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Doubt if future economic considerations are a factor; I'm quite sure the Russians would only be concerned with humanitarian issues. They have such a well established tradition in that area.....started with Joe Stalin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Panda
Putin in particular has always stuck me as a guy who would not sleep nights worrying about Libyan casualties and even property damage.....and Medvedev would certainly follow his role model....:mid:
too busy buggering their British elite combat brothers :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Carrabow
Quote:
Originally Posted by Butterfly
:rofl:
Obviously not much...
Air strike flattens building in Gaddafi compound | Reuters
"(Reuters) - NATO forces flattened a building inside Muammar Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziyah compound early on Monday, in what a press official from Gaddafi's government said was an attempt on the Libyan leader's life.
Firefighters were still working to extinguish flames in part of the ruined building a few hours after the attack, when foreign journalists were brought to the scene in Tripoli.
The press official, who asked not to be identified, said 45 people were hurt in the strike, 15 of them seriously, and some were still missing. That could not be independently confirmed.
Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam said the Libyan government would not be cowed by such attacks.
"The bombing which targeted Muammar Gaddafi's office today... will only scare children. It's impossible that it will make us afraid or give up or raise the white flag," he was quoted as saying by the Jana state news agency.
"You, NATO, are waging a losing battle because you are backed by traitors and spies. History has proved that no state can rely on them to win."
Gaddafi's compound has been hit before, but NATO forces appear to have stepped up the pace of strikes in Tripoli in recent days. A target nearby, which the government called a car park but which appeared to cover a bunker, was hit two days ago.
The United States, Britain and France say they will not stop their air campaign over Libya until Gaddafi leaves power.
Washington has taken a backseat role in the air war since turning over command to NATO at the end of March but is under pressure to do more. Last week it sent Predator drone aircraft, which fired for the first time on Saturday.
MISRATA BOMBARDED
Government troops bombarded the western rebel bastion of Misrata again on Sunday, two days after announcing their withdrawal following a two month siege.
An engineer who works for a dissident radio station in Misrata told Al Arabiya television that at least 30 people had been killed and 60 wounded by the shelling in the coastal city.
The number of dead could not be independently verified.
"There is very intense and random shelling on residential areas. Burnt bodies are being brought into the hospital," Ahmed al-Qadi told Al Arabiya.
A doctor in a hospital in Misrata said that among the dead from what he called heavy artillery and mortar shelling was a 10-year-old boy killed while he was sleeping at home.
A government spokesman said the army was still carrying out its plan to withdraw from the city, but had fired back when retreating troops were attacked.
"As our army was withdrawing from Misrata it came under attack by the rebels. The army fought back but continued its withdrawal from the city," Mussa Ibrahim told reporters.
The government says its army is withdrawing and sending in armed tribesmen instead. Rebels say the announcement may be part of a ruse to mask troop movements or stir violence between rebels and locals in nearby towns.
Rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told a news conference in Kuwait that the Gulf state had agreed to give 50 million Kuwaiti dinars (107 million pounds) to his rebel council to help pay workers in the eastern part of the country under its control.
"This amount will help us a lot in paying the salaries of employees who did not receive their little salaries for two months," he said. "We are capable of only covering 40 percent of this amount. We are in need of urgent aid."
The rebels have been seeking international recognition as well as material support from the west and the Arab world.
Hampered by their lack of firepower, equipment and training, they have been unable to advance from eastern Libya but are fighting back and forth with Gaddafi's troops on the coast road between the towns of Ajdabiyah and Brega.
Abdel Jalil also said the rebels had received weapons from "friends and allies," but did not name them.
At least three people were killed in the mountain town of Zintan, around 160 km (100 miles) southwest of Tripoli, by fire from Gaddafi's tanks and rockets, residents said."
Three points raised, in yellow above, here:
1. US, UK and France have stated they will not stop attacking Libya until Gaddafi steps down - Regime Change
2. The Libyan government forces even though they were withdrawing are being attacked - Insurgent army will not honour the attempted ceasefire.
3. The Insurgent arm is being assisted with money and arms from outside the country.
1, 2 and 3 are illegal as they are outside the resolution 1973.
The bloody war continues aided by the crusader coalition.
News
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"After airstrikes of NATO, which targeted locations in cities of Sirte, Gyrian, Al-Azizia and Tripoli last night and after unmanned aircrafts being used in this attacks, the Under-Secretary of GPC for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, Dr, Khaled Kueem, in a press conference held in Tripoli city, announced," the committee are waiting for a report on causalities and civilian victims resulted from this attacks".
Dr, Khaled repeatedly stated that there were an outer fighters involved in the fight along with armed gangs, taking place presently in Libya, and their nationalist and names were known as we had got names of terrorist fighters from Hizb Allah, Amal Movement and Al-Qaeda members.
Commenting on the situation in Misurata city, Under-Secretary Kahled told" our armed forces did not retreat from the city, but they stopped tier operations in it as heads of the tribes and local activists in the city decided to let normal life back to the city and this task started since yesterday. The heads of the tribes and local activists in the city are now in a contact with armed forces who are asking for the armed gangs to let terrorist fighters, fighting along with them, to leave the city. But the option of military intervention for the heads of the tribes and local activists in the city is still on the table.
Dr, Khaled ended his press conference saying," we hope that the task of the heads of the tribesn and the local activists will succeed in reaching a peaceful settlement in order to avoid getting into a conflict between these armed gangs and the residents of the city"."
News
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"The leader of the revolution received today Monday the Coordinator of Social Popular Leaderships Sheik, Zinaty Imhimad Zinaty, and two Secretaries of General People's Congress Prof, Mohamed zwi, and GPC Dr, Al-Baghdai Al-Mahomdy."
http://en.ljbc.net/online/news_details.php?id=4621
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"Tribes of Al-Sabria at Zawia city sent a cable of loyalty and pledge to the leader in which they expressed their proud of the leader as a symbol of glory and maker of historical Elfateh Revolution, era of masses and new thoughts.
" to wise man of Africa, to the maker of African Union, to the victorious revolutionary and to the voice of world's conscience, we are very proud to live your era, the era of victories and defiance, long life for you and for our Jamahiriya." Tribes of Al-Sabria at Zawia city said through their cable."
News
Russian Foreign Minister through a telephone call, 2011-04-24
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"Russian Foreign Minister, Sergi Lafarov, conducted a telephone call with Secretary of GPC, Dr. Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi, on Saturday. The telephone call were on the crusader aggression on Libya led by NATO and the flagrant intervention on Libya's internal affairs.
At the outset of the telephone call ,Secretary Al-Baghdadi -on his part- expressed appreciations and thankfulness for Russian attitude and its support to Libyans hailing the deep and prominent relations in political and economic fields and emphasizing the objectives of this aggression was to destroy stability and infrastructures of Libya.
Russian Foreign Minister, Sergi Lafarov, conducted a telephone call with Secretary of GPC, Dr. Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi, on Saturday. The telephone call were on the crusader aggression on Libya led by NATO and the flagrant intervention on Libya's internal affairs.
At the outset of the telephone call ,Secretary Al-Baghdadi -on his part- expressed appreciations and thankfulness for Russian attitude and its support to Libyans hailing the deep and prominent relations in political and economic fields and emphasizing the objectives of this aggression was to destroy stability and infrastructures of Libya."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/wo...imes&seid=auto
NATO Says It Is Broadening Attacks on Qaddafi Targets
By THOM SHANKER
Published: April 26, 2011
WASHINGTON — NATO planners say the allies are stepping up attacks on palaces, headquarters, communications centers and other prominent institutions supporting the Libyan regime, a shift of targets that is intended to weaken Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s grip on power and frustrate his forces in the field.
Officials in Europe and in Washington said that the strikes are meant to reduce the regime’s ability to harm civilians by eliminating, link by link, the command, communications and supply chains required for sustaining military operations.
The broadening of the alliance’s targets comes at a time when the rebels and the regime in Libya have been consolidating their positions along more static front lines, raising concerns of a prolonged stalemate. Although it is too soon to assess the results of the shift, a NATO official said on Tuesday that the alliance is watching closely for early signs, like the recent reports of desertions from the Libyan army.
Strikes on significant bulwarks of Colonel Qaddafi’s power over recent days included bombing his residential compound in the heart of Tripoli — an array of bunkers that are also home to administrative offices and a military command post — as well as knocking state television briefly off the air.
If the new approach effectively cripples Colonel Qaddafi’s ability to command his military and visibly erodes his legitimacy, NATO strategists say, that may eventually persuade him to flee into exile — or it might prompt someone in his inner circle to force him out.
The strike on Colonel Qaddafi’s palace and command center was denounced by Libyan officials as an assassination attempt, but alliance officers rejected the suggestion. Pentagon officials said the mission was mounted against a legitimate military target, and noted that it was carried out by F-16 jets from Norway — a nation hardly associated with assassination attempts against foreign leaders.
For now, they said, the armed Predator drone aircraft being used in Libya have been flying over rebel-held towns that are under attack or are threatened by loyalist forces — not over the capital city.
But officials acknowledged that the alliance is turning to intelligence based on cellular phone and radio intercepts that might indicate which barracks, buildings or compounds are serving as the government’s hidden command posts.
One NATO officials said that from the Libyans’ point of view, “if you know your main headquarters is going to be hit, you get out and set up an alternative in some non-descript barracks.” Attacks on those hidden military command posts are wholly legitimate, officials said — but there is always a chance that Colonel Qaddafi may be inside one of them.
NATO put its new campaign plan in place over the past week or more, but so far the North African climate has not been cooperative. The alliance had intended to step up air strikes on prominent institutional targets over this past weekend, but the effort was postponed because of bad weather.
In interviews, NATO officials acknowledged that overall, their air campaign had been frustratingly slow in taking shape after a vigorous start. But they said it was following a carefully planned step-by-step progression spanning the front lines, the middle echelons of the supply chain and now the rear areas, mostly in the capital, where the centralized command and control institutions are located.
The heavy strikes by American cruise missiles and warplanes across the country that began the campaign were aimed mainly at crippling air defense systems so allied combat jets could fly without hindrance. The American military turned over command of the mission to the alliance once it had established a no-flight zone for Libyan warplanes. NATO strikes then focused on the front lines of the fighting, to suppress government forces’ attacks on the rebels and on population centers that were sympathetic to them.
“After the early attacks on his integrated air-defense systems, the next stage was to stop the pro-Qaddafi forces that were schwacking the villages and cities,” said one NATO official. “You have to stop the bleeding. Only then can you treat the wound.”
As the frontlines began to stabilize — some senior officials describe the current situation as a stalemate — NATO warplanes tried to smash the supply lines snaking toward government troops in the field, which were calling for ammunition and reinforcements as they besieged rebel-held cities.
More than 80 government arms caches have been destroyed, officials said. Military transport and fuel trucks have been hit. Armored vehicles and rocket launchers have been targets for attacks, including the first by a Predator. But pro-Qaddafi forces began digging in under cover and using unmarked civilian vehicles, making them harder to identify and attack from the air. Meanwhile, the shelling of rebel towns has ebbed and flowed.
So last week, as Western political leaders pronounced that they had no intention of allowing Colonel Qaddafi to remain in power indefinitely, the alliance turned its attention to a target set of static military and government structures.
“Now we are going after his rear echelon,” one NATO official said. “We are going after his ability to command and control his forces — his headquarters, his command posts, his communications — all those things that allow him to coordinate his attacks at the front.”
Military officials privately acknowledge that removing Colonel Qaddafi from power is the desired secondary effect of striking at state television and other symbols of his authoritarian rule. “His people may see the futility of continued resistance,” said one Pentagon official.
On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, the operational commander of the NATO mission, told reporters at his headquarters in Italy that alliance intelligence officers were picking up reports of Libyan government soldiers abandoning their positions. “We are well aware of troops not reporting for duty,” he said.
Senior officers who served in NATO’s previous air war, fought in 1999 to protect the population of Kosovo from advancing Serbian forces, said that the current air campaign over Libya drew on lessons from Kosovo.
Gen. John P. Jumper, who commanded American Air Force units in Europe during the Kosovo campaign, recalled that allied “air power was getting its paper graded on the number of tanks killed” — even though taking out armored vehicles one by one was never going to halt “ethnic cleansing.”
So NATO began to hit high-profile institutional targets in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, instead of forces in the field. While they were legitimate military targets, General Jumper said, destroying them also had the effect of undermining popular support for the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic.
“It was when we went in and began to disturb important and symbolic sites in Belgrade, and began to bring to a halt the middle-class life in Belgrade, that Milosevic’s own people began to turn on him,” General Jumper said. “They began to question why the whole thing in Kosovo was going on, because it was ruining the country.”
great, so now NATO is going to bomb civilian sites after they fail to comply to the UN resolutionQuote:
Originally Posted by StrontiumDog
Interesting choice of words.Quote:
Originally Posted by StrontiumDog
It doesn't say Norwegian Air Force planes, only that the planes came from Norway.
I agree it appears a bit ambiguous, but it's a pretty safe bet those F16's were Norwegian and flown by Norwegian pilots. Even the Italians want to take a crack at hitting a few of the Colonels assets now...or maybe they just want to deliver Pizza's...the statement was not clear...it just said "fly missions"....:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Thetyim
a good bit of practice for NATO forces..nothing like the real thing instead of just war games.
AFP: AU urges end to military action on Libyan officials
"ADDIS ABABA — The African Union on Wednesday urged an end to military actions targeting senior Libyan officials, two days after an allied air strike hit Moamer Kadhafi's compound in Tripoli.
"Council urges all involved to refrain from actions, including military operations targeting Libyan senior officials... that would further compound the situation and make it more difficult to achieve international consensus on the best way forward," the AU said.
The pan-African body stressed the need for all the parties involved in the implementation of UN resolution 1973 "to act in a manner fully consistent with international legality and the resolution?s provisions, whose objective is solely to ensure the protection of the civilian population." On Monday allied warplanes struck Kadhafi's compound in Tripoli. US and British defence chiefs Robert Gates and Liam Fox said at a joint press conference Tuesday the choice of target was legitimate.
The AU statement said the body would look into convening an extraordinary meeting in May to review "peace and security on the continent, in light of the new crises and threats ..." Libya's foreign minister on Tuesday had asked the AU Peace and Security Council to convene an extraordinary summit to find ways to fight "external forces."
"My delegation proposes the holding as soon as possible of an extraordinary session of the assembly of the (African) Union to identify the ways that enable our continent to mobilise capabilities to face the external forces which aggress against us," Abdelati Obeidi said. Talks at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa seeking a negotiated settlement to the Libyan conflict began on Monday and wound up late Tuesday, with AU officials meeting with a team sent by Kadhafi and a rebel delegation. The sides did not, however, meet for direct talks. The AU has put forward suggestions for a way out of the conflict. Kadhafi's side has said it would abide by the proposals but the rebels say they can only accept the AU's offer once Kadhafi and his sons leave power.
The African body said it wanted to speed up consultations with a view to starting "negotiations on a ceasefire and the other aspects of the Libyan crisis." These talks will be led by the AU and will also involve the Arab League, the European Union and the UN. It urged the Libyan parties to cooperate in the talks and said there should be "no preconditions" for them to start.
Massive protests in Libya in mid-February, inspired by the revolts that toppled long-time autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia, escalated into war when Kadhafi's troops fired on demonstrators and protesters seized several eastern towns.
An international coalition intervened on March 19, launching air raids and missile strikes under a UN mandate aimed at protecting civilians from Kadhafi's forces fighting the rebellion.
NATO took command of air campaign on March 31."
NATO do not need the practice. They are capable of murdering from 10,000 feet or haven't you noticed.Quote:
Originally Posted by shadow role
yep, all they can do is play with their expensive toysQuote:
Originally Posted by OhOh
Libyan forces overrun rebels on Tunisian border | Reuters
Libyan forces overrun rebels on Tunisian border
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By Lin Noueihed and Abdelaziz Boumzar
TRIPOLI/DEHIBA, Tunisia | Thu Apr 28, 2011 12:21pm EDT
(Reuters) - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi overran a western rebel outpost on the Tunisian border on Thursday, with fighting spilling onto Tunisian territory, witnesses said.
The attack appeared to be part of a broader government move to root out rebel outposts beyond the confines of their eastern heartland. Rebels said the western mountain town of Zintan came under fire from multiple-launch Grad rockets seen as especially hazardous to civilian areas because of their inaccuracy.
Libyan rebels captured the Dehiba-Wazin border crossing to Tunisia a week ago and had since expanded their control to reach about 10 km (six miles) inside Libya from the crossing point. The counter-attack began with shelling of retreating rebels.
"Fighting broke out on the Tunisian territory, in Dehiba, after Gaddafi's forces attacked the border crossing," said Ali, a Tunisian involved in helping Libyans arriving in Dehiba.
"The rebels have withdrawn and are now inside Tunisia."
Reuters photographer Zoubeir Soussi said Gaddafi's forces now controlled the crossing. No more details were available and there was no immediate comment from Tunisian authorities.
Libyan state television said some rebels had been killed and others taken prisoner in the recapture of the border post.
After weeks of fast moving advances and retreats by rebel and government forces along the Mediterranean coast, fighting has settled into a pattern of clashes and skirmishes, with Gaddafi seeking to root out rebel outposts in the West.
The town of Zintan came under heavy missile fire for a second day from Russian-made Grad missiles.
"Today alone, 80 missiles hit the town. We knew they are Grad missiles by the sound they make and we checked what remained of them," the spokesman, identifying himself as Abdulrahman, said by telephone.
"The rebels are preventing the army reaching the city. That is why Gaddafi forces are using missiles to subjugate the town."
Gaddafi denies his forces are attacking civilians and describes his opponents as Islamist extremists and foreign-backed agitators who deliberately put non-combatants in harm's way. Libyan authorities make no routine announcements about military actions.
Battlefield stalemate has stirred unease among Western and Arab states that backed a United Nations resolution endorsing British and French-backed NATO air strikes to protect civilians. Rebels seek stronger action to break Gaddafi while critics say NATO has exceeded its mandate and targeted the Libyan leader.
AID SHIP IN BENGHAZI
Fighting in the mountainous western areas has prompted a movement of refugees toward the Tunisian border. Rebels say use of Grad missiles, which fragment and produce strong shockwaves, has further endangered civilians and added to the flow of refugees.
The Arabic Al Jazeera television said forces under Gaddafi, who has ruled the oil-producer for more than four decades, also clashed with rebels in the remote southeastern district of Kufra, near the Egyptian border. It gave no further details.
Government troops kept up shelling overnight of the besieged rebel outpost of Misrata, where aid ships bring in emergency supplies and evacuate the wounded. A local doctor said by telephone that seven insurgents were killed overnight when a checkpoint came under rocket and heavy artillery fire.
An international aid ship, with 850 migrant workers who were evacuated from Misrata during a lull in shelling, docked in Benghazi on Thursday. The workers, mostly from Niger, were being taken to the Egyptian border for repatriation.
The United States voiced confidence in the Benghazi-based council on Wednesday as the U.S. Treasury moved to permit oil deals with the group, which is struggling to provide funding for the battle-scarred areas under its control.
The order by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control may help to clear up concerns among potential buyers over legal complications related to ownership of Libyan oil and the impact of international sanctions.
From a Qaddafi Daughter, a Glimpse Inside the Bunker
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/wo...isha.html?_r=1
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"TRIPOLI, Libya — Aisha el-Qaddafi, the daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, likes to tell her three young children bedtime stories about the afterlife. Now, she says, they are especially appropriate.
“To make them ready,” she said, “because in a time of war you never know when a rocket or a bomb might hit you, and that will be the end.”
In a rare interview at her charitable foundation here, Ms. Qaddafi, 36, a Libyan-trained lawyer who once worked on Saddam Hussein’s legal defense team, offered a glimpse into the fatalistic mind-set of the increasingly isolated family at the core of the battle for Libya, the bloodiest arena in the democratic uprising that is sweeping the region.
She dismissed the rebels as “terrorists” but suggested that some former Qaddafi officials who are now in the opposition’s governing council still “keep in touch with us.” She pleaded for dialogue and talked about democratic reforms. But she dismissed the rebels as unfit for such talks because of their use of violence, hurled personal barbs at President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and, at one point, appeared to disparage the basic idea of electoral democracy.
After arranging the interview last week, Ms. Qaddafi spoke for more than an hour late Sunday afternoon, just hours before NATO escalated its airstrikes with an attack that disrupted state television and another on the Libyan leader’s compound in Tripoli. Ms. Qaddafi, one of the many unofficial and sometimes rivalrous Qaddafi family power brokers who dominate Libya’s economic and political life, said the crisis had pulled the family together “like one hand.”
Ms. Qaddafi said that she and her seven brothers “have a dialogue between us and exchange points of view” before anyone takes a major step in their common defense. She acknowledged that she had seen news reports that her siblings had proposed easing their father from power in a transition under the direction of her brother Seif al-Islam, but she declined to comment on the details.
She also pointedly declined to answer when asked if Abdel Fattah Younes, a top rebel military official who was a longtime interior minister, was among the leaders who had kept in touch with the Qaddafi family.
“They say to us that they have their own families, daughters, sons, spouses, and they fear for them, and that is why they have taken those positions,” she said of those rebel leaders. “There are many members of the council who have worked with my father for 42 years and been loyal to him. Do you think they would just go like that?”
Instead of the angry defiance and vows of retribution issued by her father and her brother Seif, Ms. Qaddafi focused on how the West would rue the chaos she predicted would engulf a post-Qaddafi Libya. When pressed repeatedly on how her family could stay in power, she said more than once, “We have a great hope in God.”
Ms. Qaddafi has appeared in public twice since the bombings began, before cheering crowds at the colonel’s compound, but she seldom speaks in public. During the interview, she wore close-fitting jeans, Gucci shoes and a pale scarf that did not cover her long blond hair. At times, she laughed at her fate, recalling how the United Nations, after “begging” her to be an envoy for peace in the past, has now referred her to the International Criminal Court. Her staff presented an illustrated biography entitled “Princess of Peace.”
She said her experience as a volunteer on Saddam Hussein’s defense team offered relevant parallels.
“The opposition in Iraq told the West that when you come to Iraq they will greet you with roses,” she said. “Almost 10 years later they are receiving the Americans with bullets, and, believe me, the situation in Libya will be much worse.”
She taunted both President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, saying that Mr. Obama had “achieved nothing so far” and laughing as she posed a question to Mrs. Clinton: “Why didn’t you leave the White House when you found out about the cheating of your husband?”
Even as she deprecated the American leaders, she repeatedly called for talks. “The world should come together at a round table,” she said, “under the auspices of international organizations.”
At the same time, she ruled out any dialogue with the Libyan rebels who now control the eastern half of the country; its commercial center, Misurata; and the western mountain towns of Zintan and Nalut, dismissing them as “terrorists” who “are just fighting for the sake of fighting.”
Under her brother Seif’s unofficial leadership, she said, the Libyan government had been on the verge of unveiling a constitution as a step toward democratic reform when “this tragedy happened and spoiled things.”
At the same time, she also derided, and possibly misunderstood, the basic ideas of checks and balances and public accountability in an electoral democracy. “Let me say something about the Western elections that they say are a democratic system of ruling,” she volunteered, referring to handwritten notes she had prepared for the interview. In an election where one candidate won with 50 percent of the vote and another lost with 48 percent, she asked, “Do you call this democracy? Just this one vote? What happened to the 48 percent who said ‘no’?”
She complained of the “betrayal” of Arabs whose causes her father had supported and the Western allies to whom he had turned over his weapons of mass destruction. “Is this the reward that we get?” she asked. “This would lead every country that has weapons of mass destruction to keep them or make more so they will not meet the same fate as Libya.”
Without Colonel Qaddafi, she predicted, illegal immigrants from Africa would pour into Europe, Islamic radicals would establish a base on the Mediterranean’s shores, and Libyan tribes would turn their guns on one another.
Citing unconfirmed Libyan intelligence reports, she asserted that the weapons-starved rebels had actually sold arms to the Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. “When my father was there, see how safe Europe was and how safe Libya was?” she asked.
Ms. Qaddafi initially dismissed reports of the handful of nights two months ago when protesters took over the streets of Tripoli and almost every other big city, pulling down Qaddafi posters and burning police stations. Then, told that journalists had seen the evidence, she argued the destruction proved they were not civilian protesters but “saboteurs.”
She also appeared to dismiss witnesses’ accounts of Colonel Qaddafi’s forces shooting unarmed demonstrators. “I am not sure that happened,” she said. “But let’s say it did: it was limited in scope.”
As for her father’s state of mind, she said with a laugh that he was not worried at all. “He is as strong as the world knows him,” she said. “He is quite sure that the Libyan people are loyal to him.”
Her family still hoped, she said, to go back to its previous position, what she called “a return to normal.” But, she added, “of course we can expedite that if NATO will stop bombing us.”"
JURIST - Forum: The Use of Force Against Libya: Another Illegal Use of Force
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"On 19 March 2011 Western nations started the third international armed conflict against a Muslim country in the last decade. They went to great pains to claim that the use of force against Libya was legal, but an application of international law to the facts indicates that in fact the use of force is illegal.
This brief commentary evaluates the use of force against Libya starting with UN Security Council Resolution 1973 that allegedly authorizes it.
The Facts
At around 12 noon local time in Washington, DC, on Saturday, 19 March 2011 French fighters launched attacks against targets described as tanks and air defense systems. A few hours later US battleships began firing cruise missiles at Libyan targets.
Although Arab and Muslim countries had joined the coalition against their Arab and Muslim neighbor, none of them actually participated in the airstrikes by sending aircraft.
The attacks came after the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1973. In response to this resolution the Libyan government had officially called a ceasefire in the civil war that it was waging against armed rebels whose base is in Benghazi. Libya also announced that its airspace was closed. Western leaders responded to these actions by the Libyan government by claiming that they could not be believed and arguing that the fighting was continuing. Indeed, Libyan sources confirmed that the civil war was ongoing and that both sides continued to attack each other. On Saturday, 19 March, the Libyan rebels announced that a Libyan government fighter had been shot down over Tripoli."
Continues...
Libyagate: Unlawful killing, is it murder? I’d like to know – clothcap - My Telegraph
APRIL 24TH, 2011 12:16
Libyagate: Unlawful killing, is it murder? I’d like to know
"The UN has demanded a ceasefire. NATO is ignoring its call.
In the first instance the Libyan government was acting legally in quelling armed insurgency. The UN sanctioned intervention was to avoid excessive force in its suppression. Notably the UK, US, France, Egypt and former Al Qaeda terrorists are now training insurgents in guerrilla warfare.
The intervention was very likely illegal in the first instance, apparently based on hearsay and opportunism.
The NATO is attacking targets designated by insurgents to aid their insurgency, that is outside the scope of reg 1973 even by a Lisbon consti-treaty type interpretation. NATO is also bombing the Libyan army where there is no threat to civilians, every day, often in the capital Tripoli. Assassination attempts are carried out on a regular basis.
NATO has regularly bombed civilian targets.
NATO has permitted the insurgents to fly helicopters.
The reg 1973 states that the intervention is to protect civilians yet the the civilian death toll due to bombing and missiles is very likely in the hundreds.
NATO has consistently destroyed army weapons capable of firing into civilian areas. It has on one occasion done this to insurgent weapons, apparently by accident due to insurgents firing at a jet.
There is high probability that NATO is aiding outlawed terrorists, terrorists that are aiding terrorists outside Libya, terrorists that may have recently been involved in Iraq and other areas where there are US and UK soldiers."
Continues....
"Soldiers of Fortune" fight for Gaddafi: Voice of Russia
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"Several hundred mercenaries, mainly from EU and East European countries, are fighting on the side of Col. Gaddafi in Libya, European experts say. EU security agencies and NATO officials neither confirm nor deny these reports.
Reports to this effect came from EUObserver.
http://euobserver.com/9/32228
The Internet edition published an article by Greek expert Michel Koutouzis in which he says that most mercenaries arrive from Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia, and some are from Poland, Belgium, Britain, France and Greece. The so-called ‘soldiers of fortune’ are paid several thousand dollars daily.
Michel Koutouzis oversees research on security-related issues for the EU, the UN and the government of France. It took him two months in North Africa to collect data on Libya. In his opinion, Gaddafi is employing mercenaries because he doesn’t trust Libyans, particularly in light of numerous coup and assassination attempts over the past 40 years. Cases of desertion have been frequent since the start of the NATO operation in March. Gaddafi’s army currently consists of about 25,000 soldiers. Another 50,000 thousand well-armed volunteers are under the command of his sons. In these circumstances, using mercenaries is understandable and logical, provided there is money to pay them. Vladimir Yevseev, Director of the Social and Political Research Center, shared his opinion in an interview with a Voice of Russia correspondent:
"A number of mercenaries from Eastern Europe are fighting on the side of Colonel Gaddafi. This doesn’t mean that the countries they come from support Gaddafi or encourage their citizens to go and fight in Libya. These people chose to fight in Libya of their own accord and their decision was not prompted by ideological considerations."
Far from all experts tend to trust EUObserver. Experts say that Belarusian and Ukrainian military experts are working in Libya by contract. And these experts came to work in Libya well before the February uprising. They arrived to assist with the maintenance of Libya’s air defense systems and armored vehicles, made in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine. Political analyst Anton Chernov says that Koutouzis’s article should not be regarded as ultimate truth:
"The first reports to the effect that there were mercenaries in Gaddafi’s army came from a UN official. The official said that some mercenaries came from Belarus. Earlier, UN workers accused Belarus of supplying Ivory Coast with helicopters, and the UN had to apologize after it became clear that the helicopters did not come from Belarus."
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EUobserver / UN says EU soldiers could endanger aid workers
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"21.04.2011 [at] 09:29 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - One of the United Nations's top humanitarian officials has said it will not be seeking the support of EU troops in the provision of assistance in Libya, warning that aid workers will become associated with military actors.
Valerie Amos, emergency relief co-ordinator with the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) told a press conference in New York on Wednesday (20 April) that an EU mission was needed "not at the moment. We are able to get in using civilian means.
The words come as it emerged that the EU is readying a 1,000-strong military mission to support humanitarian assistance in the country.
Amos said she is worried that aid officials and soldiers would be viewed in the minds of some as being linked.
"Our responsibility, all the time, is to ensure that our aid is offered on an impartial basis," she said. Aid workers' lives would be endangered were they to lose their neutral reputation, she continued: "We have to be extremely careful about that and make sure the lines are not blurred."
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NATO Strike Kills 12 Libyan Rebels in Misurata
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/wo...a/28libya.html
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"MISURATA, Libya — At least one NATO warplane attacked a rebel position on the front lines of this besieged city on Wednesday, a rebel commander said, killing 12 fighters and wounding five others in what he called an accident that could have been avoided.
The rebels were at first reluctant to admit the killings had occurred, saying they did not want to discourage further airstrikes against the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, which have been shelling Misurata and pounding it with ground-to-ground rocket fire. The pace of NATO strikes had picked up noticeably in recent days, after rebel leaders complained of a lack of support since the United States turned over operational control of the air campaign to NATO at the end of March.
But as the bodies of the fighters who had been killed were being collected at a medical clinic in the Qasr Ahmed neighborhood, a grieving rebel commander, Abdullah Mohammed, provided an account of the errant strikes."
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A map of the "Tribes" of Libya with Population Numbers and Oil Resources.
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those NATO strikes really seem to work and protect the civilians,
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Slight miscalculation :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Butterfly
and you seem happy about it, oh wait I forgot, it doesn't matter, they are all muslim scums