Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
DAVOS, Switzerland -- The U.N.'s top human rights official said Friday that Libya's transitional government must take control of all makeshift prisons to prevent further atrocities against detainees.
Various former rebel groups are holding as many as 8,000 prisoners in 60 detention centers around the country, said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
"There's torture, extrajudicial executions, rape of both men and women," she told The Associated Press.
Pillay says she is particularly concerned about sub-Saharan African detainees whom the brigades automatically assume to be fighters for former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in prisons in the Libyan city of Misrata on Thursday because it said torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation.
Amnesty International said Thursday it had recorded widespread prisoner abuse in other cities that led to the deaths of several inmates.
The allegations, which come more than three months after Gadhafi was captured and killed, were an embarrassment to the governing National Transitional Council, which is struggling to establish its authority in the divided nation.
BAMAKO, Mali In life, he delighted in fomenting insurgencies in the African nations to the south. And in death, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is doing it all over again.
Hundreds of Tuareg rebels, heavily armed courtesy of Colonel Qaddafis extensive arsenal, have stormed towns in Malis northern desert in recent weeks, in one of the most significant regional shock waves to emanate directly from the colonels fall.
After fighting for Colonel Qaddafi as he struggled to stay in power, the Tuaregs helped themselves to a considerable quantity of sophisticated weaponry before returning to Mali. When they got here, they reinvigorated a longstanding rebellion and blossomed into a major challenge for this impoverished desert nation, an important American ally against the regional Al Qaeda franchise.
The Tuaregs hoisted their rebel flag in the sandy northern towns, shelled military installations, announced the liberation of the area and shouted Allahu akbar, or God is great, according to local officials. Their sudden strength has deeply surprised a Malian Army accustomed to fighting wispy turbaned fighters wielding only Kalashnikov rifles.
Months after the death of Colonel Qaddafi, his weapons have armed a rebel movement in Africa. In life he backed African insurgencies in Chad, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
And for this sparsely populated land, the recent fighting seems a step beyond the armys desert skirmishes with the Tuaregs in the 1960s, the early 1990s and again in 2006. This time, the rebels are not being quickly stamped out or fleeing to the rocky mountains of this vast, inhospitable region. To the contrary, officials now say they are facing perhaps the most serious threat ever from the Tuaregs.
Emboldened by their new weaponry, they have formed a made-to-order liberation movement, the M.N.L.A., or Mouvement National Pour la Libération de lAzawad Azawad being the name they give to northern Mali.
Our goal is to liberate our lands from Malian occupation, said Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, one of the rebel spokesmen in exile in France.
The rebels perhaps as many as 1,000, commanded by a former colonel in Libyas army brought with them enough of an arsenal to create a kind of standoff with the Malian Army.
Heavy weapons, said Malis foreign minister, Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga, referring to the new arms. Antitank weapons. Antiaircraft weapons.
Malian military officials agree. Robust, powerful machine guns, said Lt. Col. Diarran Kone of the Defense Ministry. Mortars, he added, describing the weaponry as significant enough to allow them to achieve their objectives.
About a half-dozen towns in the north have been attacked, including Niafounké. Both government and rebel forces have suffered casualties, and nearly 10,000 civilians have fled the fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The situation appears to have worsened for the Mali government over the past few days. The rebels have retaken the town of Ménaka, a military spokesman, Idrissa Traoré, acknowledged Friday, adding that a number of soldiers and civilians he refused to say how many had been killed by the rebels in the town of Aguelhok. In Bamako, the capital, families of soldiers have demonstrated against what they say is the governments poor handling of the rebel offensive, blocking roads and burning tires. The defense minister has been replaced, and reprisals have been reported against Tuareg citizens living in the south.
Officials in Bamako make no secret of their shock at what one Western diplomat called the robustness of the rebel incursion.
All of a sudden we found ourselves face to face with a thousand men, heavily armed, said Mr. Maïga, the foreign minister. The stability of the entire region could be under threat.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- One revolutionary militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant.
As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption.
The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya's heroes the ones who drove Gadhafi from power and who now keep security in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won't give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too corrupt and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship back into positions of power.
"I am fed up," said the commander of a militia of fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan who control Tripoli's airport. Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar says Libya's politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country's chaos while doing nothing to bring real change.
They believe "revolutionaries have no place in Libya now," said al-Akhdar, who was once a tour company owner in Zintan until he took up arms against Gadhafi and now sports a military uniform. "We paid a very heavy price in the revolution, not for the sake of a seat or authority, but for the sake of freedoms and rights."
As a result, Libya has been flipped upside down, from a country where all power was in the hands of one man, Gadhafi, to one where it has been broken up into hundreds of different hands, each taking its own decisions. The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias into the military and police, while trying to get the economy back on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions hollowed out under Gadhafi.
In one sign of the lack of control, Finance Minister Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gadhafi family assets returned to Libya by European countries a potentially key source of revenue have flowed right back out of Libya, stolen by corrupt officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.
"The money comes for transit only," Zaklam said in a Feb. 6 interview on Libya state TV. He threatened to resign if the government didn't impose control over ports or stop unfreezing the assets. "I can't be a clown," he said.
Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the "Green Snakes," after the signature color of Gadhafi's rule.
At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them but he insisted stopping smuggling was the police and military's responsibility.
The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, fighting over turf and taking the law into their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.
In a report Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International said it found prisoners had been tortured or abused in all but one of 11 militia-run facilities it visited. Detainees told the group they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables and plastic hoses and given electrical shocks.
At least 12 detainees have died since September after torture, it said.
The militias arose during last year's 8-month-long civil war against Gadhafi.
Soon after anti-regime protests first erupted nationwide on Feb. 17, 2011, Libya's second largest city Benghazi and the rest of the eastern half of the country threw off rule from Tripoli. As Gadhafi clamped down in the west, Libyan citizens formed local militias based around a city, town or even neighborhood, taking up arms to fight alongside breakaway army units.
Backed by NATO airstrikes, the militias swept into Tripoli in August, driving out Gadhafi. The militias then were at the forefront of battles for the last regime strongholds, ending with Gadhafi's capture and killing in October at the hands of a militia from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli that endured one of the bloodiest sieges of the civil war.
Since then, militias have carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their hold with checkpoints at the entrances. There are efforts between them to cooperate: If a brigade chases a suspect into another district, it must seek clearance from the local militia, said Jalal al-Gelani, the deputy police chief of the Tripoli neighborhood of Souq al-Jomaa.
But borders often overlap. Disputes break out over personnel or relatives from one militia detained by another. Then the weapons come out and shooting begins. There are usually no casualties, but the battles terrify residents. In January, a gunbattle between Misrata and Zintan revolutionaries erupted in a turf fight over a sports complex. The two sides fired rifles and heavy machine guns, shattering the complex's windows and damaging cars.
The police have been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about a tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.
At night, policemen vanish, afraid of attacks. Police stations are guarded by militiamen.
"Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros," said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing next to the local police station, where a large sign over the entrance read, "No to revenge, yes to forgiveness."
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias
TRIPOLI, Libya -- One revolutionary militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant.
As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption.
The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya's heroes – the ones who drove Gadhafi from power and who now keep security in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won't give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too corrupt and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship back into positions of power.
"I am fed up," said the commander of a militia of fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan who control Tripoli's airport. Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar says Libya's politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country's chaos while doing nothing to bring real change.
They believe "revolutionaries have no place in Libya now," said al-Akhdar, who was once a tour company owner in Zintan until he took up arms against Gadhafi and now sports a military uniform. "We paid a very heavy price in the revolution, not for the sake of a seat or authority, but for the sake of freedoms and rights."
As a result, Libya has been flipped upside down, from a country where all power was in the hands of one man, Gadhafi, to one where it has been broken up into hundreds of different hands, each taking its own decisions. The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias into the military and police, while trying to get the economy back on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions hollowed out under Gadhafi.
In one sign of the lack of control, Finance Minister Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gadhafi family assets returned to Libya by European countries – a potentially key source of revenue – have flowed right back out of Libya, stolen by corrupt officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.
"The money comes for transit only," Zaklam said in a Feb. 6 interview on Libya state TV. He threatened to resign if the government didn't impose control over ports or stop unfreezing the assets. "I can't be a clown," he said.
Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the "Green Snakes," after the signature color of Gadhafi's rule.
At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them – but he insisted stopping smuggling was the police and military's responsibility.
The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, fighting over turf and taking the law into their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.
In a report Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International said it found prisoners had been tortured or abused in all but one of 11 militia-run facilities it visited. Detainees told the group they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables and plastic hoses and given electrical shocks.
At least 12 detainees have died since September after torture, it said.
The militias arose during last year's 8-month-long civil war against Gadhafi.
Soon after anti-regime protests first erupted nationwide on Feb. 17, 2011, Libya's second largest city Benghazi and the rest of the eastern half of the country threw off rule from Tripoli. As Gadhafi clamped down in the west, Libyan citizens formed local militias based around a city, town or even neighborhood, taking up arms to fight alongside breakaway army units.
Backed by NATO airstrikes, the militias swept into Tripoli in August, driving out Gadhafi. The militias then were at the forefront of battles for the last regime strongholds, ending with Gadhafi's capture and killing in October at the hands of a militia from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli that endured one of the bloodiest sieges of the civil war.
Since then, militias have carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their hold with checkpoints at the entrances. There are efforts between them to cooperate: If a brigade chases a suspect into another district, it must seek clearance from the local militia, said Jalal al-Gelani, the deputy police chief of the Tripoli neighborhood of Souq al-Jomaa.
But borders often overlap. Disputes break out over personnel or relatives from one militia detained by another. Then the weapons come out and shooting begins. There are usually no casualties, but the battles terrify residents. In January, a gunbattle between Misrata and Zintan revolutionaries erupted in a turf fight over a sports complex. The two sides fired rifles and heavy machine guns, shattering the complex's windows and damaging cars.
The police have been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about a tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.
At night, policemen vanish, afraid of attacks. Police stations are guarded by militiamen.
"Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros," said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing next to the local police station, where a large sign over the entrance read, "No to revenge, yes to forgiveness."
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias (VIDEO)
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias
TRIPOLI, Libya -- One revolutionary militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant.
As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption.
The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya's heroes – the ones who drove Gadhafi from power and who now keep security in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won't give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too corrupt and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship back into positions of power.
"I am fed up," said the commander of a militia of fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan who control Tripoli's airport. Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar says Libya's politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country's chaos while doing nothing to bring real change.
They believe "revolutionaries have no place in Libya now," said al-Akhdar, who was once a tour company owner in Zintan until he took up arms against Gadhafi and now sports a military uniform. "We paid a very heavy price in the revolution, not for the sake of a seat or authority, but for the sake of freedoms and rights."
As a result, Libya has been flipped upside down, from a country where all power was in the hands of one man, Gadhafi, to one where it has been broken up into hundreds of different hands, each taking its own decisions. The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias into the military and police, while trying to get the economy back on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions hollowed out under Gadhafi.
In one sign of the lack of control, Finance Minister Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gadhafi family assets returned to Libya by European countries – a potentially key source of revenue – have flowed right back out of Libya, stolen by corrupt officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.
"The money comes for transit only," Zaklam said in a Feb. 6 interview on Libya state TV. He threatened to resign if the government didn't impose control over ports or stop unfreezing the assets. "I can't be a clown," he said.
Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the "Green Snakes," after the signature color of Gadhafi's rule.
At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them – but he insisted stopping smuggling was the police and military's responsibility.
The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, fighting over turf and taking the law into their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.
In a report Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International said it found prisoners had been tortured or abused in all but one of 11 militia-run facilities it visited. Detainees told the group they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables and plastic hoses and given electrical shocks.
At least 12 detainees have died since September after torture, it said.
The militias arose during last year's 8-month-long civil war against Gadhafi.
Soon after anti-regime protests first erupted nationwide on Feb. 17, 2011, Libya's second largest city Benghazi and the rest of the eastern half of the country threw off rule from Tripoli. As Gadhafi clamped down in the west, Libyan citizens formed local militias based around a city, town or even neighborhood, taking up arms to fight alongside breakaway army units.
Backed by NATO airstrikes, the militias swept into Tripoli in August, driving out Gadhafi. The militias then were at the forefront of battles for the last regime strongholds, ending with Gadhafi's capture and killing in October at the hands of a militia from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli that endured one of the bloodiest sieges of the civil war.
Since then, militias have carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their hold with checkpoints at the entrances. There are efforts between them to cooperate: If a brigade chases a suspect into another district, it must seek clearance from the local militia, said Jalal al-Gelani, the deputy police chief of the Tripoli neighborhood of Souq al-Jomaa.
But borders often overlap. Disputes break out over personnel or relatives from one militia detained by another. Then the weapons come out and shooting begins. There are usually no casualties, but the battles terrify residents. In January, a gunbattle between Misrata and Zintan revolutionaries erupted in a turf fight over a sports complex. The two sides fired rifles and heavy machine guns, shattering the complex's windows and damaging cars.
The police have been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about a tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.
At night, policemen vanish, afraid of attacks. Police stations are guarded by militiamen.
"Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros," said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing next to the local police station, where a large sign over the entrance read, "No to revenge, yes to forgiveness."
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias (VIDEO)
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias
TRIPOLI, Libya -- One revolutionary militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant.
As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption.
The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya's heroes the ones who drove Gadhafi from power and who now keep security in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won't give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too corrupt and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship back into positions of power.
"I am fed up," said the commander of a militia of fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan who control Tripoli's airport. Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar says Libya's politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country's chaos while doing nothing to bring real change.
They believe "revolutionaries have no place in Libya now," said al-Akhdar, who was once a tour company owner in Zintan until he took up arms against Gadhafi and now sports a military uniform. "We paid a very heavy price in the revolution, not for the sake of a seat or authority, but for the sake of freedoms and rights."
As a result, Libya has been flipped upside down, from a country where all power was in the hands of one man, Gadhafi, to one where it has been broken up into hundreds of different hands, each taking its own decisions. The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias into the military and police, while trying to get the economy back on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions hollowed out under Gadhafi.
In one sign of the lack of control, Finance Minister Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gadhafi family assets returned to Libya by European countries a potentially key source of revenue have flowed right back out of Libya, stolen by corrupt officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.
"The money comes for transit only," Zaklam said in a Feb. 6 interview on Libya state TV. He threatened to resign if the government didn't impose control over ports or stop unfreezing the assets. "I can't be a clown," he said.
Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the "Green Snakes," after the signature color of Gadhafi's rule.
At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them but he insisted stopping smuggling was the police and military's responsibility.
The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, fighting over turf and taking the law into their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.
In a report Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International said it found prisoners had been tortured or abused in all but one of 11 militia-run facilities it visited. Detainees told the group they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables and plastic hoses and given electrical shocks.
At least 12 detainees have died since September after torture, it said.
The militias arose during last year's 8-month-long civil war against Gadhafi.
Soon after anti-regime protests first erupted nationwide on Feb. 17, 2011, Libya's second largest city Benghazi and the rest of the eastern half of the country threw off rule from Tripoli. As Gadhafi clamped down in the west, Libyan citizens formed local militias based around a city, town or even neighborhood, taking up arms to fight alongside breakaway army units.
Backed by NATO airstrikes, the militias swept into Tripoli in August, driving out Gadhafi. The militias then were at the forefront of battles for the last regime strongholds, ending with Gadhafi's capture and killing in October at the hands of a militia from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli that endured one of the bloodiest sieges of the civil war.
Since then, militias have carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their hold with checkpoints at the entrances. There are efforts between them to cooperate: If a brigade chases a suspect into another district, it must seek clearance from the local militia, said Jalal al-Gelani, the deputy police chief of the Tripoli neighborhood of Souq al-Jomaa.
But borders often overlap. Disputes break out over personnel or relatives from one militia detained by another. Then the weapons come out and shooting begins. There are usually no casualties, but the battles terrify residents. In January, a gunbattle between Misrata and Zintan revolutionaries erupted in a turf fight over a sports complex. The two sides fired rifles and heavy machine guns, shattering the complex's windows and damaging cars.
The police have been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about a tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.
At night, policemen vanish, afraid of attacks. Police stations are guarded by militiamen.
"Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros," said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing next to the local police station, where a large sign over the entrance read, "No to revenge, yes to forgiveness."
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias (VIDEO)
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias
TRIPOLI, Libya -- One revolutionary militia controls the airport. Others carve up neighborhoods of the Libyan capital into fiefdoms. They clash in the streets, terrifying residents. They hold detainees in makeshift prisons where torture is said to be rampant.
As Libya on Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi, hundreds of armed militias are the real power on the ground in the country, and the government that took the longtime strongman's place is largely impotent, unable to rein in fighters, rebuild decimated institutions or stop widespread corruption.
The revolutionary militias contend they are Libya's heroes the ones who drove Gadhafi from power and who now keep security in the streets at a time when the police and military are all but nonexistent. They insist they won't give up their weapons to a government that is too weak, too corrupt and, they fear, too willing to let elements of the old dictatorship back into positions of power.
"I am fed up," said the commander of a militia of fighters from the western mountain town of Zintan who control Tripoli's airport. Al-Mukhtar al-Akhdar says Libya's politicians unfairly blame the militias for the country's chaos while doing nothing to bring real change.
They believe "revolutionaries have no place in Libya now," said al-Akhdar, who was once a tour company owner in Zintan until he took up arms against Gadhafi and now sports a military uniform. "We paid a very heavy price in the revolution, not for the sake of a seat or authority, but for the sake of freedoms and rights."
As a result, Libya has been flipped upside down, from a country where all power was in the hands of one man, Gadhafi, to one where it has been broken up into hundreds of different hands, each taking its own decisions. The National Transitional Council, which officially rules the country, is struggling to incorporate the militias into the military and police, while trying to get the economy back on its feet and reshape government ministries, courts and other institutions hollowed out under Gadhafi.
In one sign of the lack of control, Finance Minister Hassan Zaklam admitted that millions of dollars from Gadhafi family assets returned to Libya by European countries a potentially key source of revenue have flowed right back out of Libya, stolen by corrupt officials and smuggled out in suitcases through the ports.
"The money comes for transit only," Zaklam said in a Feb. 6 interview on Libya state TV. He threatened to resign if the government didn't impose control over ports or stop unfreezing the assets. "I can't be a clown," he said.
Government spokesman Ashur Shamis blamed revolutionaries in charge of ports and middle- and lower-ranking bureaucrats from the old regime who still retain their posts, known among Libyans as the "Green Snakes," after the signature color of Gadhafi's rule.
At the airport, al-Akhdar blamed customs employees and said his fighters are keeping a closer eye on them but he insisted stopping smuggling was the police and military's responsibility.
The militias, meanwhile, are accused of acting like vigilantes and armed gangs, fighting over turf and taking the law into their own hands. Many run private prisons, detaining criminals, suspected former regime members or simply people who run afoul of the fighters.
In a report Wednesday, London-based Amnesty International said it found prisoners had been tortured or abused in all but one of 11 militia-run facilities it visited. Detainees told the group they had been beaten for hours with whips, cables and plastic hoses and given electrical shocks.
At least 12 detainees have died since September after torture, it said.
The militias arose during last year's 8-month-long civil war against Gadhafi.
Soon after anti-regime protests first erupted nationwide on Feb. 17, 2011, Libya's second largest city Benghazi and the rest of the eastern half of the country threw off rule from Tripoli. As Gadhafi clamped down in the west, Libyan citizens formed local militias based around a city, town or even neighborhood, taking up arms to fight alongside breakaway army units.
Backed by NATO airstrikes, the militias swept into Tripoli in August, driving out Gadhafi. The militias then were at the forefront of battles for the last regime strongholds, ending with Gadhafi's capture and killing in October at the hands of a militia from Misrata, a city east of Tripoli that endured one of the bloodiest sieges of the civil war.
Since then, militias have carved up neighborhoods in Tripoli and other cities, establishing their hold with checkpoints at the entrances. There are efforts between them to cooperate: If a brigade chases a suspect into another district, it must seek clearance from the local militia, said Jalal al-Gelani, the deputy police chief of the Tripoli neighborhood of Souq al-Jomaa.
But borders often overlap. Disputes break out over personnel or relatives from one militia detained by another. Then the weapons come out and shooting begins. There are usually no casualties, but the battles terrify residents. In January, a gunbattle between Misrata and Zintan revolutionaries erupted in a turf fight over a sports complex. The two sides fired rifles and heavy machine guns, shattering the complex's windows and damaging cars.
The police have been eclipsed. When Tripoli fell, most police fled and shed their uniforms, fearful of revenge attacks. The police chief in Souq al-Jomaa never came back. Now there are about 200 police in the Souq al-Jomaa station, about a tenth of the number of militiamen, said one officer, Mustafa al-Darnawi.
At night, policemen vanish, afraid of attacks. Police stations are guarded by militiamen.
"Without revolutionaries, the police are zeros," said a Souq al-Jomaa resident, 24-year-old Ahmed Hajaji, standing next to the local police station, where a large sign over the entrance read, "No to revenge, yes to forgiveness."
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias (VIDEO)
This is the ebb and flow of Islamic tribes fighting for control of the other tribes. The land?
It's just land to the tribes. They never created the country. No country controlled by Arabs has been created by Arabs. They've been created by incoming and outgoing Empires.
These are tribes fighting inter-tribal warfare to gain subjugation of all the other tribes in the arena.
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias (VIDEO)
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias
Libya: A Year After Uprising Against Moammar Gadhafi, Power Held By Hundreds Of Militias (VIDEO)
This is the ebb and flow of Islamic tribes fighting for control of the other tribes. The land?
It's just land to the tribes. They never created the country. No country controlled by Arabs has been created by Arabs. They've been created by incoming and outgoing Empires.
These are tribes fighting inter-tribal warfare to gain subjugation of all the other tribes in the arena.
The thing is we both know Libya has oil and has the full cooperation of the international community, do you think they will be able to turn this thing around?
This is the ebb and flow of Islamic tribes fighting for control of the other tribes. The land?
It's just land to the tribes. They never created the country. No country controlled by Arabs has been created by Arabs. They've been created by incoming and outgoing Empires.
These are tribes fighting inter-tribal warfare to gain subjugation of all the other tribes in the arena.
The thing is we both know Libya has oil and has the full cooperation of the international community, do you think they will be able to turn this thing around?
In the same way Ghadaffi turned it around when it was his turn. This is how we will see if there's any difference from back then to now.
If it's a dictator tribal leader controlling the other tribes by subjugation? No difference.
If it produces a Democracy? I just don't see it happening HG.
The thing is we both know Libya has oil and has the full cooperation of the international community, do you think they will be able to turn this thing around?
In the same way Ghadaffi turned it around when it was his turn. This is how we will see if there's any difference from back then to now.
If it's a dictator tribal leader controlling the other tribes by subjugation? No difference.
If it produces a Democracy? I just don't see it happening HG.
All I can ask for is for the Libyans to have a country that is semi friendly towards the West and Israel, friendly towards its neighbors, and not be a safe house for Al Qaeda types.
The thing is we both know Libya has oil and has the full cooperation of the international community, do you think they will be able to turn this thing around?
In the same way Ghadaffi turned it around when it was his turn. This is how we will see if there's any difference from back then to now.
If it's a dictator tribal leader controlling the other tribes by subjugation? No difference.
If it produces a Democracy? I just don't see it happening HG.
All I can ask for is for the Libyans to have a country that is semi friendly towards the West and Israel, friendly towards its neighbors, and not be a safe house for Al Qaeda types.
MISRATA, Libya (AP) Four months after the death of Moammar Gadhafi, the people of Misrata were frustrated by stalled reforms. They played a key role in overthrowing the Libyan dictator of 42 years, and were impatient to see the changes they shed blood for.
Revolutionaries accused the self-appointed city council that came to power early in the uprising of deeply rooted corruption, allegations which the council head denied. They staged a sit-in on the council's steps, got the members to resign and call new elections, which were held on Monday.
The vote was the first experiment in real democracy anywhere in Libya, and the fact that it happened here only demonstrated the newfound clout of Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, on the national political scene.
It was also another example of how Libya is splintering into largely autonomous city-states, with powerful local militias and emerging local governments that at best have loose ties to the Tripoli-based central government known as the National Transitional Council.
"This is a turn in Libya from suppression and dictatorship to democracy," said Abdullah al-Kabir, a political commentator in Misrata. "Libya has never known real elections."
So far, cities like Misrata are pushing ahead even faster with the transition to democracy than the national government is.
The National Transitional Council says elections for the 200-member national assembly will be held in June but no date has been set. The assembly will name a new government and select a panel to write a constitution.
But many Libyans are frustrated with what they call a slow pace of political transformation. The coastal city of Benghazi, which was the rebel capital during the uprising, has also sacked its council and called for elections next month.
The rebellious coastal city of Misrata, with about 300,000 residents, suffered horribly during last year's revolution. Gadhafi's forces shelled the city for weeks, and fierce street battles left thousands dead, missing or injured. Mothers sent their sons to the front lines, while selling their gold jewelry to finance arms purchases.
The inexperienced but tenacious Misrata rebels managed to push Gadhafi's forces out of the city in late April, a turning point that left the regime increasingly isolated in the capital and a few other cities in the western half of Libya.
Then the Misratan rebels pushed out of the city. Working with insurgents from the western mountains along the border with Tunisia, they converged from two sides on the regime stronghold of Tripoli and brought the capital down in a few days.
A few months later in October, it was rebels from Misrata who captured Gadhafi in his hometown and final stronghold of Sirte and killed him. They hauled him back to Misrata and put his rotting body on public display in a vegetable cooler for days, while the city's residents gleefully lined up to see it.
Reminders of those vicious battles were all around Monday as Misratans gathered at the polls to vote for the 28-member local council.
Banners hung on the walls of bullet-gouged houses, which were scrawled with the names of martyrs who died during the uprising. Voters wrapped themselves in Libyan flags as they stood in line to cast their ballot.
Residents of the Mediterranean coastal city had grown increasingly impatient with a lack of guidance from the National Transitional Council based in Tripoli, 125 miles (200 kilometers) to the northwest. The council was supposed to be the country's central authority during the transition period.
Misratans drew once again on their independent streak and decided to forge ahead with a local election on their own.
"The (city) council was not up to the level of what the city accomplished during the revolution," said Abdel-Basit Boum Zariq, the deputy head of the city's human rights commission.
At one school where voters cast their ballots, the smell of fresh paint wafted through the halls. Gamela al-Tohami, the school director, waved her purple ink-stained finger which has become the universal sign for voting across the Middle East. She said Gadhafi forces shelled the school during the fighting and only recently holes in the walls that had been used by snipers had been refilled.
"This is the first time we have seen real democracy in my entire life. Before we were being monitored and terrorized," she said.
Even before Gadhafi came to power in September 1969, elections were widely rigged.
During Gadhafi's era, the closest thing to democracy were elections held for local bodies called "people's committees" but the vote was generally regarded as a farce to rubber-stamp regime candidates.
As Gadhafi's control began to disintegrate last year, councils composed of judges, lawyers and businessmen were formed in cities around the country. But many council members were members of the old regime with little legitimacy.
After the fighting died down in Misrata, many residents grew angry at what they said was corruption among the council members. Tarek bin Hameda, one candidate running for city council, said the outgoing council was not transparent.
I would so like to see a full tribal party system and cooperation between the parties for the better of the country, not simply the individual tribes attempting to gain total control over the others.
It could happen indeed. I wait with bated breath to see just what these Al Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood groups will do.
al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood Strongmen in Control of Libya
At the moment, it does not look so good, but who knows.
man, these clowns could end up being 10 times worse than Gaddafi.
He was one of the last people to see Muammar Gaddafi alive. He was there when the Libyan dictator's convoy was struck by NATO and when he was captured by rebel forces. Now Mansour Iddhow, the former head of Libya's homeland security, has spoken from a Libyan prison with Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley about his former boss' final days.
According to Iddhow, Libya's former leader had no escape plan. After the fall of Tripoli into rebel hands, Gaddafi saw no other option than to head for his home town Sirte. "Gaddafi didn't plan anything, nor did his son Motassim, nor the head of security," Iddhow said. "From the moment we arrived in Sirte, Abdullah Senussi and I advised him to leave because it was a small city and could easily be blocked. It was like a room, with nowhere to go. Staying was suicide. But Gaddafi did not listen to us."
Iddhow's account echoes earlier statements made by Gaddafi's driver Huneish Nasr and bodyguard Mansur Dao.
Huneish Nasr, Gaddafi's driver for 30 years, told The Guardian in an interview that "Gaddafi wasn't scared, but he didn't seem to know what to do."
Nasr told the Guardian:
Everything was exploding. The revolutionaries were coming for us. He wasn't scared, but he didn't seem to know what to do. It was the only time I ever saw him like that.
Bodyguard Mansur Dao, who was also traveling in the convoy, told the Associated Press that Gaddafi was not leading the battle in those final days; instead, his sons were in charge. "We were scared of the airstrikes and the shelling," Dao said, adding that he did not believe that Gaddafi was afraid.
Gaddafi was captured on October 20, 2011, after NATO bombed the convoy in which he was travelling on the outskirts of the city of Sirte. Gaddafi was captured and later died in rebel custody. According to the Associated Press, Gaddafi and his entourage were "largely cut off from the world while on the run, living in abandoned homes without TV, phones or electricity, using candles for light," and the ousted leader spent his time "reading, jotting down notes or brewing tea on a coal stove."
Libya's interim leadership has apologized after armed men destroyed the graves of British and Italian soldiers killed during World War II, al-Jazeera reports.
A smashed gravestone in Benghazi. (YouTube) Footage of the attack posted to YouTube shows the men systematically kicking over headstones and smashing a metal and stone cross with a sledgehammer in broad daylight.
This is a grave of a Christian, one man says as he uproots a headstone from the ground. These are dogs, another says. Come and see the inscription on this ... There is Hebrew writing on it, says a third, in reference to a headstone.
[We] will confront this matter and, in line with Libyan law, will pursue those people who committed this act, the Transitional National Council said in a statement on its Web site. The council has led the country since last years uprising toppled Moammar Gaddafi. This action does not reflect Libyan public opinion because Islam calls for respect for other religions.
The attacks took place at two cemeteries in Benghazi, city in the eastern part of the country where British and Commonwealth troops fought against German and Italian forces during the war. More than a thousand Commonwealth soldiers are buried at the cemeteries. Hundreds of headstones were damaged.
In a statement on its Web site, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission confirmed that both the Benghazi War Cemetery and the Benghazi British Military Cemetery were attacked over the weekend, and said they would be fully restored, though this could take some time.
Australian officials on Monday said they were appalled and disgusted by these reports, and were working to determine how many Australian soldiers headstones had been affected, the AFP reports.
A spokesman for the British foreign office told BlogPost via e-mail that officials from the British embassy in Tripoli had visited the cemeteries, raised the issue with the Libyan foreign affairs ministry and Benghazi police chief and received an apology from the transitional council.
A British foreign office spokesman told al-Jazeera there was no evidence that the incident was linked to anger over the recent burning of copies of the Koran on a NATO air base in Afghanistan.
Baghdad - Libya has restored full diplomatic relations with Iraq and plans to send an ambassador to Baghdad more than eight years after cutting off ties, Iraq's deputy foreign minister said on Friday.
"There was a delegation that came here, and they said that this decision is under discussion at the foreign ministry in Libya and this step will be taken soon, and they took that step yesterday," Labid Abbawi told AFP.
Abbawi was referring to a visit to Baghdad by then Libyan interim premier Mahmud Jibril in October.
Libya announced in June 2003 it was breaking off diplomatic ties with Iraq and closing its embassy shortly after the US-led invasion of the country earlier that year.
American authorities had said at the time foreign diplomats in Iraq no longer enjoyed diplomatic immunity or any of the privileges they were accorded under their accreditation to now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, April 6 (UPI) -- The International Criminal Court demanded Libya give up ex-dictator Moammar Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam Gadhafi so he can be tried for crimes against humanity.
The 39-year-old London School of Economics doctoral graduate has been held largely without access to the outside world since his Nov. 19, 2011, capture by post-revolution Libyan fighters as he tried to flee to neighboring Niger. His father had been killed a month earlier.
"The brutal death of Moammar Gadhafi deprived the Libyan people of their right to justice, and their right to the truth. It would be a travesty for the prospects of a free and fair Libyan state if the same were to occur to his son," lawyers Xavier-Jean Keita and Melinda Taylor, appointed by the ICC to represent Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, said in a statement.
Gadhafi has been kept in a "legal black hole," held for 139 days in "total isolation" except for visits from officials, the lawyers said.
Libyan authorities say they intend to put Gadhafi on trial, but they have charged him with "trivial allegations," such as failure to license his camels, and with irregularities concerning fish farms, the lawyers said.
By contrast, the permanent tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, wants to prosecute him for crimes against humanity and issued an arrest warrant against Moammar Gadhafi's former heir apparent last June, they said.
A U.N. Security Council resolution requires Gadhafi be delivered to the court, and ICC judges urged Libya's rulers Wednesday to "proceed immediately with the surrender."
"At no point have the Libyan authorities been legally justified in their failure to surrender him to the ICC," the lawyers said Thursday.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said if Libyan authorities can adequately explain their plans, the court court would let Libya proceed with its case.
"According to the rules, Libya has the primacy to prosecute Saif, so if they present this to the International Criminal Court judges, probably they will get an approval," Moreno-Ocampo said.
"That's the system. The system is the primacy for the national judges," he said.
He should be prosecuted in Libya by the Libyans and not in that joke of a court in the Hague.
TRIPOLI, Libya Ahmed Mostafa and his friends paid thousands of dollars among them to get to Libya recently, traveling with gangs of smugglers through Western Africa. It was to be their escape from the sprawling slums of Ghana's capital city, Accra.
Mostafa had heard rumors of arbitrary arrests and Libyan lynch mobs during the war last year in which longtime Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi was ousted and killed. But he was counting on luck: "It was not something I really thought about," he said. "I thought I would come and secure some work. Then send some money to my family."
Instead, he and his 10 friends wound up in a government-run prison, Twoshi Detention Center, sleeping on small foam mattresses, dozens to a room. A militia had spied them two weeks earlier walking along a dusty road in the country's north and detained them. They remain in the prison, uncharged and without legal representation.
In Libya, illegal migration is once again picking up, conducted through two primary trafficking corridors in the east and west of the country. A stream of Africans Somalis, Eritreans, Nigerians, Sudanese, Malians dreaming of a new life have made the perilous trip to Libya. But as turmoil continues to reign through much of the country, many of these migrants are being rounded up and detained, in some cases, to be exploited as forced laborers.
"The going rate for a migrant is anywhere from 260 to 800 Libyan dinars," or about $210 to $645, said Jeremy Haslam, chief of the Libya mission for the International Organization for Migration. "One of the problems is that many detention facilities are not currently under state control, instead administered by local councils and even private parties. The latter may involve organized crime, running human trafficking operations modern-day slavery."
At some detention facilities, staff members lease out black African detainees to employers, who make a contribution to the jails to help cover costs. Other migrants are said to be sold outright to employers.
"In some circumstances, it can appear like a legitimate transaction but is essentially exploitative," Haslam said. "And it's widespread."
Migrants often "work off" the debt of their sale, Haslam said, and have no chance to negotiate hours or rates or the kind of work they do.
"With no status in the country, the cycle can continue indefinitely, with the migrant re-traded once the employer no longer needs their services," he said.
Libya's borders have long been haunted by smuggling rings that ferry drugs, weapons and migrants through an intricate web of clandestine trading routes. The country's relative wealth, gleaned mainly from its oil industry providing an annual per capita income of $12,000, the highest in Africa has ensured its place as a destination for illegal immigrants.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- He was the embodiment of one of modern Libya's darkest chapters a man synonymous with horrifying scenes of wreckage, broken families and a plane that fell out of the sky a generation ago. His name, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, was little known compared to the single word that his deeds represented: Lockerbie.
Seven months after his patron dictator Moammar Gadhafi was slain in a revolution that began a new chapter for his homeland, al-Megrahi died Sunday of cancer, leaving behind countless unanswered questions about the midair attack in 1988 that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland. All 259 people on board mostly Americans and 11 on the ground were killed.
"I am an innocent man," al-Megrahi insisted, most recently in his final interview in December, in the final stages of prostate cancer. "I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family."
But his death at age 60 leaves no peace for families who still question his guilt and whether others in one of history's deadliest terror attacks went unpunished. Scotland's government said it would continue to investigate the bombing even after al-Megrahi's death.
"He holds the key to what actually took place in Pan Am 103," said Bert Ammerman, whose brother was killed in the bombing. "He knows what other individuals were involved and, more importantly, what other countries were involved."
His attorneys had argued that the Libyan intelligence officer was scapegoated to protect the real culprits: Palestinians acting on the behest of Iran.
Al-Megrahi's death comes about three years after Scottish authorities released him on humanitarian grounds, to the outrage of victims' relatives. At the time, doctors predicted he had only three months to live after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Anger over his release was further stoked by the hero's welcome he received on his arrival in Libya and by subsequent accusations that London had sought his release to protect business interests in oil-rich Libya. Britain and Scotland denied the allegations.
In the months ahead of his release, Tripoli put pressure on Britain, warning that if the ailing al-Megrahi died in a Scottish prison, all British commercial activity in Libya would be cut off and a wave of demonstrations would erupt outside British embassies, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic memos. The Libyans even implied "that the welfare of U.K. diplomats and citizens in Libya would be at risk," the memos say.
