Thread: The Libyan Crisis

Libyan Rebel Leader Says NATO Isn't Doing Enough

Libyan Rebel Leader Says NATO Isn't Doing Enough

Apr 5, 2011 – 5:56 PM

Ben Hubbard and Hadeel Al-Shalchi
AP

BENGHAZI, Libya -- A rebel military leader lashed out at NATO Tuesday, saying it was falling short in its mission to protect Libyan civilians. The alliance said ruler Moammar Gadhafi's forces position heavy weapons in populated areas, preventing some airstrikes.

Abdel-Fattah Younis, chief of staff for the rebel military and Gadhafi's former interior minister, said he was asking the opposition's leadership council to take their grievances to the U.N. Security Council, which authorized force in Libya to stop government troops from wiping out the anti-Gadhafi uprising that began Feb. 15.


NATO forces "don't do anything" even though the United Nations gave them the right to act, Younis said. He said bureaucracy means that NATO strikes sometimes come eight hours after rebels' have communicated targets.

"The people will die and this crime will be on the face of the international community forever. What is NATO doing?" Younis said.

NATO last week took control over the international airstrikes that began March 19 as a U.S.-led mission. The airstrikes thwarted Gadhafi's efforts to crush the rebellion in the North African nation he has ruled for more than four decades, but the rebels remain outnumbered and outgunned and have had difficulty pushing into government-held territory even with air support.

The government pushed back rebel forces in a strategic oil town to the east Tuesday, while rebels claimed they fended off an attack by Gadhafi's forces in one of a string of opposition-controlled towns southwest of Tripoli, the capital. The rebels have maintained control of much of the eastern half of Libya since early in the uprising, while Gadhafi has clung to much of the west.

Gadhafi has been putting out feelers for a cease-fire, but refuses to step down as the opposition is demanding. On Tuesday his government announced a new foreign minister: Abdelati al-Obeidi, who has been in Europe seeking a diplomatic solution. He replaces Moussa Koussa, who defected last week.

Al-Obeidi's deputy Khaled Kaim said the opposition council doesn't represent most Libyans and that al-Qaida is exploiting the crisis. He accused nations supporting the airstrikes of supporting terrorism "by arming the militias, by providing them with materials, and the coalition's decision to starve 85 percent of the Libyan population, while there was another course for solving this crisis, which was the political course."

Kaim said "history will not forgive" Libyans who sought foreign help to change the regime. "People will reject them whether they are with or against Moammar Gadhafi," he said.

Some nations, including the U.S., have considered arming the rebels but have not done so.

Brig. Gen. Mark Van Uhm of NATO said Tuesday that airstrikes have so far destroyed 30 percent of Gadhafi's military capacity.

On Monday, the alliance said it carried out 14 attacks on ground targets across the country, destroying radars, munitions dumps, armored vehicles and a rocket launcher. Three-quarters of Monday's scheduled strike missions, however, had to return without dropping their bombs or launching their missiles because Gadhafi loyalists made it more difficult for pilots to distinguish between civilians and regime troops, Van Uhm said.

The general and a doctor in besieged western city of Misrata said Gadhafi's forces had recently changed tactics in there by moving tanks and other heavy equipment to civilian areas.

"They snuck their anti-aircraft weapons and tanks into the city. They are between the apartment buildings and the trees," said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Younis, however, said civilians have cleared out of areas of Misrata occupied by Gadhafi's forces and that NATO "would have lifted the siege days ago" if it wanted to.

"Children are dying every day and women and men are dying every day from shelling. If NATO waited another week, that will be the end of Misrata. There won't be anyone left."

Asked for a response, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said: "The facts speak for themselves. The tempo of operations has continued unabated."

Younis' press conference - a rare public appearance by the top commander - was a sharp break in diplomatic protocol as the opposition seeks more airstrikes and other support, including arms, from the international community. The rebels' political leadership also seeks recognition of its council as the only legitimate government in Libya.

The rebels were holding talks with White House envoy Chris Stevens in Benghazi, their de facto capital in eastern Libya. Stevens was trying to get a better idea of who the rebels are, what they want and what their capabilities are, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity pending an announcement of the visit by the White House.

Stevens' visit could pave the way for U.S. recognition of the Transitional National Council as Libya's legitimate government, although no decision is imminent, the official said. Three countries - France, Qatar and Italy - already have recognized the council.

The Libyan government took foreign journalists to the western city of Zawiya, where an uprising was put down in weeks of battles and the government claimed stability had returned.

Journalists were taken to see a hospital where rebels sought treatment. Nurses there staged a pro-Gadhafi rally for the press corps' benefit.

Massoud al-Deeb was among the many doctors who helped treat the rebels and said that many of them were Libyan locals from Zawiya - which goes against much of the government line that the rebels were expatriates from Egypt and Algeria.

"They are all our people. I helped both sides (rebels and Gadhafi forces)," said al-Deeb. "We had 20-30 injured people every day, mostly with gunshot wounds. We have no statistical data. The injured were sometimes brought in by their families."

The city remained essentially a ghost town, with most of the shops shuttered and buildings pockmarked with bullets and shell fire.

Near the main square, the rebels' former base in Zawiya, a dirt lot was all that remained of a mosque that served as their hospital, jail and meeting place. The government razed it, leaving little but bulldozer tracks deeply scratched into the soil.

Some locals told reporters that the rebels' acts had desecrated the mosque, but a businessman named Mohammad, sitting in cafe, said many people were in fact unhappy with the decision.

"How can you remove a mosque in a central square just like that? It's a Muslim country," said Mohammad, who wouldn't give his last name for fear of reprisals. Even so, he said he wants Gadhafi to stay.

"When the revolutionaries were here, more than 50 percent of people supported them. People thought things would change and improve," he said. "Then the revolutionaries were defeated and they ran away to the west. ... Now I think Gadhafi should stay because I want stability and I want to keep my shop."

Also in the west, a rebel said Gadhafi's forces had attempted to take the mountainous town of Yefren, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of Tripoli, on Monday, but that by Tuesday the rebels had regained control.

Shaban Abusitta, a rebel leader from the town of Nalut, about 125 miles southwest of Tripoli, said youths from Nalut and Zintan farther southwest infiltrated Yefren and helped rebels there fight for the town.

He said that the armed forces had surrounded the town and began launching rockets into Yefren. The rebels, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, attacked the armed forces' lines and were able to push them farther away from the town.

In eastern Libya, Gadhafi loyalists and opponents have fought a tug-of-war for weeks on the road from Benghazi to Tripoli, with a few main towns and oil ports changing hands repeatedly. Though Gadhafi's forces are stronger, airstrikes have helped the rebels hold back an onslaught.

The rebels had managed to take part of the oil town of Brega on Monday, but the rocket and artillery salvos unleashed on the rebels Tuesday indicated the government's offensive capabilities remain very much intact.

"When you see this, the situation is very bad. We cannot match their weapons," said Kamal Mughrabi, 64, a retired soldier who joined the rebel army. "If the planes don't come back and hit them, we'll have to keep pulling back."


Rebel attempts to fire rockets and mortars against the government forces were met with aggressive counter bombardments that sent many of the rebel forces scrambling back all the way to the town of Ajdabiya, dozens of miles (kilometers) away.

Rebel forces have been helped by the arrival on the front of more trained soldiers and heavier weapons, but they are still struggling to match the more experienced and better equipped government troops. In a step toward getting more money for weapons and other needs, a tanker arrived Tuesday near the eastern city of Tobruk to load up the rebels' first shipment of oil for export in nearly three weeks.

The tanker can carry 1 million barrels of oil, less than the 1.6 million barrels Libya produced every day on average before the crisis. Analysts viewed the delivery as a symbolic step forward for a country that had been 17th among the world's oil producers.

Libya protesters & Gaddafi forces fight on coast road

Gaddafi sends message to Obama: report

Libya protesters & Gaddafi forces fight on coast road

Wednesday, 06 April 2011


A convoy of rebel fighters leave for the frontline from the town of Ajdabiya at dusk

Ajdabiyah, LIBYA (AlArabiya.net, Agencies)

Libyan protesters reported heavy fighting with the forces of Muammar Gaddafi on the Mediterranean coast road on Wednesday as both sides tried to break a stalemate in the seven-week war.

The Libyan leader sent a message to U.S. President Barack Obama "following the withdrawal of America from the crusader colonial alliance against Libya," Libya's official news agency JANA said on Wednesday.

No further details were given.

Mohammed al-Masrafy, a member of an opposition special forces unit, said clashes began at 6 am (0400 GMT) after Gaddafi's forces were resupplied with ammunition and moved eastwards out of the oil port of Brega.

He told Reuters after returning to the eastern town of Ajdabiyah there was heavy fighting with machineguns and other weapons.

"The rebel army is about 60 kms from here," he said. That would put them about 20 kms from Brega, the focus of a week-long see-saw battle. Gaddafi's forces mounted a sustained assault on Tuesday that pushed the rebels about half way back to Ajdabiyah, gateway to their stronghold of Benghazi.

As rebels in pick-ups piled with weapons headed west from Ajdabiyah and civilians fleeing the fighting passed them in the opposite direction, anger mounted over alleged lack of air strikes by NATO.

"What is NATO waiting for? We have cities that are being destroyed. Ras Lanuf, Ben Jawad, Brega, and Gaddafi is destroying Misrata completely," said Said Emburak, 43, a resident of Ajdabiyah.

Opposition army leader Abdelfattah Yunis has accused NATO of being too slow to order airstrikes, saying Gaddafi's forces have been allowed to slaughter civilians in the besieged and isolated western city of Misrata.

NATO denies the pace of air strikes has abated since it took over from a coalition led by the United States, Britain and France on Mar. 31.

The conflict in the east has reached stalemate with Western air power preventing Gaddafi landing a knockout blow and the rebels' rag-tag army unable to push closer towards Tripoli.

The country is bordering on Anarchy. What a blast!

Originally Posted by English Noodles

The country is bordering on Anarchy. What a blast!

Organized anarchy. I suspect this bloody chaos is well orchestrated.

it's pretty clear that it is a big distraction for what is happening in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain

quite shameful,

Originally Posted by Butterfly

it's pretty clear that it is a big distraction for what is happening in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain

quite shameful,

Fully agree with ya on that one.

Gadhafi paid millions to U.S. firms to polish his global image - CNN.com

Gadhafi paid millions to U.S. firms to polish his global image

By Dugald McConnell and Brian Todd, CNN
April 7, 2011 -- Updated 0159 GMT (0959 HKT)


Moammar Gadhafi was to be introduced "as a thinker and intellectual" by a U.S, PR firm.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Documents show Moammar Gadhafi waged PR campaign to burnish his image
• The Monitor Group, a Boston-based consulting firm, was paid $3 million a year
• Monitor senior partner: "We were not working for Gadhafi, we were working for Libya"
• Other U.S.-based firms were hired by Gadhafi

(CNN) -- Just a few years before becoming embroiled in fighting a rebellion, Moammar Gadhafi was spending millions of dollars a year to wage a secret PR campaign to burnish his global image as a statesman and a reformer, confidential documents show.

The mercurial leader hired The Monitor Group, a Boston-based consulting firm, to execute a public relations strategy that included paying think-tank analysts and former government officials to take a free trip to Libya for lectures, discussions and even personal meetings with Gadhafi starting in 2006.

According to a 2007 memo from Monitor to Gadhafi's intelligence chief, the campaign was to "enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya... emphasize the emergence of the new Libya... (and) introduce (Moammar Gadhafi) as a thinker and intellectual."

The price: $3 million a year, plus expenses, for work that included consulting, briefings, analyses and a steady stream of high-profile visitors to Libya -- at least one a month.

The memos were posted online by the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition.

Eamonn Kelly, senior partner at Monitor Group, is heading an internal investigation at the company. He said the visitors program was only a small part of a wider campaign to help build civil society there.

The vast majority of the work, he says, was bringing leadership training and expertise to the country, aimed at "promoting reform, improving the economic prosperity of the country and the people, modernizing the government and helping to heal the very broken civic society."

"We were not working for Gadhafi, we were working for Libya," Kelly said.

After one year's work, a 2007 memo from Monitor touted the results, including a dozen high-profile visitors, ranging from interviewer David Frost to eminent professors such as Francis Fukuyama, fellow at Stanford University. Monitor also took credit for positive media coverage and also highlighted a half-dozen positive articles written by some of the participants they sponsored.

For example, Benjamin Barber wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post entitled, "Gaddafi's Libya: An Ally for America?" and Andrew Moravcsik wrote a piece for Newsweek called, "A Rogue Reforms."

Although the firm had vowed to "provide operational support for publication of positive articles on Libya," there is no indication any of the pieces were written at Monitor's behest.

Instead, participants in the program who were reached by CNN say they believed they were being paid for the lectures they gave and the coaching they offered. They said they agreed to go because they were curious about Libya at a time when the regime had taken several positive steps toward the West and appeared to be open to change.

Barber points out that, starting in 2003, Libya "came out of the cold, thanks to Bush administration overtures: rejoined the West, made war on al Qaeda, started imprisoning al Qaeda warriors, paid (Lockerbie) reparations of $1.3 billion, and yielded their weapons of mass destruction."

Barber, an academic whose books on political theory include the best-seller "Jihad vs. McWorld," says he now wants to see Gadhafi driven out. But at the time, Barber tells CNN, "we thought -- and I think Monitor thought -- it was an opportunity to work at internal reform."

Another distinguished academic, Harvard's Joseph Nye, said he accepted the paid trip because "Gadhafi appeared to be changing his policy -- and introducing new ideas could further reform."

After he met with Gadhafi, Nye wrote an op-ed for The New Republic that contained both praise and criticism of the dictator.

Several other program participants, including Fukuyama and Harvard's Michael Porter, did not reply to inquiries.

Some of the visitors who met with Gadhafi later briefed American officials, according to Monitor's memo, including "senior officials in the White House" and "senior government officials" at the State Department and the Department of Defense.

The Monitor Group claimed that after they sponsored two trips to the country by former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, "he briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on his visits to Libya."

Cheney did not reply to an inquiry, but Perle told CNN he did not "brief" Cheney on Libya and that it was mistaken to suggest he had done any lobbying for Libya.

Still, the possibility that paid visitors later briefed government officials has Paul Blumberg at The Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group that has reported on the subject, saying the firm should have registered as lobbyists for a foreign country.

"They really wanted these intellectuals to be able to influence policy on Libya," says Blumberg, to talk to "people in the State Department and the Defense Department, and really convey the sense that Libya was this great new open place."

The Monitor Group has received an inquiry about their work from the Justice Department, according to Kelly.

Monitor also offered, in a letter to Gadhafi's intelligence chief, a 22-page proposal for a book about Gadhafi, to be produced for $2.9 million in fees and expenses. The book would cover Gadhafi's "ideas on democracy," the outline said, "so that the West gains a more accurate and balanced understanding of his actions and ideas."

The book project never reached fruition, and Monitor said in a statement the proposal was "a poor decision" that the firm seriously regrets.

But overall, said Kelly, Monitor stands by its main body of work. "We were working in a very different period, a period of promise, and we are heartbroken that that period clearly has ended."

Monitor wasn't the only U.S. firm that Gadhafi's regime engaged. In 2008, as Monitor's work was coming to a close, Libya retained a more traditional lobbying firm, The Livingston Group, led by former U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, R-Louisiana.

The firm lobbied State Department officials and members of Congress for Libya in 2008 and 2009, introducing Libya's U.S. ambassador to dozens of members of Congress. Libya initially paid the firm $200,000 a month, but after a year, the billings had dwindled to just $30,000 a month.

Livingston declined an interview with CNN, but he told CNN affiliate WVUE that he ended the contract shortly after Gadhafi gave a hero's welcome to Lockerbie conspirator Abdelbeset al Megrahi upon his release from prison in Scotland. "That was just a bridge too far, and we had to fire the client," he said.

And before Livingston and Monitor, starting in 2004, Gadhafi's government engaged lobbyist Randa Fahmy Hudome during its effort to get Libya accepted in the international community and taken off the State Department's list of nations who sponsor terrorism. Libya paid her firm more than $3 million over the course of three years, she said.

"It certainly was not about money," Hudome said. "It was about national security principles at the time."

Libyan opposition: Compromise with Gadhafi not an option

Alleged Libyan rape victim thankful for support

Former lawmaker in Tripoli to 'persuade' Gadhafi

Gadhafi asks Obama to end NATO bombing

oh FFS, every PR firms do this for every government in the world, including Sarko and Bush

it's ridiculous to make it a story,

Refugees Trying To Flee Unrest In Libya Are Missing After Their Boat Sank Near Lampedusa In Italy | World News | Sky News

Refugees Fleeing Libya Feared Dead At Sea

11:32pm UK, Wednesday April 06, 2011
Nick Pisa, in Lampedusa

Coastguards are searching for at least 140 illegal immigrants whose boat sank off the southern Italian coast after they tried to flee the unrest in Libya.


Italian police and coastguards carry an injured refugee as he arrives on Lampedusa

Officials said that 20 bodies, including several women and children, were pulled from the water.

Other corpses were also reported to be seen in the area where the vessel had sunk.

An estimated 300 people, mostly Somalians and Eritreans who were trying to reach the rocky island outcrop of Lampedusa, were on the 40ft trawler.

Coastguards said 48 people had been rescued but a helicopter and rescue boats sent to the scene reported ''many bodies in the water and sadly some appear to be children.''

The boat had set sail from Libya two days ago and was just 40 miles from Lampedusa when it was swamped by rough seas, causing it to sink.


Coastguard officers help refugees from north Africa as they arrive at Lampedusa

The tragedy comes just a week after Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised to remove thousands of North African migrants from the tiny island.

In future those who arrive in Lampedusa's port will be immediately put on boats for other destinations, either back to Tunisia or detention centres elsewhere in Italy, he told a news conference.

The announcement following public outcry over the government 's failure to solve a growing humanitarian crisis on the island.

In recent weeks more than 18,000 illegal immigrants, many of them Tunisian, have landed on the island, which is just 85 miles from north Africa, pushing already limited resources to the limit.

We are hoping that they are still alive but the reports we are receiving from the scene are not hopeful - colleagues are saying there are bodies in the water, sadly some of them children and none are raising their arms.
Italian coastguard spokesman Vittorio Alessandra

Italian authorities said that technically the tragedy happened in Maltese territorial waters but they were assisting with the search and rescue operation.

Italian coastguard spokesman Vittorio Alessandra said: ''We think that at least 140 people are still missing and we are currently searching for them in an area around 40 miles south west of Lampedusa.

''We are hoping that they are still alive but the reports we are receiving from the scene are not hopeful - colleagues are saying there are bodies in the water, sadly some of them children and none are raising their arms.''

He added that the search was being hampered by strong winds and rough seas but it would continue during the rest of the day until sunset ''in the hope of finding someone alive.''


Tunisian's arrive by boat at Lampedusa last month

TV footage showed survivors arriving on coastguard vessels wrapped in gold insulation blankets after spending several hours in the water before being picked up.

Officials at the hospital in Lampedusa said that those who had been rescued - including a pregnant woman - were suffering from the effects of cold and being in the water.

One survivor interviewed on Italian TV said he had been living in Libya for two years, working as a domestic assistant but decided to flee when the war broke out and he was offered money to fight the rebels.

He described how those on board had paid around $400 for the voyage from Libya.


More than 18,000 illegal immigrants have landed on the island this year

He said:''I decided it was better to risk death then stay in Libya so I decided to leave for Italy with my girlfriend.

''During the night the sea suddenly became very rough and the waves began to swamp the boat - someone onboard had a satellite and we raised the alarm.

''A boat arrived and as it tried to help us there was a rush and the boat just sank - there were many women and children onboard and the last thing I remember seeing was bodies in the sea including my girlfriend."

Laura Boldrini, of the UNHCR, said: ''We express our sadness and our condolences to the victims of this umpteenth human tragedy and our representatives on Lampedusa have spoken to the survivors.


Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi vows to remove the influx of refugees at Lampedusa

''They have reported how one man lost his 18 month old daughter and that those onboard were mainly from Somalia, Eritrea and sub Sahrahan Africa and they had left Libya two days ago.

''What this tragedy shows is that there should be increased co-ordination between ships present in the southern Mediterranean and NATO vessels enforcing the naval embargo so as to save human lives.''

Officials added that, despite the tragedy, boats carrying illegal immigrants continued to arrive on Lampedusa with 350 being reported overnight.

They said these were put in temporary accommodation before being moved onto the mainland.

Italy has not ruled out forced repatriations for those that have arrived on Lampedusa and has been involved in talks with Tunisia in an attempt to stem the flow offering money and other assistance.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/af...751775276.html

Libyan rebels regain ground near Brega

Rebels claim regaining new ground in port town as Gaddafi's forces cripple oil production in eastern Libya.

Last Modified: 07 Apr 2011 00:06


Rebels claimed to have regained lost ground along the frontlines near Brega in eastern Libya [Reuters]

Pro-democracy fighters have regained ground in a new advance on the oil port of Brega in eastern Libya.

Rebels said the loss of ground early this week to forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi is a normal occurrence in fluid desert wars, and will not prevent them from ousting the Libyan leader.

Meanwhile, NATO stepped up the pace of its air campaign over Libya on Wednesday, a day after facing fierce criticism of not doing enough to protect civilians in Misurata.

The alliance dismissed opposition criticisms saying the safety of civilians is its top priority and pledged to do everything it can to ensure that.

It accused Gaddafi's troops of hiding tanks, troops and heavy weapons among civilians to stop NATO aircrafts from carrying out air strikes.

On Tuesday Gaddafi's forces pushed back rebels from Brega in the pro-democracy movement's first significant loss of territory in almost a week.

"This kind of desert fight is very fluid; advancing 20 kilometres and then retreating 20 kilometres is normal in a desert war," Mustafa Gheriani, a rebel spokesman, said.

"Look at the desert war during the Second World War, around [the eastern Libyan town of] Tobruk: they were moving by 50 kilometres every day."

Gheriani said "our forces are at the eastern border of the city, the [Gaddafi] militias are inside the city and the fight is going on".

He said Gaddafi's army "has a lot of weapons left" and can threaten Ajdabiya, about 80km further east, "but we hope our resolve and most of all the resolve of NATO will prevent them to do that".

Gaddafi's letter

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, rebuffed a personal appeal from Gaddafi to Barack Obama, the US president, saying the Libyan leader should impose a ceasefire, withdraw his forces and go into exile.

The White House confirmed Gaddafi had written a letter to Obama but did not disclose its contents. The Associated Press news agency, which first reported the letter, said Gaddafi had appealed to Obama for a ceasefire in a rambling, three-page letter.

"Mr Gaddafi knows what he must do. There needs to be a cease-fire, his forces need to withdraw from the cities that they have forcibly taken at great violence and human cost," Clinton said at a news conference with Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, on Wednesday.

"There needs to be a decision made about his departure from power and ... his departure from Libya.

"I don't think there is any mystery about what is expected from Mr Gaddafi at this time. The sooner that occurs, and the bloodshed ends, the better it will be for everyone."

Targeting oil fields

Attacks by government troops this week have also halted production in rebel-held oil fields, just as a tanker with the first shipment of crude left Tobruk on Wednesday.

The rebels have a deal to export oil via the Gulf state of Qatar and use the profits to pay salaries and buy food, medicine and arms to fight Gaddafi.

"Colonel [Gaddafi] seeks to deprive us of even this by hitting the oil fields that feed this port. This is our wealth and we have to protect it"
Hafiz Ghoga, rebel spokesman

Hafiz Ghoga, a rebel spokesman, said groups of armoured vehicles attacked the oil field of Messla and of Sarir earlier this week.

"I think we will not depend on oil revenues in the coming stage because our production has been affected in this crisis."

He said that while the extent of damage remains unclear, the rebels can no longer sustain the 100,000 barrels a day they had been producing. By contrast, in 2009, Libya produced 1.65 million barrels of oil per day.

The rebels still have about one million barrels in storage in Tobruk, which is being exported through the Qatari deal.

"Colonel [Gaddafi] seeks to deprive us of even this by hitting the oil fields that feed this port. This is our wealth and we have to protect it," added Ghoga.

The two fields are part of the massive Sirte Basin region, which is one of the world's largest oil fields and holds 80 per cent of Libya's oil reserves.

Sarir field was discovered in 1961 and is the largest oil field in the country, with estimated reserves of 12 billion barrels. A pipeline carries its oil north to Tobruk.

Messla, discovered in 1971 and just 40km north of Sarir, is estimated to hold three billion barrels of oil.

Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, even more than Nigeria, at an estimated 46.4 billion barrels as of January 2011, according to Oil and Gas Journal.

What he fuck is this? A rocket gatling? I had to look twice, I thought it was photoshopped.

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, even more than Nigeria, at an estimated 46.4 billion barrels as of January 2011, according to Oil and Gas Journal.

That ups the stakes a bit.
Imagine if Gaddafi had been a benign ruler and shared the wealth with the citizens.

^^
A plane rocket launcher fixed to a ute. Quite a bit of improvisation!

it's getting fucking ridiculous,

what a fuckup,

Supposedly some of the bailout money from US taxpayers for the banks also bailed out Libyian banks.

"
A U.S. senator says he wants answers to why the Federal Reserve provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya."

Senator Grills Fed in Letter on Libyan Bank Bailout - FoxNews.com

Originally Posted by Koojo

Imagine if Gaddafi had been a benign ruler and shared the wealth with the citizens.

Actually, compared to the standard set by many despots, he wasn't too bad in this regard.

"Libyan rebels near Ajdabiya 'killed in Nato air strike"

BBC News - Libyan rebels near Ajdabiya 'killed in Nato air strike'

"Rebels in eastern Libya say their forces have been mistakenly hit in a Nato air raid.

Doctors in Ajdabiya told the BBC at least 13 rebel fighters had been killed by the strike on a rebel tank position.

The BBC's Wyre Davies reports chaotic scenes on the outskirts of Ajdabiya, with rebel forces in retreat reporting being hit by Nato air strikes.

It is the third such incident in recent days involving international forces deployed to protect Libyan civilians.

One rebel commander told the BBC he saw at least four missiles land among rebel fighters.

Many people have been killed and many more have been injured, he said.

Civilians are reported to be fleeing Ajdabiya in their thousands, according to the latest wire reports, after rumours spread that Gaddafi forces were preparing to attack the city."

"The rebels had been taking a group of tanks, armoured vehicles and rocket launchers near the front line between the towns of Ajdabiya and Brega in more than 30 transporters."

"There is considerable anger among rebel troops after what appears to have been a terrible mistake, our correspondent says.

"They ask why rebel units were hit, when they could be seen clearly advancing in a westerly direction towards the front line, he adds."

The report goes on to state that a rebel witness is complaining because the NATO forces attacked his army. Implying that the army believes that NATO is their armed air wing.

The force of Tanks and missile launchers, 30 strong" is reported to have been travelling in a westerly direction. The BBC claims it was retreating.

This is either a cockup by NATO or they are beginning to target all heavy weapons irrespective of which army.

As usual NATO will not comment

Originally Posted by OhOh

Doctors in Ajdabiya told the BBC at least 13 rebel fighters had been killed by the strike on a rebel tank position.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

it's getting fucking ridiculous, what a fuckup,

Ditto. If it wasn't so tragic would be a joke. Keystone Cops redux.

..and all this for two things

1. libya's oil
2. to distract the media from Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen. (All are US allies - biggest US mission - 'embassy' - in the world, with all the associated spooks, is in Cairo for those who don't know)

If "WE" in the West really gave a shit about democracy etc, wouldn't we be chasing the rag-head Saud cvnt and his extended fat wives, brothers and cousins out of Saudi? That's where the REAL oil is, no?

ANSWER?

No. Because we forgot to mention Israel. The other wild card.

Will we be shown the videos from the aircraft flown by our brave boys on this murderous attack?

How NATO answer will be interesting as they up to now have stated the ITNC army do not have heavy weapons and that they have millions of pounds of assets monitoring the situation upon which they base their missions on.

Talk about egg on the face

Originally Posted by OhOh

Will we be shown the videos from the aircraft flown by our brave boys on this murderous attack?

Good question. Answer - NO - or WAIT -- maybe yes, with a nice spin..