Libyan Rebels - Mad Max Style

[Jacob]

MISURATA, Libya — When the bloody siege of this isolated city began, the rebels who rose against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's conventional army had almost no firearms. Many of them relied on hands, knives and stones.

Metalworkers mounted a rocket pod, usually fired from an aircraft, to a pickup truck. The rebels remain materially outmatched, but their fighting power has grown. More Photos »
Now they roam the streets as a paramilitary force built around hastily armored trucks that have been fitted with captured machine guns set on crude turrets and mounts.

The transformation, evident in an offensive late last month that chased many of Colonel Qaddafi's forces from Misurata's center to its outskirts, is in part the result of a hidden side of this lopsided ground war: a clandestine network of rebel workshops, where these makeshift weapons have been designed, assembled and pushed out.

The workshops are officially a rebel secret. But for three days journalists for The New York Times were granted access to two of them, on the condition that their exact locations not be disclosed and that no photographs be taken of their entrances.

On display inside were both the logistics and the mentality of the seesaw fight for Libya's third-largest city. In Misurata, an almost spontaneously assembled civilian force has managed, alone along Libya's central and western stretch of Mediterranean coast, to withstand a sustained conventional attack from an army with all the arms and munitions an oil state can buy.

In these places — the fledgling war industry for a force that regards itself as a democratic insurgency — weapons manufactured in cold war-era factories to be operated remotely on aircraft and tanks have been modified for manual use.

Four-door civilian pickup trucks have been converted to sinister-appearing armored vehicles. And conventional munitions designed for one thing — land mines and tank shells, for which the rebels have little use — have been converted to other types of lethal arms.

Complete article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/africa/04misurata.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp

Slideshow here: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/05/03/world/africa/20110504_MISURATA.html

[Tonitrus]

All this thread needs is a clip from the A-Team where B.A. and crew are retrofitting a car into an AFV.

[citizen k]

I was going to post some other articles on Misrata. Another reporter, from AP, got in the city and filed a compelling story:

Libyan rebels held city despite odds
By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Wed May 4, 11:55 am ET

MISRATA, Libya – Tripoli Street is a bullet-scarred wasteland — littered with charred cars and tanks, its cafes and offices shattered. Yet for Misrata's civilians-turned-fighters, the boulevard is a prized trophy, paid for in blood, won with grit and guile.

It took five weeks of fierce street battles — on rooftops, in alleyways — for Misrata's inexperienced rebels to wrest control of their city's commercial heart from forces loyal to Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi. Up against armored units and professional sniper squads, they turned bottles, tires and trailer trucks into tools of war.

When they finally succeeded in pushing government forces out of Libya's third-largest city in late April, it was the greatest head-to-head military victory yet in the uprising that threatens Gadhafi's 42-year hold on power. The opposition controls much of eastern Libya, but Misrata is the only city in the west rebels have managed to hold.

"Our fighters weren't fighting from experience," said the local military spokesman, Ibrahim Beatelmal, noting that most had never touched a gun before joining the fight. "They had to make it all up as they went along."

The city remains surrounded, accessible only through its port and subjected to daily bombardments. The port was shelled Wednesday while an international aid ship was docked there, killing four people. After two months of siege, cemeteries accommodate rows of new graves and hospitals have transformed into battlefield clinics; doctors estimate that the siege's death toll has passed 1,000.

Yet amid the carnage, residents have organized to stave off hunger, allocate fuel and protect the city. They've erected sand berms along streets to absorb blasts, hacked down palm trees to delineate ambulance fast lanes, formed an array of administrative committees — all with a community spirit that revealed itself in many ways during an Associated Press reporter's weeklong stay.

Misrata is a merchant city, with a large professional class whose expertise has paid off in distinctive ways. Dermatologists treat blast victims. University students master street-fighting tactics.

"All of a sudden I became responsible for macaroni and onions," said Majdi Shibani, a telecommunications professor put in charge of food distribution — a daunting task in a sprawling city where all phone lines have been cut. His team oversees distribution of 400 tons of food per week from a room in the back of a hookah lounge, where customers smoke water pipes.

Donations of food have streamed in on boats from the Libyan diaspora, foreign countries and international organizations. There's little coordination, resulting in huge surpluses of, say, canned corn — which Shibani said Libyans hate.

The stalemate in Misrata mirrors the situation nationwide. Soon after the uprising against Gadhafi broke out on Feb. 15, the opposition took over Benghazi and other eastern towns, but its patchwork forces proved unable to make further gains even after U.S. and NATO airstrikes on Gadhafi's troops began in late March.

Meanwhile, government forces surrounded Misrata, 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of the capital Tripoli, cutting it off and attacking from three sides. Unlike fighters in eastern Libya, who retreat across stretches of desert when attacked, Misrata's rebels can't run; their backs are to the Mediterranean Sea.

After several failed attacks on Misrata, government commanders sent a column of tanks blasting its way down Tripoli Street on March 16. Residents fled, and regime sniper teams moved in, building nests on a dozen of the city's tallest buildings, notably a nine-story insurance building. Gunfire from the rooftops killed and wounded scores of civilians.

The city's youth organized resistance. Led by a handful of retired army officers, they formed brigades of dozens of fighters, each assigned to a side street, said Samir al-Hadi, a grocer who led a group at Tripoli Street's southern end.

Local youths used their intimate knowledge of the area to dodge sniper fire, serving as scouts, gunmen, messengers and supply runners. Over walkie-talkies, group leaders let others know when tanks or supply trucks arrived so they could attack them with Molotov cocktails or rocket-propelled grenades.

They first fought with only light arms. With each ambush, they captured more — mostly anti-aircraft and heavy artillery guns — which they welded to the backs of pickup trucks.

The Gadhafi regime imported the pickups — cheap Chinese imitations of name-brand trucks — in 2007, but they sat unwanted in a lot until the war. Now, the rebels have registered about 2,000, even issuing photo IDs to their drivers to prevent theft.

The fleet is essential to the rebel cause, ferrying fighters to battle, aid to families, and casualties to hospitals. Although the trucks often break down, the rebels call them a blessing.

"The bad cars Gadhafi brought us we now use to fight him," said Hisham Bansasi, who helps coordinate the fleet. "You can call it a joke of destiny."

Bigger trucks were used when the rebels — unable to blast the snipers from their positions — decided instead to cut their supply lines. While rooftop gunmen provided cover, rebels drove trucks full of sand onto Tripoli Street, dumped their trailers and shot out their tires, forming heavy roadblocks.

"When we blocked the road, there was no way to get supplies to the snipers," al-Hadi said.

The rebels then circled in, closing off back routes with destroyed cars and concrete sewage pipes.

Street battles raged while they besieged the snipers. Government forces peppered the area with mortars, killing many rebels. Al-Hadi guesses that about 400 died in the fighting on Tripoli Street alone, although no one has exact figures.

Among the victims were two Western photojournalists who had accompanied rebels to the street — Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images, and British-born Tim Hetherington, co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary "Restrepo" about U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

As the snipers gradually weakened, rebel fighters went building by building, clearing them any way they could.

Near the battle's end, a team of snipers held out in a multistory furniture store called "Make Yourself at Home," al-Hadi said. Rebels fired on the building with anti-aircraft guns, forcing the snipers into the basement.

Gunmen then stormed the building and rolled burning tires down the stairs. Days later, its stairwell was charred black, and the smell of burnt rubber and dead bodies fouled the air.

The battle turned in late April, al-Hadi said, as government troops ran low on supplies and fled from the high-rises to nearby homes. The rebels raised their flag on the insurance building on April 21.

Rebel fighter Mustafa Zredi, 18, said he watched one of the last sniper groups seize a house on April 26 and punch holes for their rifles in the stairway walls.

"We knew we could easily put gas in a bottle and throw it over the wall to burn them out," Zredi said.

Before doing so, the fighters asked permission from the owner, 66-year-old Mohammed Labbiz. With regret, he said OK.

"That was the only way to get those dogs out," Labbiz recalled, standing in the charred shell of his home of 30 years. "I hope that God will reimburse me."

Two days later, curious families walked down Tripoli Street, snapping photos of their children next to burned-out tanks.

The fighting has caused massive displacement throughout Misrata. Thousands of residents now squat in schools or crowd in with family members.

The Refayda family, from a semi-rural area to the east, evacuated into the city in mid-April after a surge of sniper fire and bombardments.

Some 70 clan members now stay in an unfinished, four-room house near the ocean. They've divided the rooms by age and gender — women in the bedrooms, girls in the living room, boys in the garage. The oldest is 77, the youngest 4 months. About 30 of the clan's grown men are on the battlefield but visit regularly.

Demand is high for the home's three bathrooms; three children shower at a time.

Ali Hameida built the house in 2003 for his wife and five children, never imagining so many guests.

"If I had known, I'd have dug a basement," he said.

It's been impossible to keep a precise count of Misrata's death toll; doctors' estimates range between 1,000 and 2,000. The central hospital, Hikma, has registered more than 550 dead since mid-February, but others were brought to outlying clinics or buried straightaway.

The Libyan government has provided no information on how many soldiers it has lost, further blurring the picture.

Hikma, originally a private clinic, has been transformed by the war. A tent in the parking lot houses the triage unit. Another serves as a mosque. Wards are crowded around the clock, and doctors bed down in alcoves hidden behind sheets. Outside, families cluster to await news, erupting in tears and chants when a new death is confirmed.

Dr. Ali Mustafa Ali, like many of his colleagues, often sleeps at Hikma but returns home to his wife and children during lulls, snipping a few roses from his garden to bring back to work.

"The severity of the situation has made everyone pull together in a way I've never seen before," Ali said.

A group of men emerged from the hospital carrying a wooden coffin covered in a blanket — the first of 11 "martyrs" who would reach the hospital before nightfall.

"God is great," Ali said as the men passed. Then he entered the hospital to put the flowers on his desk.

"They're for the people inside," he said, "to keep their spirits up."

.

[starbright]

This whole thing looks like a stalemate.

[citizen k]

The video at this link shows the port being shelled and the scramble to leave the city:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june11/libya_05-04.html

Transcript

JEFFREY BROWN: And now to the bloody conflict in Libya, where the battle for a key port has gone on for two months.

Today, government forces kept up their shelling of Misrata. At least five people were killed as they waited for the aid ship "Red Star One" to dock. It was the only lifeline for hospital patients in critical condition, as well as 1,000 stranded migrants.

Alex Thomson of Independent Television News watched the scene unfold.

A warning, some of the images in the story are disturbing.

ALEX THOMSON: It's Monday afternoon at the hospital in Misrata. The U.N. may well have charged NATO with protecting Libya's civilians, but it is easy to find civilians NATO is not protecting.

DEMETRIUS MOGNIA, International Medical Corps: Come. And now you see another one, another one.

ALEX THOMSON: Another blown-up person arrives in Misrata's intensive care unit, ICU, only to find it's shot. It's full to overflowing.

DEMETRIUS MOGNIA: If one injured now came with this bombing, he -- are going to die. Should be moved immediately to let the ship enter in the port to take, to evacuate this person to Benghazi. This is our problem.

ALEX THOMSON: Already patients are dying whilst listed for transfer by boat to Benghazi. They have a list of others desperate to move.

These are people in need? These are people who must be evacuated?

DEMETRIUS MOGNIA: Yes. Yes. And it's far from ICU.

ALEX THOMSON: Four intensive care cases, 33 in all, waiting for that ship.

The problem for those running the rescue vessel is a stark one. To get in and get out of Misrata Port involves congregating around 1,500 people, dock workers, 1,000 migrant workers desperate to escape, 50 or 60 hospital patients and so forth, congregating 1,500 people in a confined space in the middle of a shelling zone for anything up to five or six hours. It is not an easy call.

And this is why the rescue ship lies out of range 12 miles offshore, unable to dock. Colonel Gadhafi says any ship now leaving or entering Misrata is a target. Smoke rises from the almost daily salvos of Grad missiles and shells that hit the port area.

MAN: Incoming.

ALEX THOMSON: So to make a run for it is to be either brave or foolish, or both.

And yet, to our astonishment, the skipper of this Turkish freighter did just that, unladen and at full-throttle between the piers, even as they're hit by incoming shells and mortars. Close in, at the dockside, it is lethal.

MAN: We need to get under here. We need to get out of here.

(Screaming)

ALEX THOMSON: Shelling the port happens daily, two people killed in this attack alone, several more seriously hurt. But consider, too, the reason why this ship is coming in the first place, 1,000 migrant workers still here, still trapped in somebody else's war and desperate to go home. They too are being shelled.

IBRAHIM MOHAMMED, migrant worker: We don't have anything. We are dying here. This bombardment, the smoke is killing us, as now everybody's sick here now, no medicine, no anything. We are dying here. Please, world, if they are hearing me, they should help us.

ALEX THOMSON: And this Nigerian man was shelled in that camp and could indeed be dying. He's scheduled to be moved on the ship to the safety of Benghazi when the ship comes in -- if the ship comes in.

By this morning, the ship's been waiting four days. We went to see the harbormaster and found chaos, the ship not even speaking to this harbormaster's office.

MAN: NATO warship, Misrata port control try to contact you on channel 16. Over.

MAN: OK.

ALEX THOMSON: Finally, people started talking, and a ship began appearing, and steamed straight into port, without contacting the harbormaster.



Five-and-a-half days, but they have made it here. The medicine is unloaded at top speed. This is an incoming zone for shells. But the jubilation is short-lived. Two hours after docking, the sound of incoming missiles, and people move to cover.

That was a salvo of 12 Grad missiles. And because of that, quite understandably, it looks like the ship is cutting and running. They have delivered medical goods this morning. They're not waiting to pick people up from the hospital.

But armed rebels screamed at the captain not to go, and he seemed to listen. And suddenly the first ambulances with those ICU patients were at the dockside. The loading systems going well, the last 1,000 migrant workers trapped by the fighting queuing up, embarking, it's very orderly -- until, that is, scores of well-connected Libyans from Misrata turn up, push in, and it all falls apart.

(SHOUTING)

(GUNFIRE)

(SCREAMING)

ALEX THOMSON: A rebel gunman fires his Kalashnikov. At this point, hundreds more migrant workers arrive. They're the people this boat was sent for, and now they can't get on. They have lost control. The captain fears the boat being overloaded and incoming shells.

Without warning they cast off. A ship which came to pick up hundreds of migrant African workers leaves them forlorn, on the key side, in the shelling zone. And only now we learn that several were indeed killed in that salvo an hour or so before.

MAN: They killed three children, one old woman, plus her husband, five this morning maybe one hour ago.

ALEX THOMSON: This woman distraught, her husband still on the key side. And down below, one of the patients is dying. They have to re-dock. Five days to get into this port, five hours to get out of it and still the humanitarian mission in this town is not complete.

JEFFREY BROWN: The ship did manage to pick up 800 people but had hoped to take away as many as 1,000. Its destination is Benghazi in the east, which is held by the rebels.

[KRonn]

Pretty amazing resolve by the Libyan rebels. That alone is a huge factor for them.

[Josquius]

The Libyan civil war really is turning into Gorkamorka.

[Razgovory]

I wonder how useful a bunch of air-to-surface rockets are when attached to a truck.

[Maximus]

[Mr.Penguin]

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/05/201157112432539341.html

Gaddafi planes 'destroy Misurata fuel tanks'

Rebels say Nato was alerted but failed to respond to raid by small aircraft on besieged city's "only source" of fuel.
Last Modified: 07 May 2011 14:47

Libyan government forces have dropped bombs on four large oil-storage tanks in the contested western city of Misurata, destroying the facilities and sparking a fire that spread to four more, according to a rebel spokesman.

Government forces used small, pesticide-spraying planes for the overnight attack in Qasr Ahmed close to the port, Ahmed Hassan, the spokesman, said on Saturday.

Misurata is the last remaining city in the west under rebel control. It has been under siege for more than two months and has been the scene of some of the war's fiercest fighting between the rebels and loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's long-time ruler.

Hassan said the rebels notified NATO about the aircraft before the attack but there was no response.

"Four tanks were totally destroyed and huge fire erupted which spread now to the other four. We cannot extinguish it because we do not have the right tools," he said.

"Now the city will face a major problem. Those were the only source of fuel for the city. These tanks could have kept the city for three months with enough fuel."

Sounds like some of the rebels soon will be out of juice for their "Mad Max" contraptions...