GADDIFI TOPPLED!!!!!TRIPOLI CELEBRATING!!!!!!!!

Feb 17 Info:

Mutassim Gaddafi’s Dutch girlfriend tells of the final days of Libyan regime
Posted on August 28, 2011

Filipino servants wearing spotless white jackets mixed his favourite Jack Daniels whisky and coke, and then Mutassim Gaddafi raised his glass and toasted the victory that he was sure was close.

Relaxing in one of his Tripoli homes just over a week ago, during a break from commanding at the front, the fifth son of Libya’s ruler was in a defiant mood. Soon, he boasted to the blonde foreigner sitting with him, he would lead his father’s regime to a victory over the “rats”.

The woman at his side was Mutassim’s ex-girlfriend Talitha van Zon, a Dutch glamour model who still regularly visited him in the Libyan capital.

Her most recent trip, however, proved to be a far cry from the luxury break she was used to – as the Libyan regime crumbled last week and her male companion took flight, she endured several days of utter terror as battles raged around her five star hotel.

On Wednesday, The Sunday Telegraph found her alone and frightened in a Tripoli hospital ward, where she was being treated for injuries after leaping from a hotel balcony – apparently fearful that a group of rebels were about to burn her alive.

Before she was evacuated from the city by a humanitarian ship to Malta on Friday, though, she gave an extraordinary account of the final days of the Gaddafi regime – an insight into a family who will fight to the death and destroy their country before they give up power.

“I was shocked when I met Mutassim. He had changed,” said Miss van Zon. “It was the first time I had seen him since just before the February uprising. He had a beard, he was sitting on a couch strewn with automatic weapons, and he was guarded by unsmiling 16-year-old boys with sub-machine guns.” On the wall behind was a huge portrait of his father, Muammar Gaddafi.

As he swirled his whisky in the glass, ice chinking, Mutassim spoke of envying his brother Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, who was “martyred” in a Nato bombing back in late April. Libya’s war had turned the likeable playboy she knew from the nightclubs of Europe into a ruthless warrior.

“His eyes were cold,” she said. “He looked capable of killing someone, and he hadn’t looked like that before. I asked myself, not for the first time; what the hell am I doing in Libya?”

A former Playboy centrefold, Miss van Zon met Mutassim in an Italian nightclub in 2004, kindling a three-month relationship that ended when she learned that she “was not the only woman in his life”. But the girl from Rotterdam remained friends with the son of the powerful Arab leader, and as their friendship blossomed, she was drawn into a fabulous private world of luxury, showered with gifts and invited to some of the world’s most exclusive destinations. In Monaco she was taken to the Grand Prix and a dinner party attended by Princess Caroline. At Christmas, there was Mutassim’s annual excursion to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts, with his entourage flown there in his private Boeing. When Mutassim was in Paris or London he would book several floors of the most expensive hotels, filling them with his friends, and the finest Italian hairdressers would be flown in from Italy, at a cost of 5,000 euros per time.

“I asked him once how much he spent, and he took a minute to add it up in his head,” Miss van Zon recalled. “He said ‘about $2 million’. I said ‘you mean a year?’ He said ‘no – a month’.”

Mutassim, who is aged around 35, was fun, likeable, hedonistic and loyal to his friends – and generous too. He showered Miss van Zon with presents, giving her the entire collection of Louis Vuitton bags and an expensive watch.

At the time she was untroubled by her friendship with the son of the former “Mad Dog” of the Middle East. After all, Britain and France had made up their differences with him, and Libya was wide open for Western business. She was curious about his father, although she was never allowed to meet him. “You must become a Muslim first,” Mutassim had told her.

Invitations to Tripoli followed, and she spent days in his beach house, his country estate and city villa, replete with gold fittings and huge chandeliers. The interior decorating was lavish but in awful taste, she said.

“Of course I knew that it was not right to spend so much money like that,” she said. “I asked him many times about the welfare of the Libyan people, and he said the schools and hospitals were free, that rice and flour were cheap. It was hard for me to judge life in Libya for ordinary people – I was always staying in a gilded cage when I visited. They looked happy enough.”

She did, though, see occasional flashes of temper, in particular on one occasion where a servant had brought in a meal that was cold.

“He shouted at the guy and threw plates on the floor. He put that guy like a dog in a corner and then he demanded that he eat the whole lot, there in front of us. It was humiliating. I never saw the servant again, and I don’t know what happened to him.

“Afterwards he must have apologised to me a million times for it. He said I was one of the few people who was a real friend and says what she feels. He said he didn’t get that from many people.”

The hedonist son also had ambitions for power, inspired by his father’s example. “He worshipped his father,” Miss Van Zon said. “He talked a lot about Hitler, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez. He liked leaders who had a lot of power. He always said ‘I want to do better than my father’.”

He is once said to have tried to take power in a failed coup, and was exiled to Egypt for several years before being allowed to return. As a gesture of forgiveness, his father appointed him as national security director, although Miss van Zon still saw signs of his sibling rivalry with his elder brother Saif, who seemed the favoured successor.

He also appeared to confirm Libya’s role in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, which the regime had long officially denied involvement in despite paying compensation to the families of the 270 victims.

“We had a big discussion about Lockerbie when he was in Amsterdam for a couple of days,” Miss Van Zon said. “I said the victims were civilians, not military, and he said ‘Talitha, the Americans attacked our house in Libya and my father lost one child (a reference to the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986).’ He was quite open about the Libyans doing it for revenge.”

Her penultimate visit to him was in February, just before the uprising, when she remembered him complaining about the “ungrateful people” in Libya’s restive east. As the uprising unfolded, she found it hard to believe the accounts of civilians being killed by the regime – but when she talked to Mutassim on the phone, she heard a different man to the one she had known. He now used phrases like “wipe them out” or “show them no mercy”.

Then, at the end of August, she made what she called her ‘big mistake’, returning to Libya. Assured by Mutassim that the regime was prevailing in its battle for survival, she was also hoping that he would help pay for treatment for her father, who has Alzheimer’s.

She only met him once, for a drink a week ago last Friday – the night before rebels attacked Tripoli. Mutassim seemed relaxed, comparing the Libyan uprising to the riots in London, and arguing that the police had to be tough. “He said the rebels were a bit crazy in the head,” she recalled. “He said that in countries like Libya you have to do it a bit harder, otherwise they don’t listen.

“There was no fear that the regime was going to lose. I think he was a little bit in denial.”

One of the reasons for his upbeat mood may have been because his star had risen within the regime. Mutassim had directed some of Gaddafi’s toughest units in battles around Benghazi and Misurata, and despite their questionable performance, was starting to be seen as Colonel Gaddafi’s warrior son, the effective heir in waiting.

The day after her drink with Mutassim, Miss van Zon left in a convoy for Tunisia, but it was ambushed and she had to turn back. As gun battles raged in the city, his staff took her to a hotel, where she was put into the care of a Libyan woman official.

“As the battle was going on I spoke to the hotel staff and for perhaps the first time heard what Libyans really thought of Muammar Gaddafi. People said they hated him and that he had ruined their lives.”

When the rebels arrived at the hotel, she begged for help from the female official: instead the woman dragged her out of her room and paraded her before the fighters. Miss van Zon did not understand what was being said in Arabic, but picked up the word “benzene” (petrol) several times and became convinced that they were going to burn her to death.

Alone, terrified, and by her own admission paranoid, she threw herself from a hotel balcony, breaking an arm and suffering back injuries. The hotel staff took her to hospital through streets where there were still fighting, at some risk to themselves.

Now she is on her way home. Dutch tabloid newspaper reporters are waiting for her, excited at the prospect of a story about a Playboy centrefold, a Gaddafi son, and a misadventure in the middle of a gigantic battle.

“Coming to Libya in the middle of a war was the biggest mistake of my life,” she said.

Mutassim’s whereabouts are unknown; rebels are enthusiastically ransacking his luxurious homes.

He was last reported in the Bab al-Azizia compound, overrun last week by rebels. If he is still alive, he is perhaps preparing to die a martyr’s death like his brother.

Source: The Telegraph

There is a very old-fashioned word for women like Miss van Zon, and it isn't 'model'.

bb1 wrote:There is a very old-fashioned word for women like Miss van Zon, and it isn't 'model'.

Indeed there is, in every language! Did you see the earlier post, Gadaffi wants to be part of the Transitional Government? I near drowned my keyboard in fresh coffee!!!! LL

Yes, I am sure the people who are presently scraping the charred remains of their loved ones out of warehouses will be delighted to warmly embrace Gaddafi, LL.

Al Jazeera:

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal updates from Libya's capital
Published 28 August 2011 04:06 307

Feb 17 info:

Witness to Libyan prison massacre seeks justice for victims
Posted on August 28, 2011
By Moni Basu

Hussein Shafei prepared Saturday for a journey back to a place of darkness in Libya.

Soon, he plans to stand again in Cell 14, Block 2 at the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. Only this time, the metal door will not slam behind him, caging him in a bathroom-size cell.

He will be a free man within the confines of what became a potent symbol of Moammar Gadhafi’s repression — Libya’s Abu Ghraib.

Shafei wants to return to the place where he witnessed a massacre that fuels his nightmares. Sometimes, he said, his wife would wake him up in the middle of the night, saying, “Hussein. You are screaming. You are scaring the kids.”

As many as 1,200 prisoners were killed at Abu Salim in the summer of 1996, according to Human Rights Watch. Without justice, the infamous event festered in Libya’s national psyche and eventually acted as tinder to spark the flame of revolt in February of this year.

Rebels stormed the prison a few days ago, freeing those held inside, including an American journalist.

“I am so excited about Tripoli,” Shafei said of the distinct possibility of the capital falling under rebel control. “This is the moment I have been waiting for for so many years.”

Since his release in 2000, Shafei had thought about Abu Salim’s dead. Where were their bodies? What was it like for their children to grow up without their fathers? For a wife to not know what happened to her husband? He vowed to expose the carnage of that June day.

Then this week in Benghazi, he watched a video posted on YouTube that purportedly showed the storming of Abu Salim. Shafei, now working with the opposition in Benghazi, knew he had to return there.

He was waiting to board a plane to Tripoli. Or perhaps, with the fighting still raging in places like Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte, he will have to go by boat.

With the Libyan regime on the brink of collapse, Shafei hopes the truth about Abu Salim will finally be known. He is hardly alone in his wish.

The shooting went on for almost three hours

Shafei was a teenage college student when he was arrested for offending the regime. Inspired by perestroika reforms in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, he spoke out in favor of greater freedoms in his own country.

Shafei’s mother, Najia, clearly remembers that day in 1988 when she returned to her home in Benghazi to find her daughters wailing. Her son was gone.

“We had no idea where he was,” she said from her home in Atlanta. “Whether he was alive or dead.”

Nineteen months passed before Najia Shafei learned, through contacts, her son’s whereabouts. After that, she occasionally made the long trek west from Benghazi to the prison in Tripoli.

The guards would drag her son out of his cell and into a warehouse at the entrance of the jail, where mother and son met. If she was lucky, she got 20 minutes with him, she said.

She could never ask him about his situation. There were always guards listening in. He could never tell her about what he knew was going on in that jail — beatings, torture, deaths.

Shafei spent eight years that way, in a cramped cell, without his family or the education he should have finished. His father died in 1994 and he was released for three days to attend the funeral. That was the extent of his freedom.

Then, on June 28, 1996, prisoners rioting over poor conditions and restricted family visits seized a guard and escaped from their cells.

“Five or seven minutes after it started, the guards on the roofs shot at the prisoners who were in the open areas,” Shafei said in an interview with Human Rights Watch many years later.

Security officials ordered the shooting to stop and feigned negotiations. But Shafei told Human Rights Watch that the officials instead called in firing squads to gun down about 1,200 people. He said a grenade was thrown into the courtyards where the prisoners were gathered.

“I heard an explosion, and right after, a constant shooting started from heavy weapons and Kalashnikovs from the top of the roofs,” he said. “The shooting continued from 11 until 1:35.”

Much later, while buying lamb at a slaughterhouse in the United States, Shafei commented to his brother Nabil "Not even here can they kill at the rate Gadhafi’s men did that day.

“I could not see the dead prisoners who were shot, but I could see those who were shooting,” Shafei told Human Rights Watch. “They were a special unit and wearing khaki military hats. Six were using Kalashnikovs. I saw them — at least six men — on the roofs of the cellblocks.”

The next day, Shafei was ordered to clean the blood-smeared watches taken off the wrists of the dead.

Human Rights Watch said it had no way to verify Shafei’s story but another description of the incident from a report by the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya corroborated Shafei’s account.

Gadhafi’s government did not acknowledge the killings and denied any crime had taken place. More than a decade after the Abu Salim incident, the United Nations Human Rights Council noted that the Libyan government was unable to provide any information on its investigation of the allegations.

But the families, mostly from Benghazi, now the de facto rebel capital, did not abandon their longing for answers.

Some of them filed a complaint in a Libyan court in 2007. The Gadhafi regime offered them compensation in exchange for their silence, according to Human Rights Watch.

But the families refused the money, considering it a bribe. Instead, they boldly began to protest each Saturday in Benghazi, an action unprecedented in Gadhafi’s four decades of rule.

“It was radical,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

The government began informing some of the families that their loved ones were dead. But no bodies was ever returned nor a cause of death given.

Among those waiting to find out more are three brothers in Atlanta whose father, opposition activist Izzat Almegaryaf, was plucked from his home 20 years ago.

The Almegaryaf brothers know their father was detained at Abu Salim — they received letters from him in the early 1990s. But the letters stopped a few years into Izzat Almegaryaf’s imprisonment. His sons do not know whether their father was among the massacre victims.

Tasbeeh Herwees, a Libyan-American journalism student in California, recalled in a blog post the funerals for the Abu Salim victims held in the summer of 2009 when she visited Benghazi.

“Inna lillahi wa ilayhi rajioon,” each family said. Verily, we belong to God, and to God we return.

Herwees tripped over the words in Arabic, but by the end of her stay she had repeated the phrase so many times that she was fluent.

“I spent more time in tents that summer than in my own home, the cloth of my black abaya sticking irritatingly to my skin from the Saharan humidity,” she wrote. “In the faces of the family of the dead, I detected relief in the sea of sadness. ‘At least now we know,’ they said.”

Then in February of this year, the regime arrested Fathi Terbil, a human rights lawyer who represented some of the Abu Salim families. Hundreds of people jammed the streets of Benghazi to protest.

Terbil was released but the demonstrations did not stop. A revolution took root.

“The memories of that summer come rushing back as I watch the present events in Libya unfold from my home in Cypress, California,” Herwees wrote. “It was, after all, the Abu Salim families who kick-started this revolution. It was they who initiated protests in Benghazi in front of police headquarters when their lawyer, Fathi Terbil, was mysteriously detained by security officials.”

Exposing the carnage

After 12 years at Abu Salim, Shafei was released in 2000. He often cried openly, with flashbacks triggered by something as small as macaroni reminiscent of Abu Salim chow, said his older brother, Nabil Shafei.

He eventually made his way to the United States, where Nabil lived.

“Hussein came here and had a mission,” Nabil Shafei said. “He wanted to expose the massacre of Abu Salim.”

Hussein Shafei told Human Rights Watch about the carnage he witnessed. He even approached the State Department, which includes the Abu Salim massacre in its statements on human rights abuses in Libya.

As the civil war raged this year and Benghazi blossomed as a city free of Gadhafi’s grip, Shafei, now 42, returned there from Charlotte, North Carolina. He took his wife and three children with him.

He has been working with the opposition television station and telling the world about the dark secrets of Abu Salim. Now, as the newly freed prisoners began returning home to Benghazi, Shafei knew the time had come for him to go back to the prison.

It is part of his own healing. The nation must heal, too, he believes. The first step will be to hold Libyan leaders accountable for what happened at the prison.

Najia Shafei is wary of her son’s trip to Tripoli. She remains fearful about what might happen to him as long as Gadhafi is still alive.

But Hussein Shafei is determined to complete his mission. He owes it to all those who survived Abu Salim. But mostly, he owes it to the souls of the dead.

Al Jazeera:

Libya fighters surge towards Gaddafi hometown
Rebels encounter fierce resistance as they push towards one of the the last remaining strongholds of the old regime.
Last Modified: 28 Aug 2011 14:24

Libyan fighters are advancing towards Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, and have come under fire from forces still loyal to the embattled Libyan leader, Al Jazeera's correspondents reported.

"The main military push right now is the push towards Sirte... Sirte is certainly the focus for now," Al Jazeera's James Bays said, reporting from the capital, Tripoli, on Sunday.

Sirte is considered the last remaining bastion of support for the man whose decades-long rule of Libya is effectively over, with the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC) now widely recognised as the country's legitimate government.

The fighters have gained control of a number of key locations over the last days, including Bin Jawad, which they claimed late on Saturday.

Reporting from the city on Sunday, Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland said: "Bin Jawad is now under rebel control, but the rebels warn us that the town itself is still quite unsafe".

"The main fighting now is taking place about 35km from here, in the town of Nawfaliya".

Earlier, Rowland said that in taking Bin Jawad, the fighters had "removed a major obstacle on the way to Sirte".

Sirte 'will be liberated'

Meanwhile, rebel spokesman Ahmed Bani also told a news conference on Sunday that fighters control the road between Tripoli and Sabha, a bastion of support for Gaddafi in the southern desert.

The opposition's plan is to advance on Sabha after taking control of the coastal town of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town, the Reuters news agency reported.

"In the event they refuse, we will take it [Sirte] by force," Bani said at the news conference.

"Sirte is not a different story, Sirte must be liberated, we will liberate all parts of Libya.

"We will give peaceful solutions a priority, then we will take our decision ... Sirte is a Libyan city and Sirte will never be under the control of the dictator."

Willing to negotiate

Meanwhile on Sunday, sources told Al Jazeera that Gaddafi was ready to discuss a transition of power to be negotiated by his son, al-Saadi.

Moussa Ibrahim, Gaddafi's spokesman, earlier told the Associated Press news agency in a phone call that Gaddafi was still in Libya and prepared to discuss the formation of a transitional government.

The phone call appears to represent a change of policy by Gaddafi, who last week referred to the rebels as "thugs" and "rats" and urged loyalists to continue fighting even as his opponents seized control of Tripoli.

But a top official in the NTC told Reuters that Libya's rebel government would not negotiate with Gaddafi unless he surrendered.

"No negotiation is taking place with Gaddafi," Ali Tarhouni, the NTC official in charge of oil and financial matters said.

Gaddafi's whereabouts remains unknown and rebels have offered a reward for his capture or killing.

Appeal for restraint

Mahmoud Jibril, a leading figure in the National Transitional Council, meanwhile appealed for restraint and urged Libyans not to take revenge.

Tripoli faces severe water shortage

"Don't get taken aback while you are at the height of your celebrations... It's the right of all of us, to understand why we've been treated badly for the last 42 years. There will be a true opportunity for every prisoner to have a fair trial, and to see their way to the light.

"All Libyans have a responsibility today to protect their safety, what they own, and they must even protect those who have hurt us."

On Saturday, Jibril represented the Libyan delegation at an Arab League meeting in Cairo, where he urged Arab nations to help rebuild and stabilise his country and to assist in unfreezing Libyan assets abroad.

The Arab League readmitted Libya to the regional bloc on Saturday, turning over the country's seat to the NTC and effectively recognising the rebel body as the legitimate authority in Libya.

Open border

Elsewhere, Tunisian authorities opened the main border crossing into Libya, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The opening of the border came after Libyan rebels defeated Gaddafi loyalists in skirmishes over a key border checkpoint with Tunisia, this is going to be a vital supply route into the war-ravaged country.

Gaining control of the Ras Ajdir crossing allows rebels to channel fresh supplies and aid to Tripoli, amid fears of a developing humanitarian crisis in the capital and elsewhere.

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from Tripoli on Saturday, said the capture was an "incredibly important" gain for the rebels.

"It shows that they are managing to get rid of what is left of Gaddafi troops in that area, but more importantly it opens a supply route across from the west into Tripoli," she said

Press Association:

Gaddafi talks offer 'is delusional'
Press Association – 37 minutes ago

Muammar Gaddafi's apparent offer of talks on forming a new government in Libya has been dismissed as "delusional".

The former dictator's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim proposed opening negotiations in a telephone call to a news agency on Saturday night. He also insisted Gaddafi was still in Tripoli despite rumours he has fled to Zimbabwe.

The overture was given short shrift by rebels, who are preparing an assault on the 69-year-old's home town of Sirte if it does not give up peacefully.

"If he wants to surrender, then we will negotiate and we will capture him," said National Transitional Council (NTC) official Ali Tarhouni.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Gaddafi was ignoring the reality of his defeat.
"They (the NTC) have been conducting negotiations with tribes around the city of Sirte to try to bring the violence to an end," he said. "But to frame the idea as discussing a transition of power is a bit late now. I referred a few days ago to Colonel Gaddafi making delusional statements and this is another one of them. A transition of power is already taking place. The NTC ministers are in Tripoli and in increasing control of the situation."

Mr Hague went on: "What is needed from the remnants of the Gaddafi regime is the fighting to stop."

The offer of talks - at which Gaddafi would be represented by son Saadi - indicates the former regime is looking for a way out as the rebels tighten their grip. Opposition forces have been gathering in the town of Bin Jawad as Nato targets Scud missile launchers and possible weapons warehouses in Sirte, around 60 miles to the east.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/lockerbie-bomber-comatose-near-death-cnn-203947836.html

Lockerbie bomber comatose, near death: CNN

The only man convicted for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet which killed 270 people when it blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie is "comatose" and "near death" in Libya, CNN reported Sunday.
The news network said they had located Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, who has terminal cancer, at his villa in the Libyan capital Tripoli, "surviving on oxygen and an intravenous drip" under the care of his family.
"We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice," Megrahi's son Khaled told CNN.
"There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don't have any phone line to call anybody."
It was not immediately possible to independently confirm Megrahi's condition.
Megrahi was said to have only three months to live when he was released from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds on August 20, 2009
He had served just eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

He made his first public appearance in nearly two years in July at a meeting supporting embattled Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
The fact that he has survived so long has provoked indignation in Britain and the United States. Tripoli maintains a news blackout on the state of his health.
Most of those killed in the bombing of the Boeing 747 jet headed from London to New York in December 1988 were Americans. All 259 passengers and crew were killed, along with 11 people on the ground.

---------------

That's handy.

Mind you, Gaddafi was probably spending half of Libya's health budget on keeping him alive; as Libya is currently struggling for basic health care, and to care for the casualties of the uprising, I doubt if Magrahi is a top priority.

And for those who think he should be extradited or something - what could they do that is worse than the punishment his Maker has handed out?

He is dying of cancer, and his protector is gone, everything he represented has been swept away.

Bonny, that is true justice that he is getting.

More here:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/megrahi-could-returned-230313541.html

quote:

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was found bedridden, surrounded by his family in their grand home in an up-market part of Tripoli. His relatives allowed a reporting team from American news channel CNN to enter the house, which they said had been ransacked by looters who plundered all his medicine.
Oxygen and a fluids drip are all that are keeping him alive, according to his family.

I should think Barlinnie seems like an easy option in comparison to that.

Life is strange sometimes, isn't it?

Film here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/28/libya.lockerbie.bomber/index.html

I doubt if he has more than a few days left.

I think you are right, Bonny.

Good morning!

Al Jazreera update:



Divided loyalties in Tripoli neighbourhood
Published 28 August 2011 17:40

When rebels stormed the Libyan capital a week ago, they took control of some neighbourhoods. Abu Salim was not one of them. It was a stronghold of the Libyan government. Abu Salim witnessed a fierce fight over the next few days, and was one of the last in Tripoli to fall under rebel control. But it remains a divided neighbourhood with divided loyalties. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr reports from Abu Salim neighbourhood in Tripoli.



Libya's fighters advance toward Sirte
Published 29 August 2011 04:25

Libya's revolutionary fighters have already taken Tripoli, now they are heading to the bastion of Muammar Gaddafi support, the Libyan leaders hometown of Sirte. Sirte is one of the last strongholds for Gaddafi loyalists. As fighters advance West their convoys grow longer. Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports from right outside the town of Nawfilyah in Libya.

CNN - links, warning, these videos are graphic!

Prisoners executed by pro-Gadaffi forces after promise of freedom:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/08/29/damon.libya.prisoners.executed.cnn

Incredible brutality by a Gadaffi daughter-in-law:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/08/28/rivers.scarred.after.gadhafi.cnn

And Gaddafi thinks anyone wants to negotiate with him?

I just had a bizarre moment; I wasn't watching Sky, just listening; they are interviewing rebels outside Sirte.

And one of them was talking in broad Scots.

Turned out his family had to flee Libya many years ago, and when he is not Gaddafi-hunting, he is a bouncer in Edinburgh.

His military experience will no doubt stand him in good stead after Hibs-Hearts derbies.

Feb 17 Libya info:

August 28, 2011 - Reuters
Unit led by Gaddafi’s son carried out Tripoli massacre-HRW
Posted on August 29, 2011 By: Giles Elgood

A military unit commanded by one of Muammar Gaddafi’s sons appears to have been responsible for the summary execution of dozens of detainees in a warehouse near Tripoli last week, a human rights organisation said on Monday.

Three days later the warehouse, which had been used as a prison, was set on fire but the cause was unknown, Human Rights Watch said.

Since the fall of Gaddafi just over a week ago, evidence has emerged of numerous killings. Dozens of bodies, some from Gaddafi’s troops and others of detainees held by the ousted government, have been discovered in the Libyan capital.

Human Rights Watch said it inspected the charred skeletal remains of about 45 bodies, still smouldering, on Saturday. The remains were spread throughout the warehouse in the Khalida Ferjan neighbourhood in Salahaddin, south of Tripoli, adjoining the Yarmouk military base.

At least two more corpses were lying outside, unburned.

A statement from Human Rights Watch said members of the Khamis Brigade, a force commanded by Muammar Gaddafi’s son Khamis, appeared to have carried out the killings on Aug. 23.

“Sadly this is not the first gruesome report of what appears to be the summary execution of detainees in the final days of the Gaddafi government’s control of Tripoli,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“These merciless murders took place in the midst of Ramadan and those responsible should be brought to justice and punished.”

Human Rights Watch said it had been told by a survivor that guards at the warehouse read out 153 names of detainees in the roll call on the day of the killings.

He estimated that 20 escaped and around 125 of the 153 detainees were civilians.

One building in the compound had spray-painted on it “32nd Brigade”, which is part of the Khamis Brigades.

The survivor, Abdulrahim Ibrahim Bashir, 25, said at sunset on Aug. 23 guards of the Khamis Brigade opened fire on him and the other detainees from the roof, shooting through the roof’s tin sheeting, while another guard threw grenades in from the entrance. He survived by escaping over a wall while the guards were reloading their weapons.

Bashir said Khamis Brigade members had held him in the warehouse for three months after accusing him of being “one of the revolutionaries”.

Bashir told Human Rights Watch: “Four soldiers climbed on the top of the warehouse, and another soldier opened the door. They started shooting at us through the roof. It was made of sheet metal. The guy at the door was throwing in grenades.

“I saw bullets and heard people saying Allahu Akbar, and that’s all. I saw (eight people) fall down. When (the guards) were refilling their ammunition, I ran out the door and jumped over the wall. I was not wounded … They just shot and killed us. After I escaped, I saw one of the soldiers finish off anyone who was wounded lightly.”

Bashir said one of those killed had died in his arms.

Human Rights Watch said it was told by a rebel fighter that he and his military unit had found the smouldering warehouse when they seized the Yarmouk military base on Aug. 26.

He was quoted as saying that as his unit entered the base around noon, they went looking around.

“We smelled it,” he said.
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28 Aug 2011
Rights groups have accused both Muammar Gaddafi's forces and his opponents of abuses against civilian detainees in Libya.

The charred remains of 53 people have been found in a warehouse in Tripoli. Witnesses say they were shot dead and set alight by Gaddafi forces.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says it has strong evidence suggesting government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling.

Sidney Kwiram from HRW has been working in Libya. She spoke to Al Jazeera about the abuses against civilians.

[Note: some of the following images may be disturbing for sensitive viewers]

Oh God, that poor woman
I hope and pray medical aid can get into Libya as fast as possible, and that victims like her, who need specialist help and treatment, get it very soon.

Digressing a bit, I saw the film of Magrahi's return to Libya again and noticed something odd...

He was embraced when he left the plane by one of Gaddafi's sons; his own son was standing behind him. But his own son did not look overjoyed - he looked scared.

It now looks as if Magrahi is going to die without talking, but maybe one of his family will feel able to speak freely about who gave the order for Lockerbie.

Members of Gaddafi's family appear to have fetched up in Algeria; assorted sons and wives, but none on the Wanted list - so far.

Hannibal and Mohammed, are the sons' names, it seems.

ETA, apologies, it appears to be his WIFE who has fled Libya.

bb1 wrote:

Members of Gaddafi's family appear to have fetched up in Algeria; assorted sons and wives, but none on the Wanted list - so far.

Hannibal and Mohammed, are the sons' names, it seems.

ETA, apologies, it appears to be his WIFE who has fled Libya.

This is on CNN now:

8 min 5 sec ago - Libya

Muammar Gaddafi's wife and three of his children are in Algeria, an Algerian official told the AFP.

Al Jazeera sources said the individuals were: his second wife Safia, his sons Muhmmad and Hannibal, and his daughter Ayesha.

Their children ie Gadaffi's grandchildren are with them. LL

Also:

48 min 5 sec ago - Libya

REUTERS - Khamis Gaddafi may be the next of Muammar Gaddafi's sons to be put on a wanted list by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).

The ICC has already approved warrants for the arrest of Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he may also apply for an arrest warrant for Gaddafi's son Khamis, after Human Rights Watch said members of the Khamis Brigade, a force commanded by him, appeared to have carried out summary executions of detainees whose bodies were found in a warehouse in Tripoli.

ETA re the Algeria story, the Algerians still recognise Gadaffi as ruler of Libya; the NTC has said that if this story is true then they want the family returned to Libya to stand trial; if the Algerians refuse then the NTC will consider this an 'aggression against the will of the Libyan people'. This could get nasty .... LL

Seems there might be a bit of a snag with Khamis - unconfirmed reports are saying he was at the sharp end of an Apache missile?

bb1 wrote:Seems there might be a bit of a snag with Khamis - unconfirmed reports are saying he was at the sharp end of an Apache missile?

So far he has been reported dead 3 times! I will post up any breaking news .... LL

CNN - this is a link to a long report re the Gadaffi family's apparent flight to Algeria and some pics of them. It says the daughter, Ayesha, is due to give birth in September. LL

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/29/libya.algeria.gadhafi/index.html

Arwa Damon's report re the executions in Tripoli and the bodies found in a warehouse yards from the HQ of the Khamiss Brigade.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2011/08/29/damon.libya.prisoners.executed.cnn