Libyan Civil War Megathread

[CountDeMoney]

Perhaps the most upsetting story I've seen coming out of Libya:

Gaddafi media minders/thugs snatch 'rape victim' away from foreign journalists:

Watch the video, Channel 4 news:
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/260311/clipid/260311_LibyaMiller_26

Very brave woman, though she's probably 'signed her own death warrant'.

I saw this on Sky News (their reporter's the woman who keeps asking 'where are you taking her?').  It's one of the most distressing reports I've seen.

Yes, just about had me in tears, the only other event thats moved me as much has been the stoicism shown by many of the Japanese tsunami survivors. 

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

[Slargos]

Perhaps the most upsetting story I've seen coming out of Libya:

Gaddafi media minders/thugs snatch 'rape victim' away from foreign journalists:

Watch the video, Channel 4 news:
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/260311/clipid/260311_LibyaMiller_26

Very brave woman, though she's probably 'signed her own death warrant'.

I saw this on Sky News (their reporter's the woman who keeps asking 'where are you taking her?').  It's one of the most distressing reports I've seen.

Yes, just about had me in tears, the only other event thats moved me as much has been the stoicism shown by many of the Japanese tsunami survivors. 

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

Which is nonsense. It's more than worth it to shut her up for good.

[jimmy olsen]

Perhaps the most upsetting story I've seen coming out of Libya:

Gaddafi media minders/thugs snatch 'rape victim' away from foreign journalists:

Watch the video, Channel 4 news:
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/260311/clipid/260311_LibyaMiller_26

Very brave woman, though she's probably 'signed her own death warrant'.

I saw this on Sky News (their reporter's the woman who keeps asking 'where are you taking her?').  It's one of the most distressing reports I've seen.

Yes, just about had me in tears, the only other event thats moved me as much has been the stoicism shown by many of the Japanese tsunami survivors. 

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

Which is nonsense. It's more than worth it to shut her up for good.

That  was horrible, I'm ashamed I laughed at that. 

[derspiess]

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

Which is regrettably true.  I would rather give that money to teh teacherz.

[Valmy]

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

Which is regrettably true.  I would rather give that money to teh teacherz.

I dream of the day schools get plenty of funding and the military has to have a bake sale

[jimmy olsen]

Decisive battle shaping up for Sirte?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/28/libya-sirte-gaddafi-loyalists-rebels

Libya's army is pouring reinforcements into Muammar Gaddafi's strategic hometown of Sirte against rebels advancing from the east under cover of UN-mandated air strikes.

Units of regular soldiers in jeeps mounted with heavy machine guns were driving towards the town on Monday as the frontline moved ominously closer to a key regime stronghold for what could turn out to be the decisive battle of the war.

On Sunday night at least 18 large explosions were heard in or near Sirte, apparently part of the coalition's campaign of attacking air defences and other military targets. But reports that the city had fallen to the Benghazi-based rebels were evidently wrong – and fuelled Libyan fury at the satellite TV channels that claimed it had.

It was firmly in government hands and its people defiant. "I saw death with my own eyes," said Fawzi Imish, whose house and every other in his seafront street had its windows shattered by a Tomahawk missile strike in the early hours of the morning. "It was just intended to terrify people. And if the rebels come here, we will receive them with bullets."

Sirte, where the young Gaddafi was educated, is halfway between the rebel east and the area controlled by the regime along the Mediterranean coastal highway. In the 1980s the Libyan leader famously drew a "line of death" across the Gulf of Sirte in brazen challenge to the US.

If the rebels took the city it would be a severe blow, weakening Gaddafi's position in the centre of Libya and the road would be open for an advance on Tripoli 280 miles away.

Crowds gathered in central Martyrs Square to chant pro-regime slogans and fire bursts of machine-gun fire into the air – that bizarre Libyan ritual of celebrating reverses and expressing determination to resist. But there were signs of anxiety when an aircraft was heard far overhead. Many shops were shut.

Libyan forces are deployed outside Sirte and nervousness is evident at the makeshift roadblocks manned by police or militiamen at intervals of just a few hundred yards in some places. To the west the soldiers at a mobile radar battery – part of the country's now battered air defence system – looked especially apprehensive.

In early afternoon a convoy of 15 Toyota Land Cruisers carrying groups of fresh-looking regular soldiers moved east from Misrata where some rebels are still holding out. But there were no signs of heavy armour or artillery – perhaps because these have been easily hit in coalition air strikes in the battles for Ajdabiya, Ras Lanuf and Brega over the past few days.

Lightly armed infantrymen, backed up by militiamen and civilians driving mud-smeared cars armed en masse by the government will be a far more elusive target for allied pilots if they are involved in a battle for a sizeable town or skirmishes along the coastal road.

Residents of Sirte's beachfront area protested angrily at an attack on Saturday night which killed three men picnicking on a breakwater surrounding a small harbour, packed with wooden fishing boats abandoned by their Egyptian and Tunisian crews when the uprising began last month. Fragments of the bomb were embedded in a shallow crater at the end of the stone jetty – which had no conceivable military use.

On Khartoum Street, where one of the dead men lived, a woman could be heard wailing inconsolably as grim-faced relatives arrived to pay their respects.

"We are just civilians, there is nothing military here, only fishing boats and ordinary people," complained Ahmed al-Hashr, whose nephew Faraj died in the same attack.

Anger and fear are accompanied by flashes of defiance. "At first people were scared of the raids, but now they have got used to them," said Asra Salem, a 15-year-old at al-Manara girls' school, where many pupils stayed away after another night of attacks. "We just stay at home and pray and read the Qur'an," said Ghada Imrayet, recently returned from a long stay in Newcastle.

"Inshallah [God willing] we will defend our city, our homes and our coast," shouted an emotional Abdel-Adim al-Karam, a sound engineer whose small children were terrified by the bombing.

Khamis Mohammed, a Sirte University lecturer, accused Nato of deliberately targeting innocent civilians and supporting "mercenaries and terrorists" in the east.

"Our grandfathers fought Mussolini and we will fight and live free in our land," he said. "If Nato really cared about civilians it and the UN would send a mission here to find out who is really the aggressor."

Hatred for the Benghazi rebels has been fuelled by an incident on Sunday when pro-Gaddafi loyalists taking part in a peace march were confronted near Bin Jawad and three of them reportedly shot and killed, despite carrying white flags and olive branches. But according to some accounts armed volunteers were in one bus at the rear of the convoy.

[jamesww]

Al-Jazeera is reporting Libya's foreign minister, Mussa Kussa, has crossed the Libyian-Tunisia border in a convoy of three cars.

My wild speculation is he's seeking asylum or has defected. :gasp:

[Josquius]

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

We need cheaper weapons.

$122million supersonic top of the range fighter jets? What good are those against jihadists and other miscellanious third worlders? Lets be having a slow, sturdy, cheap and cheerful plane please.

[jamesww]

President Obama speaking live about Libya.

[MadImmortalMan]

The spice must flow.

Qatar marketing rebel oil from Libya

* Rebel official sees oil shipments within a week

* Says rebel-held eastern Libya has no money problems

* Sees Brega terminal operating again for domestic supply

By Alexander Dziadosz

BENGHAZI, Libya, March 27 (Reuters) - A senior Libyan rebel official said on Sunday Gulf oil producer Qatar had agreed to market crude oil produced from east Libyan fields which are no longer in the control of Muammar Gaddafi.

"We contacted the oil company of Qatar and thankfully they agreed to take all the oil that we wish to export and market this oil for us," said Ali Tarhouni, a rebel official in charge of economic, financial and oil matters.

"Our next shipment will be in less than a week," Tarhouni told reporters in the rebel-held eastern city of Benghazi.

State-owned Qatar Petroleum said it had no comment.

Small, energy-rich Qatar became the first Arab nation to begin patrolling a U.N. backed no-fly zone on Friday and has urged Gaddafi to quit to avoid more bloodshed.

Libya produced about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day before the crisis, or almost 2 percent of world output. Most of the oil is in the east but sanctions and the lack of a marketing operation have stopped the rebels selling it abroad.

The north African country relies heavily on oil exports, which pay the state salaries on which most families depend.

Tarhouni said output from east Libya oil fields that rebels controlled was running at about 100,000 to 130,000 barrels per day (bpd), which could be increased to 300,000 bpd.

Rebel fighters pushed west towards Gaddafi's stronghold of Sirte on Sunday after routing his forces in the town of Ajdabiyah with the aid of Western air strikes.

The advance puts the rebels back in control of all the main oil terminals in the eastern half of Libya, namely Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, Brega, Zueitina and Tobruk.

Tarhouni said he had asked the main oil company at Brega, 75 km west of Ajdabiyah, to resume operations within 24 hours. The terminal would produce liquid natural gas for domestic use for now, he said.

OIL STOCKS BUILD IN TOBRUK

Officials at eastern oil company AGOCO have told Reuters that most of the oil produced in the east is piped to the terminal in Tobruk in the far east of Libya.

Output at its fields, including Nafoora, Sarir and Misla in the Sirte Basin, fell in recent weeks as an absence of shipments since early March led to a build-up of stocks at Tobruk.

Tarhouni, a U.S. based academic and exile opposition figure, was designated last week by the Benghazi-based national council to steer its financial and oil policy.

He said the rebel leadership had set up an escrow account monitored by auditors that would be used to receive revenues from oil sales.

The rebels also plan to take out loans backed by Libya's sovereign wealth fund, he said.

"We would keep the fund frozen until the entire country is liberated," said Tarhouni. "Instead, what we will do is take loans backed by the sovereign fund."

He said he saw no serious liquidity problems for the rebels, who were well placed in terms of foreign currency reserves. (Writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Pfeiffer in Cairo; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton and David Holmes)
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE72Q0DE20110327?sp=true

Now they have a revenue stream, a central bank in Benghazi and international recognition from a number of states including Arab ones.

Edit: Oh yeah, and they can market the oil outside the constraints of the sanctions placed on the government's entities.

[jamesww]

The spice must flow.
.....
Now they have a revenue stream, a central bank in Benghazi and international recognition from a number of states including Arab ones.

I think strictly its only two countries recognising the Benghaza council, first France and now Qatar, it may be that some GCC members follow shortly. 

[Admiral Yi]

When Qatar writes out a check to the rebels, whose name will they put on it?

[jimmy olsen]

When Qatar writes out a check to the rebels, whose name will they put on it?

Rebel Alliance

[Ed Anger]

When Qatar writes out a check to the rebels, whose name will they put on it?

Rebel Alliance

it's a trap

[CountDeMoney]

FOX News is reporting that derspiess doesn't believe she's worth the $569,000 per Tomahawk.

We need cheaper weapons.

$122million supersonic top of the range fighter jets? What good are those against jihadists and other miscellanious third worlders? Lets be having a slow, sturdy, cheap and cheerful plane please.

Read Warthog and The Close Air Support Debate, and you'll hate the Chair Force even more.