Libyan Civil War Megathread

[Mr.Penguin]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752580,00.html

Libyan Rebel Stronghold
Frustration Mounts on the Streets of Benghazi

By Jonathan Stock in Benghazi

In the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi, tensions are mounting between conservative reformers, trigger-happy youths and Gadhafi loyalists. There is growing frustration at the lack of jobs as companies pulled out of the city. The absence of progress is putting the revolution at risk.

While international journalists are piling into Libya to report on the air strikes by Western fighter jets, while children are playing among destroyed tanks and the rebels are storming towards Ajdabiyah, there's a strange, separate war raging behind the front line, in Benghazi.

Conservative reformers, inexperienced rebels and supporters of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi are pitted against each other in this struggle. A new order is being established in the city. And the longer Gadhafi manages to stay in power, the longer schools stay shut and commercial life remains on hold, the greater the chance that the revolution will fail. Without Gadhafi having to lift a finger.


On Liberation Square at the old courthouse, a declaration was issued on Monday that the "Ligan Thauria," the old revolutionary committees and supporters of Gadhafi, had 24 hours to hand over their weapons. If they didn't, they would be treated as what they were: murderers and enemies of the revolution. The term "enemies of the revolution" is familiar. It was used in the French Revolution to put old opponents under the guillotine. Gadhafi used those words himself after his own revolution.

Monday's announcement was the first official declaration on this issue. Recent days have already shown how the rebels are dealing with the enemies of the current revolution. Homes were raided, neighbors dragged off, suspects executed. They were accused of being reactivated by Gadhafi, like al-Qaida activates sleeper cells.

Perhaps the accusations are true. Mohammed Nabous fell victim to Gadhafi loyalists last Saturday. He was one of Benghazi's most prominent journalists. He covered the uprising from Day 1 and set up the first free TV station in the city. He was shot dead shortly after he broadcast evidence that the dictator was breaking UN sanctions. He had just turned 28 and leaves behind a wife and an unborn child.

Across the city, people are disappearing after having spoken to reporters, and journalists themselves are vanishing as well. Some people one interviews don't want to give their names, refuse to be photographed, don't want to meet up and are worried that their phones are being tapped. Rumors are circulating that Gadhafi is targeting Western media to drive them out of the country.

Some 300 Gadhafi supporters with "blood on their hands" are in Benghazi, says Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, a spokesman for the rebels. They drive around in cars firing at passersby in order to spread fear. Others put the number far higher, at 7,000.

"We were all somehow Ligan Thauria," says the neighbor of a Gadhafi loyalist who has just been arrested. People joined up to get student grants to get ahead in their careers, but that didn't make people killers, he says. It sounds like the kind of excuse a former informant of the East German Stasi secret police might give.

"Gadhafi Good!"

A driver waiting in front of a hotel who overheard that I was German said: "Gadhafi good! Gadhafi - Germany - good!". Whenever he came to rebel checkpoints, he gave their "V for Victory" sign, but when he had driven past them, he raised his fist the way Gadhafi does at his propaganda rallies.

Benghazi isn't a pure rebel stronghold, there are Gadhafi supporters here too. They're keeping a low profile and waiting for better days. Some still see Gadhafi as the strong leader he claims to be, as the man who promised to build half a million new houses, which haven't been finished yet, who creates an entire river, the Great Man-Made-River project, which has dried up.

But the rebels have become dangerous too. There is mounting frustration at the slow progress of the revolution. Apart from military successes, not much is happening. Many people are unemployed. Large companies, including German construction firm Bilfinger Berger, have pulled out of the city. Young men race around town with tires screeching, others strut around in public buildings brandishing their knives. At night, the streets are reminiscent of Sao Paolo gang wars, the only difference being that the youths here wear flak jackets.


Many young academics who were about to complete their studies and to get a good job are starting to get frustrated. One, who only talks on the condition that he remains anonymous, studied economics at the Gharyounis University. He was offered a job as a manager at Bilfinger Berger and would have earned good money. Now he's unemployed. He says of the rebels: "They are under 30 and don't have wives. They are proud of the weapons they looted from barracks. They don't know how to control themselves. They quickly become aggressive. They've got these weapons and lose themselves."

But the revolution is good, despite all that, he insists.

[Berkut]

Yeah, because one should certainly be expecting that after all this time, good jobs should be available.

If not, then clearly the revolution has failed. They've had days and days to create lots of high paying jobs!

What a bizarre article.

[Ed Anger]

Yeah, because one should certainly be expecting that after all this time, good jobs should be available.

If not, then clearly the revolution has failed. They've had days and days to create lots of high paying jobs!

What a bizarre article.

Its Spiegel. Krauts are weird.

[Savonarola]

Al-Jazeera's story on Kaddafi's continued attacks.  I think it's better than the CNN article I posted yesterday and still shows that you just can't keep a good homicidal tyrant down:

Air strikes fail to deter Gaddafi forces 

Western warplanes have hit Libya for a fifth night, but have so far failed to stop Muammar Gaddafi's tanks from shelling opposition-held towns.

A loud explosion was heard in Tripoli, the capital, early on Thursday, and smoke could be seen rising from an area where a military base is situated.

"We heard another explosion just now. We see smoke rising. There are people on rooftops. It seems to be in a military area near the engineering college [in the Tajoura area]," one resident told Reuters news agency.

Eight explosions were also heard in the east of the capital late on Wednesday.

Libyan state television said Western planes had struck in Tripoli and in Jafar, southwest of the capital.

"Military and civilian targets were attacked by colonialist crusaders," the report said.

French warplanes launched missiles at an air base around 250km inland, military spokesman Thierry Burkhard said.

Government officials have accused coalition forces of killing dozens of civilians, but have not shown reporters in the capital any evidence of such deaths. US military officials deny any civilians have been killed in airstrikes.

Some journalists were taken to a hospital early on Thursday morning and shown 18 charred bodies, which the government said were military personnel and civilians killed in the air strikes, Reuters reported.

Undeterred by raids

The US military said it had successfully established a no-fly zone over Libya's coastal areas and had moved on to attack Gaddafi's tanks.

The allies flew 175 sorties in 24 hours, and the US flew 113 of those, a US commander said.

Gerard Longuet, the French defence minister, said France had destroyed about 10 Libyan armoured vehicles over three days.

Undaunted by air strikes, pro-Gaddafi forces pressed ahead with their assaults on the towns of Misurata, Ajdabiya and Zintan.

Gaddafi's tanks rolled back into Misurata under the cover of darkness and began shelling the area near the main hospital, residents and opposition fighters said, resuming their attack after their guns were silenced on Wednesday by Western air raids. The city, around 200km east of Tripoli and home to a major oil refinery, remains of the the last opposition hold-outs in the west.

Government snipers in the coastal city, Libya's third largest, carried on firing indiscriminately, residents said. An opposition spokesman said the snipers had killed 16 people.

"Government tanks are closing in on Misurata hospital and shelling the area," a doctor in Misurata told Reuters on the phone before the line was cut off.

Four children were killed in the city on Tuesday as regime forces pressed their siege, a resident and a rebel spokesman said. It was impossible to independently verify the reports.

The Libyan government denies its army is conducting any offensive operations and says troops are only defending themselves when they come under attack.

But a resident in Zintan, 106km southwest of Tripoli, said Gaddafi's forces were bringing up more troops and tanks to bombard the opposition-held town.

Pro-democracy fighters had pushed Gaddafi's troops out of the town on Tuesday after enduring heavy shelling the day before, said Gaetan Vannay, a Swiss journalist observing events there. Rebels managed to capture four tanks during their attack, he said.

Meanwhile in the east, opposition fighters were pinned down outside the strategic junction at Ajdabiya after more than three days of trying to recapture the city.

Ajdabiya, around 160km south of the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, is connected by a straight inland road to Tobruk, near the Egyptian border. Despite coalition air strikes targeting Gaddafi's forces along the road between Benghazi and Ajdabiya, rebel forces have been unable to retake the town.

I like the phrase "Colonialist Crusader," it makes it sounds like Bruce Wayne's English great-grandfather Lord Mandebat. 

[Habbaku]

[Slargos]

Well done, but you spelled Libya wrong. 

[The Minsky Moment]

I think he is a retired colonel, it's just an honorary title.  He is "Guide to the Revolution" but that is not a governmental position.  There is a whole governmental structure based on councils which then nominate higher councils and eventually government ministers and he has no position in that structure. 

Your latter point is well taken; however, it just reinforces the lack of some claim of legitimacy based on state sovereignty.

Does it?  An idiosyncratic absolutist state isn't unprecedented.

Perhaps, but I see no reason why outside powers should be bound to respect it.  The rule of respect for state sovereignty is no more than an international norm.  A putative regime that operates outside of such norms cannot expect to claim their protection.

[derspiess]

Could you really? 

What's the opportunity cost of reducing the production of missiles? How many employees would have to be let go, and what would it cost to keep them fed and housed? Is a teacher's health insurance more important than a factory worker's?

I was kidding, Sluggo

[The Brain]

Rättvisa FTW.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Looks like Khamis is dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khamis_al-Gaddafi

[Caliga]

Is he the Gadhafi son that looks like lustindarkness?  If so, maybe lusti has a future career as his impersonator, a la Moon Over Parador.

[Slargos]

Could you really? 

What's the opportunity cost of reducing the production of missiles? How many employees would have to be let go, and what would it cost to keep them fed and housed? Is a teacher's health insurance more important than a factory worker's?

I was kidding, Sluggo

[jimmy olsen]

NATO to take command.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/24/france-turkey-nato-libya

Libya: Nato to control no-fly zone after France gives way to Turkey

• Climbdown by Sarkozy ends infighting among western allies
• Nato secretary-general contradicts western officials


    * Ian Traynor in Brussels and Nicholas Watt
    * The Guardian, Friday 25 March 2011
    * Article history

Western allies and Turkey have secured a deal to put the entire military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi under Nato command by next week, UK and French sources have told the Guardian.

The US, Britain, France and Turkey agreed to put the three-pronged offensive – a no-fly zone, an arms embargo, and air strikes – under a Nato command umbrella, in a climbdown by France that accommodates strong Turkish complaints about the scope and control of the campaign.

The deal appeared to end days of infighting among western allies, but needed to be blessed by all 28 Nato member states. At the end of a four-day meeting of Nato ambassadors in Brussels, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general, said Nato had agreed to take command of the no-fly zone from the Americans. Disputes have raged at Nato HQ every day this week. Rasmussen contradicted leading western officials by announcing that Nato's authority was limited to commanding the no-fly zone, but he signalled there was more negotiation to come.

"At this moment, there will still be a coalition operation and a Nato operation," he said. This meant Nato would command the no-fly zone and police the arms embargo. But on the most contentious part, air strikes and ground attacks against Gaddafi, consensus remained elusive.

The agreement emerged from phone calls between William Hague, the foreign secretary, Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, following rancorous attacks from the Turkish leadership on French ambitions to lead the anti-Gaddafi war effort.

The agreement also gives political oversight of the military action to a committee of the international coalition in the campaign. Since the no-fly zone and air attacks on Libya began last Saturday by France, Washington has been in charge of operations, but is eager to surrender the role.

Under the scheme agreed, the transfer to Nato will take place by the latest in London on Tuesday, when the parties to the coalition against Gaddafi gather in London for a special "contact group" conference. French sources said the Benghazi-based Libyan rebel leadership would be in London to attend. The conference will consist of two meetings: a war council made up of the main governments taking part in the military action, as well as a broader assembly including Arab and African countries devoted to Libya's future.

Hillary Clinton welcomed the Nato decision to take command of the Libyan operations and police the no-fly zone, and she expected that it would eventually take over responsibility for protecting civilians, enforcing an arms embargo and supporting the humanitarian mission. "We are taking the next step. We have agreed along with our Nato allies to transition command and control for the no-fly zone over Libya to Nato. All 28 allies have also now authorised military authorities to develop an operations plan for Nato to take on the broader civilian protection mission," she said.

She said the United Arab Emirates was to join Qatar in sending planes to enforce the no-fly zone.

Barack Obama, who returned to Washington on Wednesday, is reluctant to make a televised address to the nation about Libya because he is keen to try to keep it low-key. Administration officials, as part of this strategy, pointedly refuse to call it a war.

Republicans have been calling on him to explain the mission. The president has also faced criticism from his own Democratic party.

"I think he needs to face the nation and tell the nation, and tell Congress, what the end game is and how this going to play out," Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, said on MSNBC.President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had tried to diminish the role of Nato, conceded, in the face of Turkish opposition, that a two-tier structure would run the operation: Nato "assets" will co-ordinate all aspects, including enforcement of the no-fly zone, protecting civilians through air strikes, and enforcing a UN arms embargo. Juppé agreed that Nato would be in control of the entire operation.

Political oversight will be in the hands of a committee of a smaller number of countries involved in the military campaign.

There had been bitter attacks from the Turkish government on Sarkozy's leadership of the campaign, accusing the French of lacking a conscience in their conduct of operations, with criticism from the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the president, Abdullah Gül.

France had insisted on Tuesday that the operations would be "non-Nato". Turkey was emphatically behind sole Nato control of the operations. In Istanbul, Erdogan said: "I wish that those who only see oil, gold mines and underground treasures when they look in [Libya's] direction, would see the region through glasses of conscience from now on."

This week, Claude Guéant, the French interior minister who was previously Sarkozy's chief adviser, angered the Muslim world by stating that the French president was "leading a crusade" to stop Gaddafi massacring Libyans. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin also used the word in reference to air strikes on Libya. And George Bush had notoriously used the word after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US that led to the Iraq war.

Erdogan said: "Those who use such hair-raising, frightening terms that fuel clashes of civilisations, or those who even think of them, need to immediately evaluate their own conscience."

The Turks are incensed at repeated snubs by Sarkozy. The French failed to invite Turkey to last Saturday's summit in Paris, which preceded the air strikes. French fighters taking off from Corsica struck the first blows. The Turkish government accused Sarkozy of launching not only the no-fly zone, but his presidential re-election campaign.

The dispute over Libya appears highly personal. Sarkozy went to Turkey last month for the first time in four years as president, but the visit was repeatedly delayed and then downgraded from a state presidential event. He stayed in Turkey for five hours. "Relations between Turkey and France deserve more than this," complained Erdogan. "I will speak with frankness. We wish to host him as president of France. But he is coming as president of the G20, not as that of France."

[dps]

Is he the Gadhafi son that looks like lustindarkness?  If so, maybe lusti has a future career as his impersonator, a la Moon Over Parador.

Maybe it was Lusti who died!   

[Grinning_Colossus]

Is he the Gadhafi son that looks like lustindarkness?  If so, maybe lusti has a future career as his impersonator, a la Moon Over Parador.

Maybe it was Lusti who died!  

Although Wiki says he's no longer dead.