Libya Forces Prepare for Sweep of Pro-Gadhafi Town

Shaaban's death stoked tensions between Misrata and Bani Walid

Πηγή: abc NEWS
By AP
Oct 2 2012

Libyan militias operating alongside the defense ministry readied their forces Tuesday to advance on a town that remains a bastion of support for the ousted regime of Moammar Gadhafi, stoking fears of an impending battle that has already sent dozens of families fleeing.

Bani Walid is one of the last major pockets of support for the former regime, and disarming its militants is one of the most daunting tasks facing the government. Militias in the town of about 100,000 people are heavily armed with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and artillery left over from last year's eight-month civil war.

During the war, many blamed the town's fighters for the worst of the sniper attacks, shelling, rape and other violence during the bloody siege of the coastal city of Misrata. Calls for revenge again peaked after the death last week of a well-known 22-year-old former rebel fighter after ill treatment at the hands of militiamen from Bani Walid.

Omran Shaaban had been hailed as the first fighter to find Gadhafi hiding in a drainage ditch last October, leading to the dictator's capture and killing. Seen as a hero to many, Shaaban's death raised the prospect of more score-settling. The same day of his death, the newly elected National Congress authorized the police and army to use force if necessary to apprehend those who abducted Shaaban and three of his companions in July near Bani Walid.

The government had brokered Shaaban's release and he was transferred to a hospital in France where he died of his wounds. He had been paralyzed from the waist down and relatives say his chest had been slashed with razors during his 55 days in captivity.

At least four residents of Misrata are still being held by the town's militias, according to local activists.

Militia commander Faraj al-Swehli said dozens of families have fled Bani Walid in anticipation of an offensive. On Tuesday three fighters from Misrata were wounded in clashes during a surveillance operation near the town, according to witnesses.

Al-Swehli ordered his Tripoli-based militia, originally from Misrata, to join others who have surrounded parts of the town. They are operating together in a loose coalition of the country's largest militias known as Libya Shield, which is relied on by the defense ministry. Shaaban was a part of the group before his death.

The government has given Bani Walid's leaders until this coming Friday to handover suspects linked to the torture of Shaaban.

Libya Shield fighters put out a statement Tuesday saying they will not enter Bani Walid without orders from the military chief of staff Gen. Youssef Mangoush. However, even without government orders the militias began surrounding parts of the town last week.

The Libyan government remains weak and has been unable to rein in armed militias in a country awash with weapons. Earlier this month, a demonstration at the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi turned violent, killing four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

Misrata activist Ahmed al-Madany said he heard the local Bani Walid radio station say that its fighters will defend the town to the last man.

"I doubt they will turn the suspects in," he said.

A resident inside Bani Walid, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, said militias inside have set-up checkpoints to secure the area.

ICC could try Misrata leaders for Libya crimes: HRW

People make their way to the courthouse as they call for the National Transitional Council (NTC) to activate the judiciary, in Benghazi April 6, 2012. The march was made up of traffic police, police officers and members of the National Army. The words on the flag read, "Glory to the Martyrs, Libyan army". 

Πηγή: The Daily Star
April 8 2012

TRIPOLI: Libyan leaders in Misrata could be held legally accountable by the International Criminal Court for crimes committed by militias under their command, Human Rights Watch warned on Sunday.

"The leaders of the Libyan city of Misrata could be held criminally responsible for ongoing serious crimes by forces under their command," the watchdog said in an open letter to the city's military and civilian leaders.

The International Criminal Court could bring local leaders into account for ongoing torture and abuse in jails and around Misrata as well as the forced displacement of people from the nearby town of Tawargha it said.

"The city's leaders can be held legally responsible for those acts by the ICC," the rights group said, adding that the ongoing abuse is so widespread and systematic that it could amount to crimes against humanity.

Misrata in February became the first city to elect a local council after the 2011 conflict that toppled the regime of slain leader Moamer Kadhafi. Its military council, forged last year, wields influence beyond the coastal city.

"Our letter to Misrata authorities is a wake-up call," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

Turkish construction firms speed up Libyan reconstruction effort

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan (l.) and Chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council Mustafa Abdel Jalil wave to people during a rally at Martyrs' Square in Tripoli on Friday, Sept. 16.

Πηγή: Libyabizinfo
Dec 13 2011

Turkey is working to make good on its pledges for Libya's reconstruction as the government plans to build a new physiotherapy clinic, the Anatolia news agency reported Monday.

The new clinic will be built in Misrata, as promised by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a visit last September.

Representatives from Turkish construction companies met with Turkey's ambassador to Libya in this Mediterranean coastal city, one of the worst-hit cities during the popular uprising that ended Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule.

Turkey also pledged to restore five police stations and a police headquarters in Misrata, both of which will be funded by the Turkish government.

Over 1,500 Libyans were killed and 13,000 others were wounded in Misrata during the fighting between forces loyal to Gaddafi and dissidents, and nearly 1,200 people went missing. Most of the buildings in the city were destroyed or heavily damaged.

Turkey's state-run air carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) is scheduled to begin direct flights to Misrata on Dec. 15. The city will be THY's third destination in Libya after Tripoli and Benghazi.

The murder brigades of Misrata

Libyan rebels secure prisoners in the back of a pick-up truck. The graffiti on the truck, in Arabic, reads, "Misrata steadfastness."

Πηγή: Salon
By Daniel Wlliams
Oct 28 2011

MISRATA, Libya — If anyone is surprised by the apparent killing of Moammar Gadhafi while in the custody of militia members from the town of Misrata, they shouldn’t be.

More than 100 militia brigades from Misrata have been operating outside of any official military and civilian command since Tripoli fell in August. Members of these militias have engaged in torture, pursued suspected enemies far and wide, detained them and shot them in detention, Human Rights Watch has found. Members of these brigades have stated that the entire displaced population of one town, Tawergha, which they believe largely supported Gadhafi avidly, cannot return home.

As the war in Libya comes to an end, the pressing need for accountability and reconciliation is clear. The actions of the Misrata brigades are a gauge of how difficult that will be, and Misrata is not alone in its call for vengeance. In the far west, anti-Gadhafi militias from the Nafusa Mountains have looted and burned homes and schools of tribes that supported the deposed dictator. Anti-Gadhafi militias from Zuwara have looted property as they demanded compensation for damage they suffered during the war.

The apparent execution of 53 pro-Gadhafi supporters in a hotel in Sirte apparently under control of Misrata fighters is a bad omen. It is up to the National Transitional Council to rein in all the militias and quickly establish a functioning justice system. The NTC should take control of the many makeshift detention facilities, expedite the return of displaced Libyans, and ensure the investigation, trial and punishment of wrongdoers acting in the name of vengeance. That includes Gadhafi’s killers if the evidence showed crimes were committed. The NTC, and its foreign backers, have comprehensively failed to start setting up a justice system — even in Benghazi, where they have been in charge since the spring.

Clearly the NTC is up against the passions of a nasty war. Misrata withstood a two-month siege at the hands of Gadhafi’s forces with near-daily indiscriminate attacks that killed about 1,000 of its citizens. The town’s main boulevard, Tripoli Street, is in ruins. Facades of public buildings and private homes collapsed from tank fire and are charred inside and out. The pockmarks of bullet holes disfigure construction everywhere.

The fierce fight for Misrata has left a penetrating bitter aftertaste. Misratans say they detest anyone who backed Gadhafi. They are not welcome in Misrata, even if the city and its environs was their home for generations.

The Misrata militia is focusing its greatest wrath on Tawergha, a town of about 30,000 people just south of the city. Both Misratans and Tawerghas say residents there were enthusiastic Gadhafi supporters. Hundreds of erstwhile civilians in that town took up arms to fight for him. Misratans say Tawergha volunteers committed rapes and pillaged with gusto, though Misrata officials decline to produce evidence of the alleged rapes, saying family shame inhibits witnesses and victims from coming forward.

In any event, Misratan militia members are venting their anger on all Tawerghas, who are largely descendants of African slaves. Most fled their town as Misratan fighters advanced there between Aug. 10 and Aug. 12.

Witnesses and victims we interviewed provided credible accounts of Misratan militias shooting and wounding unarmed Tawerghas and torturing detainees, in a few cases to death. In Hun, about 250 miles south of Misrata, militias from Benghazi have taken it upon themselves to protect about 4,000 refugees. They say Misratans are hunting down Tawerghas.

One hospitalized Tawergha told Human Rights Watch how he was shot in the side and leg and abandoned to die near Hun: “They left us at the edge of the road, put a blanket over us and then started swearing, ‘You are dogs, hope you die.’”

Misrata militias, with the momentary compliance of local officials, insist that no Tawerghas should return to the area. Ibrahim Yusuf bin Ghashir, a representative of the NTC, said: “We think it would be better to relocate them somewhere else.” The allegations of rape, he added, “cannot be forgiven and it would be better to resettle them far away.”This unforgiving campaign is not limited to Tawerghas. Many Misratans say that any tribe or group that supported Gadhafi — thousands of people — should not return to the city. The graffiti on tumble-down town walls express Misratans’ view: “(Expletive) No returnees.”

Human Rights Watch has interviewed refugees from Misrata who tried to return and were forbidden to enter the city without a permit from the local council. A Misrata militia member told the media that all pro-Gadhafi travelers are barred from the city.

As painful as the losses have been for Misrata and the rest of Libya, everyone who fought Gadhafi should remember what they were fighting for: an end to torture, to arbitrary detention, to pitting one tribe against another; for respect and equality among neighbors. Otherwise, the agony that preceded victory will breed vengeance, rancor and a divided new Libya — one that in disturbing ways may resemble the old.

Fleeing weeks of battle in Sirte, families from Gadhafi stronghold distrust Libya’s new rule

Πηγή: Washington Post
By AP
Oct 4 2011


SIRTE, Libya — Families flowed out of Moammar Gadhafi’s besieged hometown Tuesday, exhausted and battered by weeks of hiding from shelling and gunbattles with no meat or vegetables or electricity — but unbowed in their deep distrust of the revolutionaries trying to crush this bastion of the old regime.

The fleeing residents were a sign of how resistance to Libya’s new rulers remains entrenched among those who benefited from Gadhafi’s 33-year-rule. Many of those fleeing Sirte said that the stiff defense against revolutionary fighters who have been trying to battle their way into Sirte for three weeks is coming not from Gadhafi’s military units but from residents themselves, volunteering to take up arms.

“This so-called revolution is not worth it,” said Moussa Ahmed, 31, who sat in a line of cars waiting to go through a checkpoint of fighters searching those exiting the city. “But we can’t say anything now; when we meet the revolutionaries we have to hide our feelings.”

The battle for Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, has become the focal point of the campaign by Libya’s new rulers to break the last remnants of Gadhafi’s rule. More than six weeks after the then-rebels swept into Tripoli and ousted the longtime leader, Gadhafi remains on the run, his whereabouts unknown, and his supporters remain in control not only of Sirte but also the city of Bani Walid and parts of the desert south.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that the NATO air mission over Libya can’t end and the political process cant begin until Sirte is taken. Libya’s de facto Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Monday that Sirte must fall before the transitional leadership can declare victory and set a timeline for elections.

The fight has been grueling. After three weeks, revolutionary forces have managed to get just over a mile (two kilometers) into the city. Heavy armed Gadhafi loyalists are holed up in the Ouagadougou Conference Center, a grandiose hall built by Gadhafi in the city center for international summits, and in the city hospital, revolutionary commanders said.

On Tuesday, fighters eased shelling to allow residents to escape, and hundreds of cars filled with men, women and children lined up at checkpoints at Sirte’s eastern exit. Mothers carrying babies in blankets stood by the side of the road, their children clutching their robes, as revolutionary fighters rifled through their cars, searching through mattresses, clothes and other belongings for hidden weapons.

“We haven’t had vegetables or meat to eat for over a month,” said one of the mothers, Attiya Mohammed. “The water is polluted, and forget about electricity — it’s been out since the middle of August.”

The city was a war zone, she said, buildings pockmarked with bullet holes and parts of the main hospital demolished.

Like many, she had been afraid to step outside her home. “The city was our prison,” she said. “If you left your house you risked being shot and killed.”
Fleeing weeks of battle in Sirte, families from Gadhafi stronghold distrust Libya’s new rule

There was a palpable dislike between those fleeing and the fighters searching through their belongings, though there was no visible harassment and families said they were well treated, some given food and water. During his rule, Gadhafi turned Sirte into virtually a second capital, pouring in investments and giving residents prominent positions. As a result, support for the regime ran high — and many of those fleeing were dismayed at the fall of the old order.

Many of the fighters besieging Sirte are from the neighboring city of Misrata, which rose up against Gadhafi early and was brutalized under a bloody, weekslong siege by his forces during the revolt. As a result, there is little love lost between the two cities.

One Misrata revolutionary at the checkpoint, al-Hussein al-Sireiti, said they find four or five cars a day with hidden weapons.

“We also check for people with bullet injuries, because that means they likely were fighting for Gadhafi,” he said. They also search for those on a list of known Gadhafi loyalists wanted for interrogation, he said.

Among those fleeing, Fatima al-Gadhafi — from the same tribe the ousted leader — bent her head over her five-month old baby girl and sobbed softly.

“They wanted a revolution — so do it in Misrata and leave the rest of us alone,” she said.

Wearing a black headscarf, her face freckled from the sun, she said she had never met revolutionary forces before Tuesday as she exited Sirte. She told one fighter to stop shooting his rifle so near her family’s car, but he refused.

“He said Moammar used to do worse than this, but I never saw anything bad from the old regime. We lived in safety and peace always,” she said.

Halima Salem, 44, sat patiently in her son’s pickup truck while he showed their papers to fighters at the checkpoint. The truck bed was filled with blankets, appliances and clothes. In the seat behind her, four birdcages were filled with colorful love birds and canaries chirping away oblivious of sound of shelling.

“I couldn’t leave them behind, they’re like one of the family,” she exclaimed, smiling at her birds.

She said she had been reluctant to abandon her home because gangs have been looting houses — she wasn’t sure what side they were loyal to, if either. During shelling, she hid under the bed in her master bedroom, clutching the youngest children. Finally, after bad shelling the night before, her sons forced her to pack up.

“How can it be that Libyans are doing this to us? Aren’t we the same people?” she lamented, shaking her head. “I feel bad for our (former Gadhafi) army ... They were honorable men with high morals. And now this chaos.”

She and many others on the way out said volunteer residents were fighting in the city’s defense. “They are all normal men,” said Moussa Ahmed, who was leaving to undergo treatment for a kidney stone, but said he would return to Sirte as soon as his could.

“This so-called revolution is just not worth anything, not worth the blood of Libyans that has been spilled,” said a friend who was driving Ahmed. He refused to give his name for fear of reprisals.

Staffers from the International Committee of the Red Cross crossed the front lines into Sirte and delivered urgently needed oxygen and other medical supplies to the hospital Monday. Aid workers were providing food for thousands who fled.

At the checkpoint out of Sirte, fighters propped up hoods to look around the engines for hidden weapons or ammunition. They piled mattresses, blankets, food and children’s toys by the side of the road.

Fighters passed around a bottle of colorless liquid pulled from one pile of blankets.

“Is it alcohol?” one fighter asked.

It turned out to be eau de toilette, and the fighters gave it back to the family.

“I don’t really care if they drink,” said al-Sireiti. “As long as there is no weapons in the car, the drinking is between him and his God.”

Libya Rebels Dumping Hundreds of Bodies in ‘Pro-Gadhafi’ Cemetery

Rebels cover bodies of pro-Gaddafi fighters March 23

Πηγή: Antiwar
by Jason Ditz

Sep. 18 2011

The Libyan rebel movement’s primary embarrassment at the moment is that their claims of “50,000″ civilians slain by Moammar Gadhafi looks by early bodycounts to be about 49,000 too many. Bodies are turning up, however, and not the ones the rebels were hoping for.

Instead, reports have the rebel forces dumping hundreds of bodies in a “pro-Gadhafi” cemetary with no identification, slain by the rebels for some unexplained reason. Just one cemetery reported some 800 unidentified corpses.

It is unclear if these are slain members of the regime’s military, or simply dissidents. The rebels are also said to be converting a number of buildings into additional prison space, apparently out of concern that the prison-happy Gadhafi regime simply didn’t have enough room for the enormous numbers of people the new pro-NATO regime is detaining.

In Misrata, the rebels have filled a former school with detainees. None were charged with crimes but were said to have “committed crimes against Misrata” and that the local rebels would decide what to do with them. Reports have them looking for a bigger building, since the school is now packed with detainees.

The exact extent of the Libyan rebel crimes will likely remain unclear for some time,as the unexplained depopulation of entire towns and the Misrata militia’s penchant for attacking the refugee camps they ordered black people into has left massive numbers of people missing without a trace.

Fear and loathing in Libya's Misrata

Πηγή: news24
Sep. 23 2011


Misrata - The graffiti on a burnt-out building on Tripoli Street - the main boulevard in Misrata in ruins after ferocious street fighting - sums up the bitter mood in a city besieged for months by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.

"We don't want the traitors and the people who ran away and want to come back," it says. That message echoes others scrawled around the Mediterranean port, which was a wealthy trading centre before Libya's revolution erupted in February.

The "traitors" are the people suspected of collaborating with Gaddafi’s forces as they pummelled the city and who are now being hunted down and imprisoned by a 70-strong team run by the new authorities.

The ones who ran away are mostly being blocked from returning - checkpoints ring the city and only those with special permission can enter - until they can prove that they did not collaborate.

But even those who do make it back are subjected to scorn - and sometimes violence - by their fellow townspeople who stuck it out and fought back during the long months when victory was far from certain.

"This is happening too much in Misrata. Everyone is pointing the finger and saying 'He's a traitor, that one is a traitor'," said one man on Thursday outside an administrative building on Tripoli Street now used as a jail for around 600 suspected collaborators.

The man, who would not give his name, said he was at the jail to try and find out why a relative had been imprisoned.

Possible traitors

But when he saw that a fighter loyal to the National Transitional Council (NTC) interim regime was looking at him as he spoke to an AFP correspondent, he suddenly said "I can't talk any more. There is no problem."

And he hurriedly walked away.

Another man outside the jail, who also declined to give his name, said fighters had come to his house the night before to detain his brother, a Misrata native who had been working as a doctor in Tripoli.

He had been seen some time ago on Libyan state television – Gaddafi’s propaganda channel - being interviewed in his Tripoli hospital about casualties allegedly caused by Nato airstrikes.

He was now being investigated for alleged collaboration, but his brother insisted he had no choice but to speak to the television reporters.

Scouring old footage from the now defunct state television is one of the methods used to root out possible "traitors", explained Ibrahim al-Sherkissiya, the head of security in Misrata, whose office is in the prison.

Another technique is ploughing through Gaddafi security services' documents - seized as anti-regime fighters slowly conquered town after town - to find the names of Misrata people who betrayed their own.

They also mine the data seized from mobile phones found on captured Gaddafi soldiers, the security chief added. Supplying food, water, ammunition or information to Gaddafi’s forces was a crime, he said.

Sherkissiya, like many townspeople here, said the stringent measures were justified because of the possibility that a "fifth column" might be operating in Misrata.

Private property

Fighting was still raging at the nearby city of Sirte, one of the Gaddafi loyalists' last hold-outs, he pointed out. And several people had recently been arrested trying to struggle hand grenades and guns into Misrata, he said.

Sherkissiya said a team of 22 lawyers and court officials and 54 fighters were assigned to find Misrata's enemy within.

They conducted proper investigations and kept their prisoners in decent conditions, allowing them visits by relatives and access to health care if needed.

"If we ascertain that a person is a traitor, we will keep him in prison until the government has a new legal system in place" and a trial can be conducted, he said. Many arrests had been made after locals denounced their neighbours, he said.

Only around 15% of those arrested were cleared, he said.

That means that most of those detained will not be leaving Tripoli Street for some time as the new administration in the capital struggles to rebuild the institutions of a country that for decades was treated as private property by its dictator.

Misrata was home to half a million people before the revolution and used to attract workers from across Libya as well as thousands of foreign, mainly African workers.

Nearly all of the outsiders left when the fighting began and few in this town - which is intensely suspicious of outsiders as well as of black-skinned Libyans seen as loyal to Gaddafi - want them back.

Authorities

Nor do many Misratans want to see the return of the natives who fled.

"If a guy ran away from Misrata and did not fight, he cannot come back," said Mohamed Rgeeg, whose family lived on Benghazi Street until their apartment was blitzed by a rocket-propelled grenade early in the siege.

The 20-year-old, his parents and siblings now live in an apartment allocated to them by the new authorities in the Ghoush district. It used to belong to a man he said was a Kadhafi loyalist.

The authorities take a less hard-line approach, saying that if their hands are clean any Misrata resident can return.

Security chief Sherkissiya warned however that for the moment returnees might not be safe: he was keeping some people in detention simply to protect them from possible attack from neighbours who saw them as traitors, he said.

Shortly after Sherkissiya spoke, an AFP reporter saw a semi-conscious young man being dragged out of a Misrata hospital and roughly dumped into the back of a pick-up truck and driven off with an armed guard.

"He is a Gaddafi kidnapper," said one man in a group of onlookers.

Misrata rebels defy Libya's new regime

Misratans protest against the National Transition Council decision. The placard reads: 'Whoever helped kill Libyans will never lead us, even with one word.' Photograph: Irina Kalashnikova

Πηγή: Guardian

By Chris Stephen

Monday 29 August 2011

The first cracks in Libya's rebel coalition have opened, with protests erupting in Misrata against the reported decision of the National Transitional Council (NTC) to appoint a former Gaddafi henchman as security boss of Tripoli.

Media reports said the NTC prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, is poised to appoint Albarrani Shkal, a former army general, as the capital's head of security.

Protests erupted in the early hours of the morning in Misrata's Martyr's Square, with about 500 protesters shouting that the "blood of the martyrs" would be betrayed by the appointment.

Misrata's ruling council lodged a formal protest with the NTC, saying that if the appointment were confirmed Misratan rebel units deployed on security duties in Tripoli would refuse to follow NTC orders.

Misratans blame Shkal for commanding units that battered their way into this city in the spring, terrorising and murdering civilians.

NTC sources say Shkal, formerly a key confidant of Muammar Gaddafi, turned rebel informer in May, passing valuable information back to the rebel capital, Benghazi.

But Misratans believe that prior to that, he was operations officer for the 32nd brigade, whose overall commander is Gaddafi's son Khamis.

The brigade took the leading role in a siege that saw tanks and artillery bombard residential areas of the city, murdering several hundred civilians.

Shouting above anti-Jabril chanting and volleys of gunfire being fired into the air, one protester, Mohammed Zubia, said many people were shocked by the news. He said: "Mr Jabril says he wants to include all people who worked for Gaddafi but how can we accept that? We need new blood."

Mr Jabril, whose NTC executive installed itself in Tripoli over the weekend, says he wants to build an "inclusive" administration. He appears to have the tacit support of London, with the defence secretary,Liam Fox, telling al-Jazeera it was important the NTC avoided excluding members of the former regime.

London is believed to be keen to avoid a rerun of Iraq, where a de-Baathification programme saw the ruling administration removed and chaos follow the US-led invasion in 2003.

But Misratans say allowing Gaddafi regime officials to take key security jobs is not the answer.

"I can't see any justication for [it] whatsoever," said Hassan al-Amin, who returned to the town after 28 years' exile spent in the UK. "We have a big force in Tripoli. They are not going to follow orders from a war criminal."

The president of Misrata's council, Sheikh Khalifa Zuwawi, said Misratan rebel troops controlling many strategic points across Tripoli may refuse to obey NTC orders.

"I think all the Libyan thwar [revolutionary fighters] will not obey his [Shkal's] orders, not just those from Misrata," Zuwawi told the Guardian. "Shkal is with Gaddafi. Not long ago he was using troops to shell people in Misrata. Mahmoud Jibril cannot do it just by himself: it is against the people."

Behind the protests is a wider grudge between Misratans and the NTC, which many accuse of representing Benghazi rather than Libyans as a whole. Misrata's military council continues to refuse to follow orders from NTC army commanders, and some rebels complain that Misrata's units and those from the Nafua mountains, to the west, have not been recognised as having been the key to the fall of Tripoli.

"We won't follow his [Shkal's] orders, no," said Walid Tenasil, a Misratan fighter returning to garrison duty in Tripoli. "Our message to the NTC is: just remember the blood. That is it."

Misrata's protests pose a potential security problem for the NTC because it has come to rely on Misratan rebel units holding strategic points in the capital.

Qatari plane supplies ammunition to Libya rebels

Πηγή: Reuters

by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Misrata

Sat Aug 6, 2011 4:42pm GMT

MISRATA, Libya, August 6 (Reuters) - A Qatari plane made a quick stop in the rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata on Saturday to offload ammunition destined for rebel fighters, sources with knowledge of the flight said.

Officials at the airport acknowledged a Qatari plane landed at Misrata airport but declined to reveal details of its contents.

"The plane offloaded six pick-up trucks which were packed with ammunition and minutes later it flew off again," said one source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another source showed Reuters a photo of a plane shortly after its departure with "Qatar" written on underside of the fuselage.

Rebels seeking to protect Misrata and advance the 200 kilometres (125 miles) to Tripoli have been complaining of a lack of weapons and ammunition to effectively push forward to the capital.

France has previously air-dropped weapons and ammunition to rebels in western Libya.

Qatar has been one of staunchest supporters of Libyans seeking to topple Muammar Gaddafi from power.

Fighting is currently on the eastern outskirts of Zlitan, one of two major towns between Misrata and Tripoli which is firmly in the hands of the Libyan leader.

Taking Zlitan would be a major breakthrough in the war.