"Khadafy son, reportedly killed, seen on Libyan TV; Regime dismisses claim of death in NATO airstrike" by Rami Al-Shaheibi, Associated Press / August 11, 2011
BENGHAZI, Libya - Libyan state television broadcast images yesterday of a man said to be Moammar Khadafy’s youngest son, in an attempt to refute rebel claims that he had been killed in a NATO airstrike.
Rebels claimed on Friday that Khamis Khadafy, 27, who commands one of the best-trained units in the Libyan military, was killed in the western front-line town of Zlitan. The regime dismissed the claim and said rebels were only trying to deflect attention from the killing last week of the opposition’s military commander, possibly by other rebels.
The images, said to be from Tuesday, showed the son at a Tripoli hospital visiting people wounded in a NATO airstrike. If genuine, it would be the first time he has been seen in public since the reports of his death.
Did they ever express such suspicion about all the phony bin Laden tapes the last ten years?
Pffft!
The Libyan revolt that began in February has sunk into a deep stalemate, with the rebels holding on to most of the eastern half of the country that they captured early on and with Khadafy’s regime controlling most of the west. Neither side has been able to tip the balance, even with months of NATO airstrikes pounding regime targets.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Libyan Lie
See why I'm livid?
State television also showed funerals for dozens of civilians it said had died in another NATO airstrike on Tuesday in Zlitan, a main front for the rebels fighting Khadafy’s troops....
A day earlier, state television ran images of Libyans rummaging through the rubble of buildings the government said were destroyed by the airstrike. They were shown digging out body parts and piling dead babies in sacks in the back of ambulances. It said 33 children and 32 women were among those killed.
Related: NATO Violates U.N. Resolution in Libya
That's protecting them, huh?
In Brussels yesterday, NATO described the Libyan claims about deaths among civilians as unfounded allegations.
“We stand by our conviction that this was a military target,’’ said an official who could not be named under standing rules.
They have no way of knowing, but they deny it anyway.
Mass-murdering war criminals is what NATO is.
In other developments, in the United Arab Emirates, a new Libyan ambassador backed by the rebels’ leadership council officially presented his credentials to a foreign affairs ministry undersecretary....
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"Focus of rebel uprising shifts in Libya; Struggle between factions distracts Khadafy’s rivals" August 14, 2011|By C.J. Chivers and David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times
TRIPOLI, Libya - Saddled with infighting and undermined by the occasionally ruthless and undisciplined behavior of its fighters, the six-month-old rebel uprising against Moammar Khadafy is showing signs of sliding from a struggle to overthrow an autocrat into a murkier contest between factions and tribes.
The increase in discord and factionalism is undermining the effort to overthrow Khadafy, and it comes immediately after recognition of the rebel government by the Western powers, potentially giving the rebels access to billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets and the chance to purchase more modern weaponry.
The infighting could also erode support for the rebels among members of the NATO alliance, which faces a September deadline for renewing its air campaign amid growing unease about the war’s costs and direction.
That air support has been a factor in every significant rebel military goal, including fighting yesterday in which rebel forces were challenging pro-Khadafy forces in or near three critical towns: Brega, an oil port in the east; Zawiya, on the outskirts of Tripoli; and Gharyan, an important gateway to southern Libya.
Rebels fought their way into Zawiya west of Tripoli yesterday in their most significant advance in months, battling snipers on rooftops and heavy shelling from Khadafy’s forces holding the city.
We are always winning, have you noticed that?
Zawiya is a key target for rebels waging a new offensive in an attempt to break the deadlock in combat between the two sides.
A group of about 200 rebel fighters reached a bridge on Zawiya’s southwestern outskirts, and some rebels pushed farther into the city’s central main square. They tore down the green flag of Khadafy’s regime from a mosque minaret and put up two rebel flags. Khadafy’s forces then counterattacked with a barrage of heavy weapons.
While the rebels have sought to maintain a clean image and to portray themselves as fighting to establish a secular democracy, several recent acts of revenge have cast their ranks in a less favorable light. They have also raised the possibility that any rebel victory over Khadafy could disintegrate into the sort of tribal tensions that have plagued Libya for centuries.
In recent weeks, rebel fighters in Libya’s western mountains and around the coastal city of Misurata have lashed out at civilians because their tribes supported Khadafy, looting mountain villages and emptying a civilian neighborhood.
Those are OUR GUYS?
In the rebels’ provisional capital, Benghazi, renegade fighters assassinated their top military commander, General Abdel Fattah Younes, apparently in revenge for his previous role as Khadafy’s security chief.
See: NATO Has Lost Libya
In response, the chief of Younes’s powerful tribe threatened to retaliate against those responsible, setting off a crisis in the rebels’ governing council, whose members resigned en masse last week.
In an interview, Jeffrey D. Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said that concerns about the rebels might be overblown.
Yeah, when OUR GUYS DO WAR CRIMES and ATROCITIES, it's overblown!
He acknowledged that there were some “disturbing reports’’ from Benghazi and the rebel front lines but credited the rebels’ governing Transitional National Council with swift steps to address the concerns.
Pffft!
Feltman noted that the rebel leadership had ordered an end to abuses against loyalist tribes in the mountains, and he characterized the shake-up of the council as a move to establish a level of transparency and accountability without precedent in Libya....
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"Rebels fight to wrest back hold on Libyan city; Khadafy foes target Tripoli’s supply routes" by Karin Laub, Associated Press / August 15, 2011
ZAWIYA, Libya - Libyan rebels battled government forces yesterday for control of Zawiya, just 30 miles from the capital, after reentering the strategic western city in their most dramatic military advance in months.
Rebel leaders said they were trying to cut off two key supply routes to Moammar Khadafy’s stronghold in Tripoli after capturing more towns in the west of the country.
The opposition advances over the past few days - out of the western mountains near Tunisia into Zawiya on the Mediterranean coast and other nearby towns - marked their most significant gains after months of stalemate in the civil war. The rebels hope to take Tripoli before the end of this month, an ambitious goal.
Colonel Jumma Ibrahim, a rebel spokesman in the western mountains, said his fighters are moving closer to blocking major supply routes to Tripoli from the south and west. The routes are crucial for moving food, fuel, and weapons over land to the capital.
“This means we are choking Khadafy,’’ he said. “He only has the sea.’’
Ibrahim said rebel forces captured the town of Gharyan, 50 miles south of Tripoli, which he said controls supply road from southern Libya to the capital.
Omar Obeid, field commander for the Sabratha area, 20 miles west of Zawiya on the coast, said rebels have taken up positions in houses along a major supply route there that connects the Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia to Tripoli. The same road runs through Zawiya, where rebels could also block it if they manage to take control of the city.
With NATO imposing a no-fly zone over Libya for months and bombarding regime targets, the coastal road has become a lifeline between the capital and the outside world.
Rebels said they also captured the town of Surman, near Sabratha to the southeast.
After rebels advanced into Zawiya on Saturday, regime forces mounted heavy resistance yesterday as the opposition fighters tried to push deeper into the city of 200,000.
Khadafy loyalist snipers shot at the opposition fighters from an overpass deep in the city, and booms echoed and heavy smoke rose over the outskirts. Dozens of civilians crammed in cars with their belongings fled the city. In one car, four women cried desperately, and a man driving shouted that there were dead people in his neighborhood.
Rebel pickup trucks with antiaircraft weapons and machine guns mounted on the back sped along Bir Ghanam street, a main road leading into downtown Zawiya from the south. In one courtyard along the street, the bodies of two men, wrapped in blankets, were ringed by a crowd of crying men.
The staging ground for the 3-week-old offensive in western Libya has been the mountain town of Zintan, where many fighters regroup every evening after battle. At dusk yesterday, long columns of pickup trucks drove into the city from the coastal plain, honking horns and shooting in the air in a triumphant victory procession. One convoy was led by a large battle tank the rebels had captured.
The hospital in Zintan had nine dead rebels from fighting in Surman yesterday and more than 50 wounded from various battles, said Mohammed Salem, a hospital official.
Zawiya rose up against the regime shortly after the revolt against Khadafy began in February. But Khadafy’s forces crushed opposition in the city in a long and bloody siege in March.
Many rebel fighters from Zawiya fled into the farmlands surrounding the city and the western mountains farther away, waiting to join in a new offensive to retake their city.
Zawiya had been a key target for western mountain rebels, and some of those who fled the city earlier were among the forces that advanced on the city Saturday.
“There were sleeper cells of rebels inside Zawiya,’’ said Abdel-Bassit Abu Riyak, a rebel fighter in Zawiya. He said that when the fighters in the western mountains arrived to Zawiya, the cell rose up and helped to attack the Khadafy troops.
“Freedom, freedom,’’ chanted a group of men greeting rebels inside Zawiya early yesterday. One of those in the crowd rolled up his pants to show black-and-blue bruises he said came from a beating by Khadafy forces who have been in control of the city for months.
“From March until last night, we felt fear. But when the rebels came, we were really happy,’’ said Rabih Aboul-Gheit, an accountant in Zawiya.
A total death toll was impossible to verify during the height of the chaotic fighting, but Mohammed said Khadafy troops struck a mosque in the city center, killing eight people and injuring 25.
The eastern half of the country is now firmly in rebel control, with a transitional leadership based in the de facto capital of Benghazi.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Libyan Lie
See why I am sooooooo livid?
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Update:
I'm sorry, readers, I was wrong. We're winning.
"Rebels poised to cut off Tripoli; Fighting could spread soon to Libyan capital" by Karin Laub, Associated Press / August 16, 2011
ZAWIYA, Libya - Libya’s rebels threatened to isolate Tripoli by blocking key supply routes and cutting oil pipelines yesterday after a dramatic weekend advance put them in the strongest position to attack Moammar Khadafy’s stronghold since the 6-month-old civil war began.
In Washington, the Obama administration said the United States was encouraged by the rebel advances and hoped they had broken a monthslong stalemate with Khadafy’s forces....
The rebel drive was raising fears among Tripoli residents over the prospect that fighting might soon reach the capital. Long convoys of cars carrying civilians from the capital and other cities along the coast headed south to the western mountain range, a rebel stronghold near the border with Tunisia now considered a safe haven.
In an apparent high-level defection, the head of Libyan public security and a former interior minister flew to Egypt on a private plane with nine family members. Nassr al-Mabroul Abdullah entered on a tourist visa. If confirmed, it would be the latest in a string of defections by prominent officials in Khadafy’s regime.
There has not been one for months, and the media was even complaining about it.
But, hey, what's one more distortion?
A US military official said government forces fired a Scud missile for the first time in the fighting with rebels, but it landed in the desert about 50 miles east of Brega and hurt no one.
Did it even really happen?
If a missile lands in the desert but no one hears it does it make a sound?
The launch was detected by US forces shortly after midnight.
Oh, well, who could ever question what U.S. forces say?
Rebel and regime forces have battled over Brega, a strategic port city, and control has gone back and forth between the two sides.
The rebels pushed into the strategic city of Zawiya on Saturday, which brought them within 30 miles of Tripoli, the closest they have gotten.
After three days of fierce battles for Zawiya, a city of 200,000 on the Mediterranean coast, rebel commanders said they controlled the south and west of the city and were fighting for the refineries. Oil-rich Libya’s only functioning refineries are in Zawiya.
Nuri el-Bouaisi, an oil production engineer in the city, said rebels had cut off all four pipelines that transport gasoline and diesel fuel to Tripoli. The claim could not be verified.
The rebels are also determined to cut key supply routes to Tripoli from the Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia in the west and from the south, where Libya borders Chad and Niger. These are critical lifelines with NATO imposing a no-fly zone.
Over the past two days, a number of rebel officials have claimed that they either cut or were close to cutting those two routes. That could not be immediately confirmed.
In addition to gaining a foothold in Zawiya, the rebels claimed Sunday to have taken two towns near Tripoli on those key supply roads....
Tripoli residents heading south said living in the capital has become increasingly difficult, with rising food prices, shortages of fuel and cash, as well as power cuts.
Not to mention the daily bombings by NATO creating the state of siege.
Drivers took back roads to avoid being stopped by regime forces, they said.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that Khadafy’s days are numbered,’’ said Jay Carney, White House press secretary.
Oh, MORE REGIME CHANGE!
"General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon]."
Oh, HOW INTERESTING given what is happening 10 years later!!!
US officials speaking on condition of anonymity say there is reason to think the rebels may now have enough momentum to wrest full control of the country.
And then they woke up.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the fast-moving developments.
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Related: Confidential Latest Low Down From Inside Libya
Gadhaffi Retakes Key Towns
Turns out I was right and now I'm angrier than ever.
