Unrest reported in Libya

[High_Gravity]

Syria refugees find sanctuary in Libya

Reporting from Benghazi, Libya— Even as it recovers from its recent civil war, Libya is fast becoming a place of sanctuary for thousands of refugees fleeing the bloodshed in Syria.

Buses from Damascus, crammed with Syrian families, are arriving daily in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the effort to oust the late Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

"Up to 4,000 Syrian families have sought refuge in Libya in the last weeks, and the numbers are increasing every day," said Mohammed Jammal, a Syrian community leader in the city. "The buses arrive full and go back empty. There used to be two a week, but now there are two a day."

Crammed full with families and young men, the buses pull into the station at all times of the night after a grueling 41/2-day trip, crossing first into Jordan, then across the Suez Canal, through Egypt and down the long road to Benghazi.

They arrive in a city where uncollected trash still lines the streets, schools have only recently reopened, and residents are just beginning to find work. Slogans of the Libyan revolution share space on walls with posters of loved ones lost in the fighting. Radio advertisements are interspersed with warnings to civilians not to touch unexploded ordnance, including grenades, half-shattered rockets and tank shells that still lie scattered around the city.

A country that is only now beginning to pick itself up may seem an unlikely destination for families fleeing violence in their own nation. But some of the Syrian families pouring into Benghazi say that, in many ways, Libya is one of the only countries in which they could feel safe.

"Libya is free now. There is no secret police to watch you move," said a refugee who, like others interviewed, was too fearful to give his name. "They had their revolution, and now they will help us have ours."

The nascent Libyan government, which in October was the first to formally recognize the Syrian National Council, the country's most prominent opposition bloc, has said it will take in the refugees.

Many of the families escaping Syria are opponents of the government of President Bashar Assad. They fear they could be arrested in Lebanon, where the governing coalition is friendly to the Syrian regime, or in Turkey or Jordan by Syrian intelligence officials who have infiltrated those countries.

Rows of mobile homes are being readied for them in a camp that already houses 120,000 people displaced by the Libyan war.

The camp opened during the early days of that conflict as a collection of quickly erected tents to house thousands of migrants as they waited to flee the country. They included many Africans who became vulnerable to attack when rumors spread that Kadafi was hiring African mercenaries. Those from countries so insecure it is dangerous for them to return home remained in the camp as it grew into a large sprawl of mobile homes surrounded by a high wall. They have been joined by Libyans affected by the rancor generated during the war.

"We have 35 Syrian families being sent here," said Ibrahim Asfour, who manages the camp for the Libyan Red Crescent Society. "And we expect many more."

Syria refugees find sanctuary in Libya - latimes.com

 

[High_Gravity]

Oh how the might have fallen.

Kadafi's daughter reportedly eyeing asylum in Israel

REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM -- Is Aisha Kadafi, daughter of the slain Libyan ruler Moammar Kadafi, considering seeking asylum in Israel? Unlikely as it seems, this may be the case.

The Israeli news website Walla, quoted a report published in Intelligence Online that said Aisha indicated to confidants from Europe that only in Israel would she feel safe and that she hoped to be allowed to live there. In August, she fled Libya for Algeria with her mother, two of her brothers and several other family members. Recently she expressed concern that her Algerian hosts may not be able to resist pressure from Libya's new government to extradite her to stand trial along with her brother, Saif al-Islam.

Aisha Kadafi already has at least one Israeli connection -- her attorney. Until recently, Nick Kaufman was a senior prosecutor with the Israeli Ministry of Justice. A former prosecutor at the United Nation's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Israeli lawyer was recently hired by Aisha and her brother Saadi to advance a probe into the killing of their father and another brother with the ICC, the International Criminal Court.

The family may have an indirect Israeli tie. Two years ago, Saif al-Islam reportedly negotiated with Israel through a mediator for a peaceful compromise concerning an aid ship he sent toward Gaza, where a naval blockade keeps vessels from docking.

Aisha Kadafi's friends reportedly discouraged her from making an official request for asylum in Israel, which would probably balk at harboring the daughter of a slain Arab dictator.

But she might actually qualify for the automatic right to immigrate to the Jewish state. Rumors have persisted among Libyan Jews in Israel for years that Kadafi himself is Jewish.

Kadafi's daughter reportedly eyeing asylum in Israel - latimes.com

 

[Conservative]

Kadafi's daughter reportedly eyeing asylum in Israel - latimes.com

bigfuckingnarcissist1775 should go over and strip search her for the missing nukes.

 

[High_Gravity]

Kadafi's daughter reportedly eyeing asylum in Israel - latimes.com

bigfuckingnarcissist1775 should go over and strip search her for the missing nukes.

LMAO! Man you are straight up clowning this fool on this board!

 

[Conservative]

Kadafi's daughter reportedly eyeing asylum in Israel - latimes.com

bigfuckingnarcissist1775 should go over and strip search her for the missing nukes.

LMAO! Man you are straight up clowning this fool on this board!

 

[High_Gravity]

Libya's Army Tries to Reassert Itself as Militias Have Their Way

The drenching rains and whipping winds off the Mediterranean Sea were not enough to keep Major Anwar al-Mishri in his Toyota pickup truck. "Our patrols go out no matter what," he said, his voice barely audible over the pelting drops. "Our job is to protect the people. And that is what we are here to do tonight."

Over the past few weeks, units of the Libyan national army such as Mishri's have stepped up their presence in the capital, Tripoli, urging regional militias to disband and join their forces. Many have scoffed at the offer, preferring instead to keep their heavy weapons. The new Libyan government is too weak to confront the brigades. It is concentrating efforts on more pressing matters, such as lobbying the international community to release its frozen assets. With the government lacking the will and motivation to confront the brigades, the creation of a national fighting force to replace the regional units scattered throughout the country is unlikely to be accomplished anytime soon.

But that doesn't deter the major. On the coastal road near the neighborhood of Suq al-Juma'a, Mishri and his 20 soldiers have set up a makeshift checkpoint. They spread out around a traffic circle, with the men standing between the road's lanes. The soldiers are looking for pickup trucks with heavy weapons, like missile launchers. The hundreds of brigades that sprang up during the country's eight-month revolution pilfered the army's depots, making off with thousands of antitank cannons and antiaircraft guns. Now that the revolution is over and former leader Muammar Gaddafi is dead, Libya's new government, known as the National Transitional Council (NTC), wants them to return the weapons to the barracks. "The militias need to hand the missiles over to the army, and that is why we are here," says Mishri.

In downtown Tripoli, Colonel Salim Azway is inspecting a military-police office on Medina Street. The regional office has been busy signing up recruits for the armed-forces branch. Thirty-five men enlisted at the Medina Street station over the past seven weeks. "Every day we get new people," says the colonel, sifting through a seven-page list of 128 people who joined the military police since July. But he admits that not everyone joins out of a sense of national duty. "Some sign up for nationalistic reasons, others because they need to work." With the economy decimated by the war, many have been enticed by the promise of a steady paycheck. Married men receive 500 Libyan dinars per month ($322), and single men receive 300 dinars ($194).

The military police verify that everyone carrying a weapon has a permit from the national army. Like Mishri's men, they set up random checkpoints throughout the capital. They also search for high-ranking Gaddafi loyalists who served in the brigades that led the assault against the rebels during the revolution.

At Tripoli's airport, a group of militia fighters are gathered around a pickup weighed down by an antiaircraft gun. "Why do we need to turn in our weapons and register our guns?" Radi Jalban asks. "We liberated the country, and it is our right to carry weapons." Jalban and his fellow fighters come from Zintan, a city whose warriors played a key role in liberating western Libya. Zintani brigades subsequently encircled Tripoli and led the final assault against the loyalists. They later captured Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, who remains incarcerated in their hometown. They are the last remaining regional brigade in Tripoli controlling the airport and a few other pockets around the capital.

The NTC and its national army have not been able to persuade militias from Zintan and other cities to join the new armed forces, nor have they been able to rein them in. More interested in guarding their independence than in fostering national unity, the brigades from what are virtually city-states have rebuffed the NTC's entreaties to disband. They have also refused to allow the NTC access to prisoners, leaving the council in the dark about which senior Gaddafi officials they hold. At a recent press conference, NTC vice chairman Abd al-Hafiz Ghoga confessed that the government does not know where Gaddafi's former intelligence chief, Abdallah Sanussi, is being held. The Zintani fighters holding Saif al-Islam Gaddafi have refused to surrender him to the national authorities.

Read more: Libya's Army Tries to Reassert Itself in Face of Militias - TIME

 

[Conservative]

all bigfuckingnarcissist1775 has to do is pick a side, then go tell them where the nukes are hidden. Problem solved.

 

[High_Gravity]

all bigfuckingnarcissist1775 has to do is pick a side, then go tell them where the nukes are hidden. Problem solved.

LMAO! You are never going to give this guy a break are you?

 

[Conservative]

all bigfuckingnarcissist1775 has to do is pick a side, then go tell them where the nukes are hidden. Problem solved.

LMAO! You are never going to give this guy a break are you?

the odds would seem against it.

 

[High_Gravity]

all bigfuckingnarcissist1775 has to do is pick a side, then go tell them where the nukes are hidden. Problem solved.

LMAO! You are never going to give this guy a break are you?

the odds would seem against it.

You should jump in on the Anwar Al-Awlaki thread, your boy is on there defending that terrorist like its nobodies business.

 

[Conservative]

LMAO! You are never going to give this guy a break are you?

the odds would seem against it.

You should jump in on the Anwar Al-Awlaki thread, your boy is on there defending that terrorist like its nobodies business.

i wouldn't want to permanently damage his psyche.

 

[High_Gravity]

In Post-Gaddafi Libya, Freedom is Messy—and Getting Messier

“I fear this looks like a civil war”, one Libyan rebel commander from Misrata told the Associated Press, in the wake of a fierce firefight between rival militia factions using heavy weapons in broad daylight in Tripoli on Tuesday. Four fighters were reportedly killed and five wounded in the clash ignited by the attempts of a Misrata-based militia to free a comrade detained by the Tripoli Military Council on suspicion of theft. But such clashes have become increasingly common in the Libyan capital over the past two months, as rival militias stake out turf in the power vacuum caused by the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. And while leaders on both sides of Tuesday’s clash were eventually able to broker a cease-fire, the deep fissures of tribe, region, ideology and sometimes even neighborhood that divide rival armed groups persist —and there’s no sign yet of the emergence of a central political authority with the military muscle to enforce its writ.

The residents and militias of Tripoli have been trying for months to persuade the Misrata and Zintan fighters who stormed the capital to topple the regime to go back to their home towns, but those fighters are staying put—and are accused of harassing the locals. They see themselves as the ones who shouldered the greatest burden in the battle to drive out Gaddafi, and they are suspicious of edicts by the National Transitional Council (NTC), which they see as self-appointed interlopers from Benghazi (the NTC’s recognition by the West and Arab governments as Libya’s legitimate government notwithstanding). The fighters of Zintan and Misrata are in no hurry to subordinate themselves to a national army led by returned exiles and a government of which they’re wary; nor are they willing to accept the authority of the Tripoli Military Council headed by the Islamist Abdel Hakim Belhadj, despite his endorsement by the NTC. Mindful of the political power that flows from being armed and organized, and determined to leverage that into a greater share of power and resources for the regions and towns they claim to represent, the regional militias are in no rush to give up their control of prized political real estate. They’ve ignored the Dec. 20 deadline to leave Tripoli. And, when NTC-backed armed groups tangle with them, as happened with the New Year’s Eve arrest of some of their men, they’re willing to fight.

“Freedom is messy”, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously offered as an explanation for the chaos that beset Baghdad in the weeks that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein. The difference, of course, is that in Iraq, the U.S. military had established a monopoly of force —Rumsfeld was simply clinging to the hope that it wouldn’t have to be used to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq, and could be brought home pronto. But Libya, as we know, was a different kind of operation— an aproach hailed by U.S. and NATO officials as a new model of ‘intervention-lite’ in which Western powers and Arab allies could help indigenous populations oust odious dictators with minimal commitment of blood and treasure. While months of air strikes and a few hundred Qatari special forces troops on the ground proved to be enough to shatter Colonel Gaddafi’s regime, it could not—nor did it intend to—fill the resultant security void. NATO and its partners simply recognized the Benghazi-based NTC and its allied armed formations as the legitimate authority, supplied it with aid and resources, and hoped for the best.

The problem, of course, was that the Libyan rebels were never an army; they were patchwork of small local militia units, deserters from the regular army, and a smattering of former exiles with military experience. Moreover, the recognition extended by foreign powers to the NTC was far in advance of the extent to which Libyans, even many of those in the forefront of the battle to oust Gaddafi, were willing to accept its lead. The fact that the rebel leadership had not established an alternative power center meant that the collapse of Gaddafi also meant an effective collapse of state authority. The challenge now facing the rebels is to build a new state on the ruins of the old, and the first order of state-building business is establishing a monopoly on military force within its borders. The NTC is struggling to meet that challenge.

Read more: In Post-Gaddafi Libya, Freedom is Messy, and Getting Messier | Global Spin | TIME.com

 

[High_Gravity]

Libya's nasty new friend

Memo to the new leaders of Libya: If you're trying to establish a democratic, internationally recognized state founded on the rule of law, it's a very bad idea to seek governance advice from the modern successor to Idi Amin.

In one of the more incongruous diplomatic visits in recent memory, Libyan officials over the weekend rolled out the red carpet for none other than Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir — the dictator next door wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for slaughtering his own people, very like the military dictator just overthrown in Libya who was also wanted by the ICC on similar charges.

Bashir's warm welcome in Tripoli is a bit more comprehensible in the context of recent events. He and former Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi, despite the similarity of their methods, were not friends. Kadafi is believed to have armed rebels in Sudan's restive Darfur region and offered sanctuary last year to the leader of one of Darfur's key rebel groups. Bashir, meanwhile, claims to have provided weapons to the Libyan insurgents who overthrew Kadafi last fall with help from NATO forces. It's possible, then, that Libya's interim government welcomed Bashir on Saturday out of gratitude for his support during the revolution. But that's no excuse.

Libya's leadership is reportedly seeking advice from Bashir on ways to integrate former insurgents into the nation's military and police forces. There may be nobody on Earth less qualified to offer such guidance. Bashir is a master at displacing and destroying whole communities in the name of disarming insurgents, and in arming proxy militias to carry out his regime's genocidal work. Taking him on as a consultant on community policing is like soliciting cooking advice from Hannibal Lecter.

Libya's ill-conceived welcome mat for Sudan's murderous leader - latimes.com

 

[High_Gravity]

Now Able to Exhale, Libyan Rappers Find a Voice

TRIPOLI, Libya — A small crowd of boys huddled around the open door of a concrete shed turned recording studio to gawk at a trio of Libyan rappers in black baseball caps and oversize hoodies mixing tracks on a wide computer screen.

The men paid little attention to their wide-eyed audience and labored through take after take of their latest project: a public service announcement for a local television station urging trigger-happy rebel fighters to lay down their arms, something they still have not done four months after Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was driven from power.

“Don’t open fire into the air; our lives are more valuable than the cost of bullets,” said Siraj Kamal Jerafa, 28, locked inside an improvised sound booth whose walls were covered in worn sofa upholstery. At the end of the night, he emerged smiling to a roomful of high fives. With nothing more to see, the little boys outside wandered back to their homes.

Mr. Jerafa, who performs under the stage name Lantern, is part of the GAB Crew, a Libyan hip-hop group whose members, like many young people, are reveling in and grappling with the new freedom of expression that has flourished here since the fall of Colonel Qaddafi.

Libyans lived for decades in the shadow of the long-ago revolution that swept Colonel Qaddafi, who called himself “Brother Leader,” into power. His rule was nasty, brutish and long. But it is over now, ended by a revolution whose fighters are overwhelmingly young.

Under Colonel Qaddafi’s repressive rule, Libyans kept their personal and political opinions to themselves, and unedited thoughts were shared with only a trusted few. Now all that has changed. In a country where politics and public life were for generations violently and obsessively policed, young people are now breathing and speaking more freely than ever before.

Mocking graffiti have replaced the reverential portraits of Colonel Qaddafi that once hung on walls across the city, and a new generation of colorful, independent newspapers speculate on the activities of his surviving children the way Western tabloids cover the lives of celebrities.

Even on a day when there are no classes, students gather on the campus of Tripoli University, where political prisoners were once publicly hanged. The students swap stories from the revolution and debate the merits of the postwar transitional government.

Many find the new freedom to speak one’s mind both exhilarating and disorienting.

“We are free, but we don’t know how to live as free people,” said Kareem Saqer, 23, a student studying economics. “So we talk.”

The new political environment offers a virtually unrestricted creative license to artists like Mr. Jerafa, who can finally try to make music with a message.

“Before the revolution, music was just a way to kill time because we didn’t have any freedom of speech,” he said. “If you talked about politics or stepped on any of the government’s red lines, they would put you behind bars. You’d be dead.”

His group traditionally avoided politics altogether. The bandmates performed primarily in English “to stay off the government monitor,” he said, and sang almost exclusively about partying with girls, in a conservative country with no nightclubs. “We had our own nightclubs, up here,” he said, tapping his temples.

In 2008 they recorded one song, titled “Pain,” with a hidden political message about the bleakness of life under Colonel Qaddafi. Its vague lyrics were easily passed off as an unremarkable song about teenage angst.

“I open my eyes, and am cursed with pain,” they sang. “I try to smile, but end up with tears again.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/w...revel-in-freedom-to-speak-out.html?ref=africa

 

[High_Gravity]

Moammar Gaddafi, Late Libyan Dictator, Had Undeclared Stockpile Of Chemical Weapons

AMSTERDAM -- International inspectors have confirmed that late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had an undeclared stockpile of chemical weapons, the organization that oversees a global ban on such armaments announced Friday.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said inspectors who visited Libya this week found sulfur mustard and artillery shells "which they determined are chemical munitions," meaning the shells were not filled with chemicals, but were designed specifically to be loaded with chemical weapons.

"They are not ready to use, because they are not loaded with agents," OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said.

He would not divulge the amounts of chemicals in the previously unknown stockpile, except to call it "a fraction" of what Gadhafi disclosed in the past.

Libya's new rulers told the Hague-based organization about the chemicals last year after toppling Gadhafi from power. The longtime Libyan strongman was killed in October after being captured by rebel fighters.

The newly confirmed chemical armaments are stored at the Ruwagha depot in southeastern Libya together with chemical weapons that Gadhafi had declared to international authorities in 2004 as he tried to shake off his image as an international pariah and rebuild relations with the West.

He declared his regime had 25 metric tons (27.6 tons) of sulfur mustard and 1,400 metric tons (1,543 tons) of precursor chemicals used to make chemical weapons. His regime also declared more than 3,500 unfilled aerial bombs designed for use with chemical warfare agents such as sulfur mustard, and three chemical weapons production facilities.

Those stockpiles were being destroyed until a technical problem halted destruction last year at the same time as the popular uprising began that led to Gadhafi's ouster and death.

Moammar Gaddafi, Late Libyan Dictator, Had Undeclared Stockpile Of Chemical Weapons

 

[Conservative]

Where are the nukes?

I want to see the nukes bigfuckingnarcissist1775 promised me they had!

Where are they??????

 

[High_Gravity]

Where are the nukes?

I want to see the nukes bigfuckingnarcissist1775 promised me they had!

Where are they??????

LMAO! You are never going to let that guy live this down!

 

[High_Gravity]

Libya's National Transitional Council Deputy Head Abdel Hafiz Ghoga To Resign

BENGHAZI, Libya, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The deputy head of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Sunday he was resigning after a series of protests against the new government which the country's leader warned could drag Libya into a "bottomless pit."


Late on Saturday, a crowd demanding the government's resignation smashed windows and forced their way into the NTC's local headquarters in Benghazi, in the most serious show of anger at the new authorities since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted.

The NTC has the support of the Western powers who helped force out Gaddafi in a nine-month conflict, but it is unelected, has been slow to restore basic public services, and some Libyans say too many of its members are tarnished by ties to Gaddafi.

Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-president of the NTC and one of the council's highest-profile members, was the target of some of the protesters' criticism. He said he was quitting to try to limit the damage to the council.

"My resignation is for the benefit of the nation and is required at this stage," Ghoga told Al Jazeera television.

He said the national consensus that helped the country rise up and end Gaddafi's 42-year rule had not lasted into peace-time, giving way instead to what he called an atmosphere of "hatred."

"I do not want this atmosphere to continue and negatively affect the National Transitional Council and its performance," said Ghoga, who also acted as the NTC's spokesman.

Ghoga is one of the most senior of Libya's new rulers to have left office since Gaddafi's overthrow in August. His departure will revive doubts about the NTC's ability to form a cohesive and effective government.

He was jostled by an angry crowd of students when he visited a university in Benghazi on Thursday. He had to be pulled away to safety.

Libya's National Transitional Council Deputy Head Abdel Hafiz Ghoga To Resign

 

[High_Gravity]

Libya: Gaddafi Loyalists Seize Bani Walid

BENGHAZI, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi loyalists seized control of a Libyan mountain city in the most serious challenge to the central government since the strongman's fall, underlining the increasing weakness of Libya's Western-backed rulers as they try to unify the country under their authority.

The taking of Bani Walid, which was one of the last Gadhafi strongholds captured by the new leadership late last year, was the first such organized operation by armed remnants of Gadhafi's regime. A simultaneous outbreak of shootings in the capital and Libya's second largest city Benghazi raised authorities' concerned that other networks of loyalists were active elsewhere.

The security woes add to the difficulties of the ruling National Transitional Council, which is struggling to establish its authority and show Libyans progress in stability and good government. Bani Walid's fall comes after violent protests in Benghazi, where Libyans angry over lack of reform stormed the NTC headquarters and trashed offices.

In Bani Walid, hundreds of well-equipped and highly trained remnants of Gadhafi's forces battled for eight hours on Monday with the local pro-NTC revolutionary brigade, known as the May 28 Brigade, said Mubarak al-Fatmani, the head of Bani Walid local council. The brigade was driven out and Gadhafi loyalists then raised the green flag over buildings in the western city.

Four revolutionary fighters were killed and 25 others were wounded in the fighting, al-Fatmani said.

There were no immediate signs that the uprising was part of some direct attempt to restore the family of Gadhafi, who was swept out of power in August and then killed in the nearby city of Sirte in October. His sons, daughter and wife have either been killed, arrested or fled to neighboring countries.

Instead, the fighting seemed to reflect a rejection of NTC control by a city that never deeply accepted its rule, highlighting the still unresolved tensions between those who benefited under Gadhafi's regime and those now in power. Those tensions are tightly wound up with tribal and regional rivalries around the country.

The May 28 Brigade had kept only a superficial control over the city, the head of Bani Walid's military council, Abdullah al-Khazmi, acknowledged.

"The only link between Bani Walid and the revolution was May 28, now it is gone and 99 percent of Bani Walid people are Gadhafi loyalists," he said.

He spoke to The Associated Press at a position on the eastern outskirts of Bani Walid, where hundreds of pro-NTC reinforcements from Benghazi were deployed, with convoys of cars mounted with machine guns, though there was no immediate move to retake the city.

The fighters who captured the city Monday night belong to Brigade 93, a militia newly created by Gadhafi loyalists who reassembled after the fall of the regime, said al-Khazmi and al-Fatmani. The fighters, flush with cash and heavy weaponry including incendiary bombs, have been increasing in power in the city, they said.

There was no possibility to confirm their claims. However, there was no mass evacuations from the town after the clashes, an indication that the residents appear to accept the new arrangement, said Ali al-Fatmani, a revolutionary brigade commander in Bani Walid.

Authorities in Benghazi, where the NTC is centered, appeared concerned that the Bani Walid uprising could have sent a signal to other cells of Gadhafi forces.

An AP reporter who was present in Benghazi operation room heard military commanders on Monday saying coordinated incidents of drive-by shootings in Tripoli and, to a lesser extent, Benghazi erupted as news of the Bani Walid takeover spread. In Tripoli, some shops closed and fighters responsible for security in the capital were on a state of alert over the shootings.

Five months since the Gadhafi regime's fall and three months since his death, the National Transitional Council has so far made little progress in unifying armed forces. Instead it relies largely on multiple "revolutionary brigades," militias made up of citizens-turned-fighters, usually all from a specific city or even neighborhood.

Libya: Gaddafi Loyalists Seize Bani Walid

 

[High_Gravity]

Libya: Doctors Without Borders Asked To Treat Torture Victims In Misrata

TRIPOLI, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has halted its work in detention centres in a Libyan city because it said its medical staff were being asked to patch up detainees mid-way through torture sessions so they could go back for more abuse.



Rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about torture being used against people, many of them sub-Saharan Africans, suspected of having fought for Muammar Gaddafi's forces during Libya's nine-month civil war.



The agency said it was in Misrata, about 200 km (130 miles) east of the Libyan capital and scene of some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, to treat war-wounded detainees but was instead having to treat fresh wounds from torture.



"Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for more interrogation," MSF General Director Christopher Stokes said in a statement.



"This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions."



The agency said it has raised the issue with the authorities in Misrata and with the national army. "No action was taken," said Stokes. "We have therefore come to the decision to suspend our medical activities in the detention centres."



Reports of the mistreatment and disappearances of suspected Gaddafi loyalists have embarrassed Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), which has vowed to make a break with practices under Gaddafi and respect human rights.



The allegations are also awkward for the Western powers which backed the anti-Gaddafi rebellion and helped install Libya's new leaders.



The NTC has appealed to its citizens not to carry out reprisals against Gaddafi loyalists and it says it will investigate any abuses. There was no immediate comment from the NTC on the aid agency's allegations.



The ability of the government in Tripoli to rein in torture is limited because, in most cases, it is carried out by locally based militias who are outside the NTC's chain of command.



Human rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday it had evidence of several detainees dying after being subjected to torture, including some in Misrata.



It quoted one man who said he had been tortured earlier this month in the headquarters of Misrata security forces.

Libya: Doctors Without Borders Asked To Treat Torture Victims In Misrata