As Moammar Gadhafi's grip on swaths of Libya faltered, army units and militiamen launched a swift and reportedly brutal counterattack Thursday against protesters who have risen up in cities close to the capital.
In Zawiya, some 30 miles west of Tripoli, an army unit attacked the city's Souq mosque, where regime opponents had been camped for days in a protest calling for Gadhafi's ouster, a witness said. The soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons and hit the mosque's minaret with fire from an anti-aircraft gun, he said. Some of the young men among the protesters, who were inside the mosque and in a nearby lot, had hunting rifles for protection.
A doctor at a field clinic set up at the mosque said he saw the bodies of 10 dead, shot in the head and chest, as well as around 150 wounded.
The witness said an envoy from Gadhafi had come to Zawiya a day earlier and warned protesters: "Either leave or you will see a massacre."
"What is happening is horrible. Those who attacked us are not the mercenaries — they are sons of our country," he said, sobbing. After the assault, thousands massed in the city's main Martyrs Square, shouting, "Leave, leave!" in reference to Gadhafi, he said.
In a speech carried on Al-Jazeera, a voice purported to be Gadhafi's chastised the people of Zawiya, telling them to "control your children." He blamed the revolt on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and said the uprising has been carried out by young men hopped up on al-Qaida-supplied hallucinogenic pills given to them "in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe."
Libya's leader claimed that "no one above the age of 20" was participating in the unrest and that young men get "trigger-happy and shoot, especially when they get stoned on drugs."
Outside Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, militiamen reportedly attacked a line of residents who were protecting a small airport, opening fire with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
"They left piles of human remains and [a] swamp of blood," according to a resident who said he witnessed the assault. "The hospitals are packed with those killed and injured." But he could not provide exact figures.
Independent estimates of the number of people killed range from 233 to as many as 1,000. Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, Moammar Gadhafi's son, said that such reports are exaggerated, although he didn't provide his own figures.
During a news conference Thursday aired on state TV, the younger Gadhafi said the number killed by police and the army had been limited and "talking about hundreds and thousands [killed] is a joke."
In Benghazi, the scene of a bloody battle that ended just days ago, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reported that hundreds of people have converged on an army base where they believe secret prisons run by the regime may have existed.
"They say they are shocked by what they found," she said. "In one case, they found an underground prison where 50 people were being held, and they are now digging frantically looking for mass graves."
A senior Libyan army commander who defected to the side of anti-government protesters said Thursday that his soldiers were training volunteers to join the fight to topple Gadhafi.
Maj. Gen. Soliman Mahmoud Al-Obeidy, who commands army units based in the eastern city of Tobruk, allied with rebel forces Wednesday. He told NPR that fresh volunteers were coming in every day.
"They are using some of the army officers that defected here in the east," Garcia-Navarro said. "They are training them on heavy weapons and army tactics to go help protesters in the west of the country who are still under the control of Moammar Gadhafi."
Exodus By Land, Sea, Air Continues
Even as the rebellion moves closer to Gadhafi's bastion in the capital, home to a third of Libya's 6 million people, thousands of people were struggling to leave Libya by land, sea and air.
NPR's Tom Gjelten reported that Tunisians who worked in Libya were streaming back across the border. At one checkpoint, Tunisians "enthusiatically cheered as they crossed the border denouncing Gadhafi."
Two ships braved churning seas Thursday to whisk 4,500 Chinese workers away from Libya to the island of Crete, while rough weather farther west left hundreds of Americans stranded on a ferry in Tripoli.
Americans who eagerly climbed aboard the Maria Dolores ferry at Tripoli's As-shahab Port on Wednesday faced a long delay in their travel plans. Strong winds have been whipping up high waves in the Mediterranean Sea, and the 600-passenger catamaran ferry was not likely to leave for the eight-hour journey to Malta until Friday.
"The ferry will depart when the weather improves. At the moment, we're anticipating this will happen by tomorrow morning, but we're waiting for an updated weather report," said Elijah Waterman of the U.S. Embassy in Malta.
People who managed to flee Tripoli by air described sheer chaos at the airport, with people shoving and climbing over each other to get on planes. Amateur video showed crowds of people jammed shoulder to shoulder, some appearing to be camped out.
"The airport is just a zoo. There's about 10,000 people there, all trying to get out," Ewan Black of Britain told the BBC as he got off a flight at London's Gatwick Airport.
Those who made it out of Libya described a frightening scene, with bodies hanging from electricity poles in Libya's eastern port of Benghazi and militia trucks driving around loaded up with dead bodies. One video showed a tank apparently crushing a car with people inside.
Europe Prepares Sanctions Against Libya
International momentum has been building for action to punish Gadhafi's regime for the bloodshed.
President Obama said the suffering in Libya "is outrageous and it is unacceptable," and he directed his administration to prepare a full range of options, including possible sanctions that could freeze the assets and ban travel to the U.S. by Libyan officials.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the possibility of the European Union's cutting off economic ties.
The European Union said Thursday that it is preparing sanctions against Libya. Some EU governments have had a close relationship with Gadhafi, but all 27 united in a threat of sanctions against him if mass violations of human rights continue.
"I have seen horrible crimes that are unacceptable and must not remain without consequences," European Union President Herman van Rompuy said.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said she wants Gadhafi's regime investigated for war crimes before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
With reporting from NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in Benghazi and Tom Gjelten on the Libya-Tunisia border. This story contains material from The Associated Press.
In Zawiya, some 30 miles west of Tripoli, an army unit attacked the city's Souq mosque, where regime opponents had been camped for days in a protest calling for Gadhafi's ouster, a witness said. The soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons and hit the mosque's minaret with fire from an anti-aircraft gun, he said. Some of the young men among the protesters, who were inside the mosque and in a nearby lot, had hunting rifles for protection.
AFP/Getty Images
A protester holds an old national flag in front of a wall covered with graffiti against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in the eastern city of Tobruk on Thursday.
The witness said an envoy from Gadhafi had come to Zawiya a day earlier and warned protesters: "Either leave or you will see a massacre."
"What is happening is horrible. Those who attacked us are not the mercenaries — they are sons of our country," he said, sobbing. After the assault, thousands massed in the city's main Martyrs Square, shouting, "Leave, leave!" in reference to Gadhafi, he said.
In a speech carried on Al-Jazeera, a voice purported to be Gadhafi's chastised the people of Zawiya, telling them to "control your children." He blamed the revolt on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and said the uprising has been carried out by young men hopped up on al-Qaida-supplied hallucinogenic pills given to them "in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe."
Libya's leader claimed that "no one above the age of 20" was participating in the unrest and that young men get "trigger-happy and shoot, especially when they get stoned on drugs."
Related NPR Stories
Provisional Government Forming In Eastern Libya
In Bayda, the rebels are in control and trying to organize themselves. Libyans Flee As Gadhafi's Hold Over Country Weakens
Anti-government protesters claimed control of many cities, but Tripoli remained with Gadhafi. Nearby Uprisings Stoke Saudis' Political Passions
More than ever before, Saudis are demanding political reform.
"They left piles of human remains and [a] swamp of blood," according to a resident who said he witnessed the assault. "The hospitals are packed with those killed and injured." But he could not provide exact figures.
Independent estimates of the number of people killed range from 233 to as many as 1,000. Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, Moammar Gadhafi's son, said that such reports are exaggerated, although he didn't provide his own figures.
During a news conference Thursday aired on state TV, the younger Gadhafi said the number killed by police and the army had been limited and "talking about hundreds and thousands [killed] is a joke."
In Benghazi, the scene of a bloody battle that ended just days ago, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reported that hundreds of people have converged on an army base where they believe secret prisons run by the regime may have existed.
"They say they are shocked by what they found," she said. "In one case, they found an underground prison where 50 people were being held, and they are now digging frantically looking for mass graves."
A senior Libyan army commander who defected to the side of anti-government protesters said Thursday that his soldiers were training volunteers to join the fight to topple Gadhafi.
Maj. Gen. Soliman Mahmoud Al-Obeidy, who commands army units based in the eastern city of Tobruk, allied with rebel forces Wednesday. He told NPR that fresh volunteers were coming in every day.
The Arab World
Exodus By Land, Sea, Air Continues
Even as the rebellion moves closer to Gadhafi's bastion in the capital, home to a third of Libya's 6 million people, thousands of people were struggling to leave Libya by land, sea and air.
NPR's Tom Gjelten reported that Tunisians who worked in Libya were streaming back across the border. At one checkpoint, Tunisians "enthusiatically cheered as they crossed the border denouncing Gadhafi."
Two ships braved churning seas Thursday to whisk 4,500 Chinese workers away from Libya to the island of Crete, while rough weather farther west left hundreds of Americans stranded on a ferry in Tripoli.
Americans who eagerly climbed aboard the Maria Dolores ferry at Tripoli's As-shahab Port on Wednesday faced a long delay in their travel plans. Strong winds have been whipping up high waves in the Mediterranean Sea, and the 600-passenger catamaran ferry was not likely to leave for the eight-hour journey to Malta until Friday.
AFP/Getty Images
Libyans shout anti-Gadhafi slogans during a demonstration in the eastern town of Derna, between Tobruk and Benghazi.
People who managed to flee Tripoli by air described sheer chaos at the airport, with people shoving and climbing over each other to get on planes. Amateur video showed crowds of people jammed shoulder to shoulder, some appearing to be camped out.
"The airport is just a zoo. There's about 10,000 people there, all trying to get out," Ewan Black of Britain told the BBC as he got off a flight at London's Gatwick Airport.
Those who made it out of Libya described a frightening scene, with bodies hanging from electricity poles in Libya's eastern port of Benghazi and militia trucks driving around loaded up with dead bodies. One video showed a tank apparently crushing a car with people inside.
Europe Prepares Sanctions Against Libya
International momentum has been building for action to punish Gadhafi's regime for the bloodshed.
President Obama said the suffering in Libya "is outrageous and it is unacceptable," and he directed his administration to prepare a full range of options, including possible sanctions that could freeze the assets and ban travel to the U.S. by Libyan officials.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the possibility of the European Union's cutting off economic ties.
The European Union said Thursday that it is preparing sanctions against Libya. Some EU governments have had a close relationship with Gadhafi, but all 27 united in a threat of sanctions against him if mass violations of human rights continue.
"I have seen horrible crimes that are unacceptable and must not remain without consequences," European Union President Herman van Rompuy said.
The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said she wants Gadhafi's regime investigated for war crimes before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
With reporting from NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in Benghazi and Tom Gjelten on the Libya-Tunisia border. This story contains material from The Associated Press.
Provisional Government Forming In Eastern Libya
Listen to the Story
[4 min 50 sec]
Libyan TV/AFP/Getty Images
An image broadcast on Libyan state television on Sunday shows damage caused by fire to the local council building in the eastern city of Bayda. The city is now in the hands of anti-Gadhafi rebels who are forming a provisional government.
In eastern Libya, in the city of Bayda, a provisional government was being formed. The new leadership also is holding some Gadhafi loyalists hostage.
As the first Western journalists many of the residents of Bayda had ever seen were led into the meeting, the crowd gave a standing ovation — quickly followed by cries of "Freedom, Freedom!" and "Libya, Libya!"
This building had been a symbol of Gadhafi's regime — where his revolutionary council would meet to discuss local affairs.
A new revolution was finding its voice in Bayda, and its fighters were vowing to end Gadhafi's reign. Some people were crying, others pumping their fists in the air.
"Ordinary people, doctors, lawyers are talking about how we can coordinate with all other cities in Libya who are now under the protesters' control," says Ahmed Jibril, a former diplomat at the Libyan mission at the United Nations.
He says this is the beginning of a new government.
"We have a former minister of justice who just resigned three or four days ago," Jibril says. "He's among us and people agreed ... he would be one of the people in control."
In eastern Libya, it's still chaotic. On the streets, heavily armed and masked young men man checkpoints. There are tanks and anti-aircraft guns that have been looted from military bases positioned around towns and cities — and they are all in the hands of the rebel forces.
Jibril says that eastern Libya will defend itself, but they want a united country. "We will not divide Libya. We will not accept a division of Libya," he says.
Libya is a country of huge oil wealth, but also great poverty. Abdullah Mortady, an architect who hasn't built anything for 15 years, says the people here want to use Libya's riches for the people, not just for the enrichment of one family.
"We want to build our country," he says. "Infrastructure is nothing. Building is nothing. Our morality is completely destroyed. Today I can't speak because for 42 years we didn't speak, even our voice completely disappeared."
The new leadership is asserting itself. An elementary school has been converted into a prison, where around 100 pro-Gadhafi fighters are being kept in detention. They are what remains of a group of fighters who had holed up at a nearby airport and then were forced to surrender after a bloody battle that left a dozen people dead on Tuesday.
Many of the men are wounded, but they've been given blankets and medical attention. They are clearly scared. Most of the men say they are Libyans from the south. Among them are four men from Chad who look weak and malnourished. They declined to talk.
There have been rumors of foreign mercenaries being shipped in by the planeload to fight for Gadhafi in the east, but there is scant evidence of them here.
A Libyan soldier in detention, Ismael Salem Abu Salah, acknowledges that he was sent in to quell the initial unrest. He says he was fired upon first by the pro-democracy forces and that is why the troops fired back.
He adds that he's been treated well since he's been in detention.
The fate of these men is unclear. There is no court to try them and many in the city have been calling for their execution, especially among the younger men.
The older generation, which is now trying to form a government, is ensuring they are protected.
"The leaders, the wise people ... they had a meeting and they said they should stop these youth from, you know, from revenge, you know, because some of the youth have two or three brothers killed from the same family," says Dr. Masoud Abdullah, a professor of management science. "I was there in that meeting. It all comes down to the older generation who stopped the youth from taking revenge and ... killing them."
But he adds that they haven't been released yet because "the uprising hasn't finished. We don't know what will happen to this area. They might stop electricity; they might stop sending gas here, milk, food. We don't know."
They will use them as a way to negotiate with the regime, he says, if it should come to that.
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/134003954/New-Government-Forms-In-Eastern-Libya
Related NPR Stories
Gadhafi's Hold Over Country Weakens Feb. 23, 2011
Nearby Uprisings Stoke Saudis' Political Passions Feb. 23, 2011
Tunisia Embraces Libyan Refugees Feb. 23, 2011
The Enigma Of Gadhafi, A Pariah Once Again Feb. 23, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment