements had instead decided to help the protesters take over the local army barracks....
Then it is ONLY a MATTER of TIME, Moammar!!
Moammar Khadafy, 68, remained silent last night. He has watched both the strongmen to his west, in Tunisia, and his east, in Egypt, fall from power in the space of five weeks. But Khadafy has skillfully cultivated tribal rivalries to avoid any threat to his authority for decades, and he showed no sign of giving up....
So if he loses the tribes.... ??
Over the last three days Khadafy’s security forces have killed at least 173 people, according to a running tally by the independent international organization Human Rights Watch. Several people in Benghazi hospitals, reached by telephone, said they thought as many as 200 people had been killed and more than 800 wounded there on Saturday alone, with many of the deaths from machine gun fire.
After protesters marched in a funeral procession yesterday morning, the security forces opened fire again, killing at least 50 more people, a doctor at one hospital said.
That's not the way to win people over.
The escalating violence in Libya — a cycle of funerals, confrontations, and more funerals — has made the revolt there the bloodiest in a wave of uprisings sweeping North Africa and the Middle East.
Under Khadafy’s four decades of idiosyncratic rule, Libya has become a singular quasi-nation, where the official oratory disdains the idea of a nation-state, tribal bonds remain primary even within the ranks of the military, and both protesters and the security forces have reason to believe that backing down will likely mean their ultimate death or imprisonment....
In another break with the Khadafy government, there were reports that the powerful Warfalla tribe had switched its allegiance to the cause of the protesters. A leader of the tribe appeared on the Al Jazeera news network urging the Khadafy government to stop firing on civilians and suggesting that it may be time for Khadafy to step down....
I would say after 40 years, yeah.
Benghazi, the traditional hub of the country’s eastern province, has long been a center of opposition to the Khadafy government, which is centered in the western city of Tripoli. In 1996, Benghazi was the site of a massacre at the Abu Slim prison, where security forces killed about 1,200 prisoners. Those killings have since become a rallying cause for Khadafy’s critics there.
Opponents of the regime had designated last Thursday as a day for demonstrations, dubbed the “day of rage’’ and inspired by the protests in Tunisia and Egypt. But on Tuesday, the security forces detained a prominent opposition lawyer, Fathi Terbil, who represented many of the families of prisoners killed in the prison massacre, and members of the families led the protesters into the streets the next day.
By yesterday, Terbil had been released and set up a live online video broadcast that appeared to come from the roof of the Benghazi courthouse overlooking what residents now call their Tahrir Square...
Then the wall went back up, readers.
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"Libyan aircraft strafe protests; Battles batter besieged capital; regime splinters around Khadafy" by David D. Kirkpatrick and Mona El-Naggar, By New York Times / February 22, 2011
CAIRO — The faltering government of Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy struck back at mounting protests against his 40-year rule, as security forces and militiamen backed by helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the capital yesterday, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.
By last night, witnesses said, the streets of the capital, Tripoli, were thick with special forces loyal to Khadafy as well as mercenaries. They shot freely as planes dropped what witnesses described as small bombs and helicopters fired on protesters.
Hundreds of Khadafy supporters took over Green Square after truckloads of militiamen arrived and opened fire on protesters, scattering them from the square. Residents said they now feared even to emerge from their houses....
The rebellion is the latest and bloodiest so far of the uprisings that have swept the Arab world with surprising speed in recent weeks, toppling autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia, and challenging others in Bahrain and Yemen.
The day had begun with growing signs that Khadafy’s grip on power might be slipping, with protesters in control of Libya’s second-largest city, his security forces pulled back to key locations in the capital as government buildings smoldered, and a growing number of officials and military personnel defecting to join the revolt.
But the violence Khadafy unleashed yesterday afternoon on Tripoli demonstrated that he was willing to shed far more blood than the deposed rulers of either neighboring Egypt or Tunisia in his effort to hold on to power.
Two residents said planes had been landing for 10 days, ferrying mercenaries from African countries to an air base in Tripoli. The mercenaries had done much of the shooting, which began Sunday night, they said. Some forces were using particularly lethal, hollow-point bullets, they said.
“The shooting is not designed to disperse the protesters,’’ said one resident, who wanted to be identified only as Waleed, fearing for his security. “It is meant to kill them.’’
“This man has no sense of humanity,’’ he said....
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Related: Khadafy created regime to ensure he kept grip on power
Clinton says Khadafy must stop bloodshed in Libya
"In addition to Libya, the industry is watching protests in Algeria, Bahrain, and Iran, the second-largest crude exporter in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, behind Saudi Arabia....
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Also see: Libya’s turmoil, oil fears rattle the markets
Rising oil prices could slow recovery
What recovery?
"Khadafy refuses to step down; As defections rise, he rallies backers" by Leila Fadel, Sudarsan Raghavan, and William Branigin, Washington Post / February 23, 2011
TOBRUK, Libya — Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy vowed yesterday to “die as a martyr’’ in his country rather than surrender power, as he sought to rally supporters against a growing popular uprising that has taken over much of eastern Libya and won the backing of some army units and government officials.
I'm always told to let things go; why can't these guys?
In a defiant, rambling speech in the capital, Tripoli, the army colonel who has ruled the North African nation for nearly 42 years appealed to supporters to take to the streets by the millions “in order to cleanse Libya, home by home, village by village,’’ of what he described as a misguided movement inspired by foreigners.
Maybe.
But in a sign that his exhortations were falling on deaf ears, Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younis, the commander of a powerful commando brigade and one of Khadafy’s closest associates, announced his defection in the protester-held city of Benghazi and urged other military units to join the revolt, the Associated Press reported.
Khadafy’s justice minister also has defected, along with several ambassadors, including the Libyan ambassador to the United States.
The defections of police, border guards, and soldiers were evident on Libya’s eastern border with Egypt, where reporters were welcomed into the country yesterday without visa procedures or passport controls. Young defectors showed cellphone videos of repression in the eastern Libyan towns of Baida and Benghazi, where they said African mercenaries hired by Khadafy shot scores of men, women, and children. They told of rapes, looting, and killings over the past week.
Most said they left their posts when relatives or neighbors were killed in what they described as massacres of demonstrators in eastern towns and the capital following a popular revolt that started Feb. 15.
Defecting army units have helped the protesters claim control of nearly the entire eastern half of Libya’s 1,000-mile Mediterranean coast, including several major oil fields, the Associated Press said.
Younis, who had backed the 1969 coup that brought Khadafy to power, said in a prepared statement that he has resigned all of his posts out of conviction that the protesters have “just demands.’’
Among the diplomats who also have resigned was Ali al-Essawi, the Libyan ambassador to India. He charged yesterday that the government had used fighter jets to bomb civilians and had hired foreign mercenaries to shoot protesters.
Reprehensible.
Human Rights Watch said nearly 300 people have been killed, according to a partial count, some of them reportedly in a rampage by pro-Khadafy militiamen who shot from vehicles at people in the streets and in their homes....
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more--" Also see: Globe Editorial Libya: Forget that new relationship
Time to get out of Tripoli:
"Thousands mob Tripoli airport; nations try to evacuate citizens" by Selcan Hacaoglu, Associated Press / February 23, 2011
ANKARA, Turkey — At least two airlines, British Airways and Emirates, the Middle East’s largest, said they were canceling flights to Tripoli, as reports spread that bodies of protesters littered the streets of neighborhoods in the capital.
Britain said it was redeploying a warship, the HMS Cumberland, off the Libyan coast in readiness for a possible sea-borne evacuation of British citizens stuck in the north African country. Foreign Secretary William Hague of Britain said his country was also seeking to send a charter flight to Libya, but the plane had yet to receive permission to land.
Two civilian ferries from Turkey arrived in the hard-hit eastern city of Benghazi late yesterday to evacuate about 3,000 Turkish citizens, the Anatolia news agency reported. The ferries were expected to set sail back for Turkey as soon as the evacuees had boarded.
Turkey sent the ferries and another military vessel after the country was unable to get permission to land at the city’s airport.
Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek, said Turkish ferries could help evacuate up to 6,000 people per day, if Libyan authorities allow the vessels to dock at Benghazi....
Turkey has a huge presence in Libya, with about 25,000 citizens in the country and more than 200 Turkish companies involved in construction projects worth more than $15 billion.
Some of the construction sites came under attack by protesters, but no Turkish citizen has been harmed, authorities said....
Unlike those murdered by Israel on the Gaza aid flotilla.
In Egypt, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit accused Khadafy's son Self al-Islam Khadafy of inciting violence against Egyptians by suggesting they joined the protests against his father.
The Egyptian security official said troops have beefed up their presence on the border with Libya and set up a field hospital there....
About 5,000 Egyptians have returned home from Libya by land, and about 10,000 more are waiting to cross the Libya-Egypt border, an Egyptian security official said.
Egypt said it will also send six commercial and two military planes to repatriate thousands more caught in the revolt against Moammar Khadafy’s regime....
Odd reaction considering Libyans were welcoming people in above.
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"Rebels gain as Khadafy digs in; Libyan ruler stays strong in Tripoli; opposition wins key tribal support" by Leila Fadel and Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post / February 24, 2011
BAIDA, Libya — Moammar Khadafy tightened his grip on Libya’s capital, Tripoli, yesterday, flooding the streets with militiamen and loyalist troops. Rebels consolidated their control of key eastern cities and continued advancing west across the coastal strip, where most of the country’s population is clustered.
By last night, Libya appeared dangerously fractured, with Khadafy’s regime intent on fighting but its authority beyond Tripoli in doubt. In the capital, witnesses said regime loyalists roamed the streets, shooting opponents from sport utility vehicles. The opposition has called for a large protest tomorrow.
Oil prices hit $100 a barrel because of the turmoil in the North African oil exporter, a peak not reached since 2008.
And who benefit$?
In Washington and other capitals, attention turned to the possible responses, including economic sanctions or imposition of a no-flight zone over Libya to prevent the use of aircraft against civilians....
So WHEN is the INVASION?
Obama delivered his statement amid mounting criticism of his muted response to the violence, and a growing sense that, as the Arab Middle East and North Africa churn through a period of abrupt change, the White House remains behind events and overly cautious in responding to them.
Enormous questions remained about whether any foreign powers could wield the influence necessary to head off Libya’s dizzying plunge into disorder, much less persuade Khadafy to reconsider his vow to fight to the death in defense of his 41-year-old regime....
Tripoli residents reached by telephone said Khadafy’s loyalists appeared to have reclaimed control of the capital after several days of skirmishes....
But opposition groups appeared to have taken control of cities across a broad swath of northern Libya that stretched hundreds of miles from Tobruk, near the Egyptian border, to as far as Misurata, 120 miles east of the capital.
The loosely organized opposition protected key roads and government installations, with men in fluorescent orange vests patrolling the area, armed with sticks or rocket-propelled grenades....
The ability of the rebels to swiftly push west suggested that Libya’s powerful tribes, long a beneficiary of Khadafy’s patronage, were turning against him.
Then it is OVER!!
In recent days, tribal leaders have declared their support for the opposition after Khadafy’s use of warplanes and helicopter gunships to kill hundreds of protesters.
Nothing like a self-destructive dictator.
Indeed, the eastern tribes have long complained of being denied a share of Libya’s wealth and resources, and eastern cities such as Benghazi have been bastions of opposition. Such grievances led to a revolt in the 1990s and underpinned the ongoing rebellion that began in Benghazi last week. The country has as many as 140 tribes.
The east’s al-Zuwayya tribe threatened to shut down oil production unless authorities stopped the “oppression of the protesters.’’
Can we talk?
The Warfala, one of the country’s biggest and most influential tribes, has also reportedly joined the opposition. The tribe control areas around Tripoli.
“We are seeing more and more tribal defections. A lot of police and military in Tobruk, Benghazi, and other eastern cities defected because their tribal leaders had ordered them,’’ Ronald Bruce St. John, an author and specialist on Libya, said in a telephone interview. “I think you will see more and more in western Libya.’’
So far, St. John said, it appears that the major tribes in and around Tripoli continue to support Khadafy.
The signs of a widening rebellion in eastern Libya came as more senior military commanders and government officials defected. The Libyan newspaper Quryna reported that an air force pilot bailed out of his Soviet-made warplane and allowed it to crash rather than follow an order to bomb Benghazi.
Literally bailing out on Khadafy.
Residents of Tripoli said a sense of fear pervaded the capital....
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Confirmation the CIA is joining in:
"Khadafy kin said to be in ‘tailspin’; WikiLeaks cables tell of exploits" by Karin Laub, Associated Press / February 24, 2011
CAIRO — The children of Moammar Khadafy were increasingly engaged in recent months in covering up scandals fit for a “Libyan soap opera,’’ including negative publicity from extravagant displays of wealth, such as a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to a new batch of secret diplomatic cables released yesterday.
The assessments by US diplomats were published by the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks....
PFFFFT!
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Related: Minister blames Khadafy for Lockerbie
Also see: MORE EVIDENCE ON LOCKERBIE APPEARS TO IMPLICATE THE CIA
LIES ABOUT LIBYA?
LIBYA, THEN RUSSIA AND CHINA?
