Bani Walid Destroyed - 11/11/2012 - Militias Make Presidential House Call - He Won't Resign (Yet)

No matter what happened in Bani Walid - Here's the winner...

In eastern Libya, militants hold sway...

. . .Those who adhere to the militias’ ideology said their goals are simple. They want the implementation of Islamic law, or sharia, and they want to see the United States pushed out of Muslim lands . .

Locals considered the drones they now hear buzzing overhead “a form of occupation,” he said, and Libyans would wage “jihad” to force them out.

The first sightings of U.S. drone aircraft here were reported in July, in what American officials have said was an effort that preceded the Benghazi attack to gather intelligence on Libya’s extemist groups. Misary said it was those sightings that appear to have prompted militants from Ansar al-Sharia, headed by former Guantanamo inmate Abu Sufian bin Qumu, to disappear from his Darna beach house into the mountains . .

That includes some 200 young men who have traveled to Syria in recent months to join the fight there, according to the local council . .

. ..Many said they feared that U.S. pressure to retaliate for the Benghazi attack could push an already precarious situation even further over the edge. Both Sharqi and local officials predicted that a drone strike would earn the militants more friends than foes, drawing the support of foreign jihadists to an easily accessible fight, and turning Libya’s Green Mountains into a new Pakistan.

“If there are drone strikes, people will see it as Libyan sovereignty that’s being threatened,” Stieta said. “It might compel people to join these groups rather than go against them.”

[link to www.washingtonpost.com]

The winner is -
Extremists? Or Libyan Drone Forces?

We'll see when, and if, US MSM finally covers Bani Walid....

...while we're at it let's take a closer fucking look at where all those Muslim/Marxist/Baath riches came from --- whether in Saudi Arabia or Iran, in Venezuela or Lybia....

Oh yeah, OIL.

The big, bad, imperialist West "only" provided:

-discovery
-extraction
-refiniment
-transportation
-access to Western consumer market
-tools
-consulation
-actual hard work and time.


without which the "brown people" would have had NOTHING.

...This is when Canada once again took a lead role in the Libyan conflict. Sensing the rebel factions were losing their will to continue, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird flew into Benghazi on June 27, 2011, to bolster the rebels’ morale.

As a result of Baird’s bloodthirsty rhetoric and promises of a brighter future in a post-Gadhafi Libya, the “armed civilians” charged once more into the breach....

Our complicity in such brutal war crimes would clearly taint NATO’s victory in Libya. However, despite the staging of a glorious parade on Parliament Hill last November and the awarding of the Order of Canada to Bouchard, those wacky “armed civilians” keep demonstrating to the world that such victory celebrations were premature at best.

Almost unreported in the Western media is the fact that Gadhafi loyalists are still battling “armed civilian” militias in the city of Bani Walid. The current bloodshed and civilian casualties in that city are on a par with the current carnage in Syria, but Baird is no longer challenging the international community to protect Libyans.

TAYLOR: Carnage in Libya continues while West focuses on Syria [link to thech.ca]

Thousands of Libyans who fled fighting in the former Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid will not be allowed to return home for several more days until work was complete to make the town safe and restore services, officials said on Monday. . .

At a road block made up of large stones a few kilometers from Bani Walid on Sunday, three army pickup trucks mounted with weapons stood guard, closing off the north entrance to the town. A few dozen civilian cars were parked in lines in front.

"Each day when I ask if I can check on my house, they say 'Tomorrow'," resident Abdelmanam, 20, said as he waited to see whether he could go through. He was refused entry.

Foreign reporters who arrived at the road block, in the area of Wadi Dinar, were also not allowed through to Bani Walid.

"There is graffiti on the walls inside, it may incite strife," army official Ahmed Salem said, without elaborating. . .

(rumor is that they are finding bodies & burying them to cover up war crimes - but their earlier clean-up efforts (Sirte & Misrata) were amateurish - so the events in Bani Walid will still come out if anyone is interested - that's a big if)

[link to news.yahoo.com]

DarbyDoom,

I am not surprised that you missed all the larger points re: inescapability of Politics, re: chaotis barbarity of Islam & Arabs, and about Qaddafi's lies, evil designs for the West and George Carlin's absolutely lack of qualifications to render even semi-humourous judgements re: most things .... and for some reason fixated on the the relatively minor, facetious point re: 1/2 or 1/4 Jewish ancestry.

You are simply too Lybia-obsessed at the moment to care about anything else. I respect that, it's your thread I just briefly dropped by to say 'Hi'.

Don't forget that the only reason why these Arab Spring revolutions are even feasible, and why you are even able to keep track of them of them, is because of Twitter & Facebook, cellphones &Internet and few other military techonologies. All American inventions, all products of "Big Bad West". And the only reason millions of Lybians hadn't starved or died from diseased long ago, was likewise because of Western food storage, oil-production and advanced medicinees.

So next time you want to echo the common 3rd world, anti-Colonialist commie sentiment and put all the blame on the West & America for all their ills, in thise case for the little year-long Genocide Contest between pro-Gaddafi evil fucks and pro-Sharia evil fucks.... DON'T

Because as you may remember from the 2012 Big War thread, I don't suffer bullshit lightly.

Anyway, I hope Hurricane Sandy spares you and your family. Stay safe.

Ciao.

BREAKING - Libyan Defense Minister Gives Honest Assessment of Conditions in Bani Walid...

Libya's defence minister has said that the army has no control over Bani Walid . . and that armed groups there prevent families from returning home.

"The chief of staff has no control over the town and therefore armed men are able to prevent families from coming back," Osama al-Jueili told journalists in Tripoli on Monday, adding that "gunmen" hold a checkpoint leading to the town.

Fighting in Bani Walid this month displaced tens of thousands of people, Jueili noted, including 30,000 who fled to the nearby town of Tarhuna and 10,000 who went to the capital.

"The town is completely empty except for a small number of people who are living in tragic conditions; there is no activity; the impact of shelling is visible everywhere," the minister said.

Jueili had previously made no public statements on the situation in Bani Walid.

His bleak assessment came five days after the army chief-of-staff officially announced the end of all military operations in Bani Walid. . .

Clashes between pro-government forces and Bani Walid fighters this month killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, exhacerbating tribal tensions and underscoring the difficulties of achieving national reconciliation. . .

Tribal elders and commanders in the town had repeatedly called into question the neutrality of the army, which is still being formed, and accused "lawless Misrata militias" of seeking to destroy Bani Walid.

[link to www.aljazeera.com]

The Arab Spring was not a spontaneous "movement" facilitated by Western technology....It was a well-executed psy-op conducted the intelligence agencies operating under their favorite cover - the quasi "NGO"

Here's an excerpt from a Z-Com article -

In December 2011, Egyptian authorities raided "pro-democracy” NGOs, including 4 U.S.-based agencies. . . Freedom House; the National Democratic Institute (NDI); the International Republican Institute (IRI); and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). Only one of these organizations, the ICFJ, can be considered as non-governmental in that it does not receive the majority of its funding either directly or indirectly from a government.

The NDI, chaired by Madeline Albright and the IRI, chaired by Senator John McCain, represent the U.S. Democratic and Republican political parties. The NDI and IRI are “core institutions” of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). NED is a non-profit, grant-making institution that receives more than 90 percent of its annual budget from the U.S. government. While Freedom House claims to be independent, it regularly receives the majority of its funding from the NED.

Freedom House has long been criticized for its right-wing bias, favoring free markets and U.S. foreign policy interests when assessing civil liberty and political freedom “scores” in countries around the world. . .

Freedom House has also been accused of running programs of regime destabilization in U.S. “enemy states.” A 1996 Financial Times article revealed that Freedom House was one of several organizations selected by the State Department to receive funding for “clandestine activities” inside Iran, including training and funding groups seeking regime change, an act that received criticism from Iranian grass-roots pro-democracy groups....

The NED was founded in 1983 when Washington was embroiled in numerous controversies relating to covert military operations and the training and funding of paramilitaries and death squads in Central and South America. It was formed to create an open and legal avenue for the U.S. government to channel funds to opposition groups against unfavorable regimes around the world, thus removing the political stigma associated with covert CIA funding. In a 1991 Washington Post article, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,” Allen Weinstein (who helped draft the legislation that established the NED) declared: “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

Freedom House, NDI & IRI all operated in Libya under the auspices of Saif al Islam Gaddafi...

Prior to the Libyan "revolution" the President & PM of Libya's current provisional government (GNC) operated a CIA-funded dissident group. The President's daughter just left her home in Northern Virginia to serve as her father's de facto chief of staff.

[link to www.zcommunications.org]

Hey DD, hope everything is well and safe there after the storm!


The renaissance of a colonial army
[link to www.voltairenet.org]

Initial financing is 8 million dollars, recuperated from the reduction of aid to Pakistan for its "anti-terrorist operations. The official mission of this "elite force", whose formation has already been approved by Congress, will be to "confront and destroy terrorist and violent extremist organisations."


So US/west is now funding an elite Libyan force that will fight the extremists they were funding last year! Makes sense!

Glad you're fine!
Well article says that they will be picked up based on west-friendly criteria, but for me this is a confirmation of the theories that the west was funding extremists so we can fight them after a few years. It's already happening!

Last Edited by insertfunnyusername on 10/30/2012 01:46 PM

Twitter Update -

Supposedly Bani Walid over the last week has been a looting free for all...

Ahmed (@libya_Horra)
10/30/12, 4:22 PM
@WissamLY @ben3ati in other words... 35 members of SSC in Kufra have travelled to bani walid to join in the looting

DrWhyLy (@DrWhyLy)
10/30/12, 10:07 AM
Our house in #Bani_Walid was looted and stolen by #Misurata militias and the other gangs. they didn't leave anything!

Benghazi Youth (@LibyaSteadfast)
10/30/12, 5:41 PM
#BaniWalid center - most shops looted. Even street lights. Friend returned to BW, while there militias stole his elec gen & even gas. #Libya

The defeated Warfalla may be turning to terrorism..

Warwick (@LibyanReality)
10/30/12, 5:15 PM
A strong explosion was heard on the southern outskirts of Misrata several hours ago

And there are rumors that militias are planning the same thing for other parts of Libya

Warwick (@LibyanReality)
10/30/12, 3:11 PM
Figures from Zintan and other Nafusa towns are allegedly lobbying for a "Resolution no. 8" to clear Mizdah and Shaqiqa of loyalists.

Background Article on Conflict between Misrata & Bani Walid..

The recent month-long siege and battle to control Bani Walid, home to Libya's largest tribe the Warfalla, has its roots in a very similar situation in the 1920s. Ramadan Suwahli, Misurata's strongman at the time, received some bad advice from Italy, Libya's colonial power.

The Italians told Suwahli that if he were to conquer Bani Walid, he would control the north-west of Libya and thence be in a better position to negotiate a political settlement with the colonial masters. When Suwahli mobilised his Misurata tribesmen in 1920 to attack their neighbours in Bani Walid . .

Almost a century later, and the same scenario is playing out again. In 1920, Suwahli lost the war and, as a timely reminder, he was killed on Eid Al Adha. . . In the recent battle for Bani Walid, history was at the forefront - when the Misurata militia claimed victory in the centre of Bani Walid last week, they raised a large portrait of Suwahli as a triumphalist gesture. . .

Bani Walid is being called the "last stronghold" of the slain leader. One wonders how a dead leader could have a stronghold. So far, not a single shred of evidence has been produced to support this claim regarding Qaddafi loyalists. . .

Read more: [link to www.thenational.ae]

A difference between 1920 & 2012 - NATO Supplied weapons given to one side (Misrata)

Ah, yes. If there are two things Africa, Islam and communism -- and yes, Obama and Co. most deginately are communist-totalitarians-in-sheep's-clothing, which you will get a chance to experience in his 2nd term.... it's PEACE & INTEGRITY.

ROTFLMAO. Shaka Zulu, Prophet Mohammad, Mao Tsedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and their 100's million victoms raise you a toast!

Hey, you're entitled to your very own reality , don't let a mercurial know-it-all like me tell you otherwise. Glad to see y'all at GLP survive Hurricane.

But seriously, "integrity & peace".... AHAHAAHAHAHAHA!

A question for our kosher friends.

So how exactly is all this an "improvement" over Qaddafi?

I don't remember any of our ambassadors being murdered when Muammar was running the show.

Here's the deal...

FUCKWIT Clintoon and FUCKWIT Soetoro set up Libya for not "The Muslim Brotherhood" but for a fucking evil form of Al Qaeda. Those stupid FUCKWITS thought that it would be peaches and cream revolt with Mohammar dead and all better. Well, FUCKWITS, Mohammar kept the evil at bay and now it is coming out fast. This form of Al Qaeda is not your Washington/Brzinzky puppet -- no. This form will detonate nukes in any capital anywhere if they can... and you FUCKWITS TURNED IT LOOSE.

Thnx for info DD! Night!

Sounds great!

Bani Walid Yesterday...

The Bodies are Gone but Looting continues...

Ashur Shawis, a commander at the last checkpoint before entering the town from the west, acknowledged that "there is looting underway by people both inside and outside Bani Walid but we don't have the means to stop them."Newly stationed police officers questioned by AFP described the situation as safe, even though several former rebel groups paraded around with heavy weapons.

An old man visited the station in the hope of finding his missing son, but detective Ali Loti said most people came to complain of theft. . .

A handful of foreign nurses who left during the worst of the fighting also returned on Wednesday to find the hospital's medical instruments and high-tech diagnostic machines destroyed and their personal lockers ransacked.

The stench of death still lingered in the now empty mortuary.


Read more: [link to www.dailystar.com.lb]

Ok, got it, a totally democratic armed negotiation!
Very important ministries they'll have though, very bad news.

In former Gaddafi stronghold, a sign of Libya’s deepening divide

. . .Last week, after weeks of shelling, the militias said they had cleared Bani Walid and the government declared an end to the fighting, inviting those who had fled the violence to go back. But the militias defied the government’s orders and barred their return for more than a week, relenting only on Wednesday, when residents began trickling back to a battered town with no electricity or running water. . .

Residents of Bani Walid, members of the Warfallah tribe that populated many of the old regime’s highest posts, said there were no prominent regime figures in their town, despite earlier claims by the militias that they had captured former Gaddafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim and killed Gaddafi’s son Khamis there. Tripoli later acknowledged that these claims were probably false.

Rather, the town’s residents said the attack fell in line with a larger pattern of discrimination and harassment that Warfallah and other loyalist tribes had suffered since Gaddafi’s fall. . .

Witnesses who have seen the city in recent days, including Libya’s newly appointed justice minister, who visited over the weekend, described “very significant” damage. They said Bani Walid’s municipal buildings bore the marks of heavy shelling, and that homes appeared to have been looted and burned. . .

. . . Bani Walid residents who were forced from their homes in the past month — who local aid groups said numbered in the tens of thousands — said the town had suffered the same fate as other loyalist strongholds that have succumbed to powerful ex-rebel militias since the fall of Gaddafi.. . .

[link to www.washingtonpost.com]

This is probably as much closure as we will get for Bani Walid...No casualty figures...No one held responsible...

The Washington Post, the mainstream media newspaper, has admitted that the town was destroyed & that it is part of a campaign against those termed "Gaddafi loyalists..."

The end...

This was interesting exchange - so I made it a post

Rami EL OBEIDI (@ramielobeidi)
11/4/12, 10:35 AM
Is whats happ in Tripoli really about a criminal drug dealer sen to death during Gadhafi era and is now an SSC member racketeering ppl?

7ees bees (@7eesbees)
11/4/12, 10:36 AM
@ramielobeidi What do you think is happening? Are you the former intelligence officer for NTC?

Rami EL OBEIDI (@ramielobeidi)
11/4/12, 10:39 AM
@7eesbees Yes, but in this case I'm just observing as everyone else is.

During the "revolution" the rebels were represented by a committee called the NTC - it was the recognized rebel government...

I was just calling Mr. Obeidi former NTC Member (based on media reports)...

Many of the initial NTC members had a portfolio. NTC representative for Youth...NTC Business representative....

He just admitted he was NTC representative for intelligence....Good to know...

Meanwhile in Benghazi...

jomana karadsheh (@JomanaCNN)
11/4/12, 6:24 AM
Security officials in #Benghazi say 2 men in speeding car threw bomb underneath a police car outside police station Sunday at dawn #Libya

OmarAmer AlBarghathi (@LibyanPilot)
11/4/12, 10:42 AM
Aircraft engines are music to my ears but this US spy plane is rather annoying. Circling all day long lol

Note - Other Benghazi residents tweeting about drones flying overhead - here's an example....

bilal H. Bettamer (@Bilalhb)
11/4/12, 12:15 AM
@LibyaSteadfast @Dr_razeg Creepy ass drone, probably spying on girls and stuff... let's hope it's controlled by a nosy Libyan anyways

Libya Herald article on bombing -
Car bomb explodes outside Benghazi police station injuring three [link to www.libyaherald.com]

Assassinations Continue -

Mohamed Eljarh (@Eljarh)
11/4/12, 5:24 PM
Hamed Alhassi, #Barqa's Military Council's commander escapes a serious assassination attempt in #Benghazi! His driver was killed #Libya

Rival Libya militias battle in streets of Tripoli

. . .By early afternoon the headquarters of a Supreme Security Committee (SSC) militia, a body set up last year to try to regulate armed groups, was in flames and being looted by members of a rival militia faction, witnesses said. Local shops were also looted.

The fight erupted just after midnight . . .

Civilians blocked the street where the fighting raged to prevent cars from entering the battleground where the sound of gunfire rang out. Many civilians went home to get their own arms. . .

[link to touch.chicagotribune.com]

Attacks in Libya target security forces

....Elsewhere on Sunday, a car exploded outside a police station in Libya's second largest city Benghazi, causing damage to the building and wounding three policemen. . .

The attacks came as the country's new authorities tried to empower the national army and police but struggle to rein in armed groups born out of the 2011 conflict that toppled long-time leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

The blast occurred before dawn at a police station in the Hadaiq neighbourhood...

[link to www.aljazeera.com]

We are beginning to see new reports on conditions in Bani Walid...

Walking through the (home), the faint smell of smoke lingered, the walls and ceilings were (blackened), the windows had no glass and doors had melted off their hinges.

"What did we do to deserve this?" he asked, shaking his head. . .

Outside the hospital, vans of the Red Crescent stood handing out food to employees of the hospital. But . . .one of their main duties in Bani Walid was to look for dead bodies that were left to rot around the city.

[link to uk.news.yahoo.com]

OP, thanks for this thread and your updates.
What a tragedy we (US Gov't.) effected in Libya. :(

Thanks....

I think the US Gov't (and others) are still deeply involved in Libya (not just flying overhead)...

James Wheeler arrived back in Tripoli yesterday... He's a guy from Baltimore who always seems to be in Libya when things get interesting...

He's been back to Misrata & Tripoli three times in the last month...

He made international news when he was arrested by the Gaddafi regime.... Back then he was supposedly a reporter...then he was called a volunteer Thuwar (freedom fighter)....Now I think he's saying he's a freelance journalist again... War's supposed to be over....Why does he keep going back to Libya? How does he afford all the flights/hotel stays?

A Libyan doctor called him on it today -
tameem abugharsa (@TAbugharsa)
11/4/12, 10:10 AM
@wheelertweets I was referring to swarms of "field reporters" carrying only satphones and wearing tactical 5-7 pants with concealed pouches

OUCH - He's too visible to be a spook. Maybe he works for a private sector "intelligence" company...like Stratfor?

I understand.

I may not be quite old enough to vote, and sometimes I do think like I know it all & tend to judge others based on an impossibly high standard I judge myself by...

... but truth of the matter is, while my politics are on the Conservative econmically & militarily.... my chosen studies are extremely liberal in nature. In fact, most of my friends in every country I've been at, were Quixotic Idealists. LOL.

And listen, a world can always use more DREAMERS and BLEEDING-HEARTS.

Is it St. Franscis who's a Patron Saint of Lost Causes (I recently saw Meryl Streep as Magaret Thatcher in movie Iron Lady and she mentioned it in her speech to the press in the movie)?

You mentioned Latin America in your youth. I guess I have my own lost cause: America. I love my new country and everything that it once was and everything it can be again in the future with better leadership. Some would say, America's the biggest Lost Cause of them all.

I hope not.

Something is up (worse than usual)....

George Grant (British editor of Libya Herald) has been ordered home...

George Grant (@GeorgePBGrant)
11/4/12, 2:57 PM
Have left Libya and been sent to Herefordshire for a week to learn how not to get kidnapped and avoid being shot... Something not right here

Cover up of Bani Walid casualty figures or something worse?

AJA Interview w/ Leader of Ansar al Sharia

A leading figure in the group "Ansar al-Sharia" Libyan Mohammed al-Zahawi launched a scathing attack on the government of Prime Minister Ali Zaidan , describing its members of being "American agents and thugs.". He also confirmed the group's refusal to deal with any form of government that does not represent "the law of God."

Zahawi accused Libyan political parties of being behind the smear campaign against his group. He believes the goal of this misinformation is to drag America into Libya's local affairs. He rules out US interference in Libya's internal affairs.

He said that his group is being falsely accused of involvement in the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens on September 11 in Benghazi and he said there is no incriminating evidence against his group.

Zahawi commented on the overall political situation in Libya. He considers Libya to be under the custody of the U.S. and its western allies. He accused what he called "agents of NATO" of being behind the revolution that overthrew the late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

[link to translate.google.com]