The Libyan Opposition

[troung]

Wadi Doum saw over 1200 Libyans killed for the loss of around thirty Chadians (left out of the article), they failed to conduct any recce, launch a single counter attack and during the final show down even their artillery was silent, this dude is no Rommel.

Khalifa Haftar: The man who left Virginia to lead Libya's rebels

(CNN) -- His story reads like a political thriller. Once a confidant of Moammar Gadhafi and then his sworn enemy, he led a band of Libyan exiles trying to overthrow the Libyan regime before being spirited in secrecy to the United States when things went bad. His name is Khalifa Haftar.

He has lived in Virginia for 20 years but now he's back in Libya, trying to knock the rebel force into some kind of shape.

CNN has spoken to several people who know Haftar well, and they agree on one thing: His role will be crucial, if the opposition is to mount a serious military challenge to Gadhafi.

For Haftar it's personal. He has never forgiven Gadhafi for letting him rot as a prisoner of war in neighboring Chad after a disastrous military campaign in the 1980s.

By all accounts, Haftar is a soldier's soldier -- respected by junior officers, with a good command of battlefield doctrine. Some detect his hand in the better defensive organization of rebel positions around Ajdabiya, a town critical for the defense of Benghazi but also giving access to the south.

The former Libyan ambassador in Washington, Ali Aujali, describes Haftar as "a very professional military man."

He and Gadhafi first found common cause in 1969, when Haftar, as a military cadet, supported the coup that removed King Idris. He was rewarded with a position on the Revolutionary Command Council. His subsequent ascent through the military ranks was rapid.

But unfortunately for Haftar, he was involved in the disastrous campaign against neighboring Chad in the 1980s, when Gadhafi wanted to overthrow President Hissene Habre because of his cold war alliances with France and the United States.

Haftar was captured by the Chadians at the battle of Wadi Doum in 1987, along with several hundred Libyan soldiers. Gadhafi refused to acknowledge the existence of Libyan POWs and said he knew no one called Haftar. A Libyan exile who has known Haftar for 20 years, Aly Abuzaakouk, told CNN that "Gadhafi never formally recognized there were any POWs in Chad," sending the signal that he didn't care if they were all executed.

This infuriated Haftar, according to Salem al-Hasi, another long-time opponent of Gadhafi. "He approached the Chadian government and said he wanted to work against Gadhafi and get the captured soldiers freed," al-Hasi said.

So for the next two years, Haftar and several hundred former Libyan soldiers trained at a base outside the Chadian capital, N'djamena, as the Libyan National Army -- the military wing of the opposition Libyan National Salvation Front.

Just who funded them remains shrouded in mystery, but several Libyan exiles and a former CIA officer say the United States was involved. Former Libyan envoy Aujali would not be drawn out on whether the CIA was the paymaster, but said, "The Americans knew him very, very well."

And he added: "I think working for the CIA for the sake of your national interest is nothing to be ashamed of."

At the time, the United States was keen to see the end of Gadhafi. In 1986, President Reagan had ordered airstrikes against the Libyan leader's compounds in Tripoli after U.S. intelligence had established Libyan involvement in a bomb attack on a Berlin disco frequented by U.S. service personnel. Reagan had famously described Gadhafi as a "mad dog."

The dissidents never got a chance to invade Libya because their host, President Habre, was overthrown in a coup in December 1990 by the man who has ruled Chad ever since -- Idriss Deby. And that's where Haftar's story becomes even more extraordinary. Deby wanted good relations with Gadhafi and the rapid exit of Haftar and his men. A bizarre African odyssey followed.

Derek Flood of the Jamestown Foundation, who has followed Haftar's career closely, said he and his men were flown on a U.S. plane from Chad to Nigeria and then to what was then Zaire (and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo), as Washington scrambled to find a home for the Libyan rebels. This account is supported by several Libyan sources and a former U.S. diplomat.

But Flood said a plan to funnel $5 million to the infamously corrupt Zairean regime to allow the Libyans to stay there was overturned in Congress.

The next stop was Kenya, but after relations soured between the Kenyan government and the administration of George H. W. Bush, some 300 Libyans were finally flown to the United States and resettled as political refugees at government expense. Haftar exchanged the desert expanses of the Sahara for a home in Falls Church Virginia, and his men scattered across 25 states.

For the next 20 years, Haftar lived quietly in suburban Virginia, occasionally denying rumors that he planned to return to Libya. But Abuzaakouk, who runs the Libyan Human and Political Development Forum, said that after unrest flared in February, Haftar received many calls appealing for him to return. And on March 14, he arrived in Benghazi to take charge of the rebels' chaotic military campaign.

Salem al-Hasi, who has lived in the United States since being part of an abortive attempt to kill Gadhafi in the 1980s, said Haftar can make a difference "as long as he gets the support, supplies and weapons." He said Haftar has a "sense of defining objectives and the ability to convince soldiers and officers" of his aims.

After spending two weeks in Libya, Flood said the chaotic back-and-forth of the military campaign has not allowed the rebels to train properly in rear bases.

Some have argued that Haftar and other exiles have been away from Libya for too long to relate to the younger rebels. But Aujali -- the former Libyan ambassador who split with Gadhafi -- said people such as Haftar may have been absent but "they are very well-informed; they have relatives."

Al Hasi spoke to Haftar by phone just a few days ago. "He was in high spirits, and he thinks that in the near future the forces will be organized, and the opposition will be much better than in recent weeks," he said.

There remains some doubt about the hierarchy among rebel commanders, who include Haftar, Gen. Abdul Fatah Younis and Gen. Omar al-Hariri. Abuzaakouk, who took Haftar to the airport for his journey home, said Haftar and Younis are friends and doubts they will become rivals.

He has no doubt that beyond Haftar's commitment to the rebels' cause, Haftar has a score to settle: "Haftar will fight to the death if necessary; he'll be the one to finish Gadhafi."
v

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[troung]

They want helicopters


Quarrels among rebel leadership threaten to split anti-Qaddafi opposition
Full: Quarrels among rebel leadership threaten to split anti-Qaddafi opposition - The National
Rolla Scolari (Foreign Correspondent)

Last Updated: Apr 6, 2011

BENGHAZI // As the battle for control of the key oil town of Brega enters its sixth day, a leadership quarrel and disagreement over whether to negotiate with the Libyan government in Tripoli threaten to split the ranks of the opposition.

The military and political wings of the insurgency have laboured in recent days to impose a semblance of order in their ranks as the uprising against the 41-year rule of Col Muammar Qaddafi nears its second month.

Their envoys have dispersed across Europe to make the case for more outside aid. Libyan army veterans fighting on the rebel side have taken charge of the battlefront, replacing untrained volunteers. Meanwhile, the youth who once haphazardly led the fight have been urged to move to the rear and protect rebel gains.

Nevertheless, strains are showing. There are disagreements over who is in charge of the insurgents' military operations, Abdel Fatah Younes, a former interior minister, or Khalefa Haftar, a former army colonel who recently returned from exile. The differences pose a new challenge to a political leadership that is under great pressure to show western countries they are in control of their forces.

The lack of organisation and poor co-ordination with Nato forces, as well as the reliance on untrained youth to carry the fight to Colonel Qaddafi, came to a head last week, when 13 rebels were killed in an air strike by allied warplanes.

Abdel Hafiz Ghoka, a spokesman for the Interim Transitional National Council, called the friendly-fire incident "a tragic mistake". Major Gen Ahmed Qutrani, a rebel commander, was more blunt, however, saying the incident stemmed from military incompetence. Nato planes struck their target after young rebel fighters fired in the air in celebration, he said.

Subsequent efforts to reorganise the rebel ranks met with equally confusing, though hardly lethal, results. Colonel Masouda Mohammed learnt from a television report last week that Mr Haftar, who participated in the coup in 1969 that brought Colonel Qaddafi to power but turned against him in the 1980s and fled to the United States, was no longer her commanding officer.

At a news conference on Saturday, the Benghazi-based Interim National Transitional Council announced the creation of a "transitional crisis team" and named Mr Younes the rebel army's chief of staff, pushing aside Mr Haftar. No explanation was given.

Amember of the council's local committee in Benghazi who asked not to be named said: "Mr Haftar has a bad relationship with Mr Younes and there were disagreements between them over how to lead the battle."

While Mr Younes has an insider's knowledge of Colonel Qaddafi's military assets, supporters of Mr Haftar say he was too close to the regime in which he served in a senior post. Meanwhile, to his critics, Mr Haftar bore the stigma of exile. "He came back after more than 20 years abroad, sought the top job with arrogance, without even proving himself on the front line," the committee member said.

Anti-Qaddafi forces have hit rough spots on the diplomatic road, too.

In an interview last week with Al Jazeera, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, president of the council, appeared to call for a ceasefire. Libyan government officials turned down the offer and other rebel officials scrambled to amend Mr Jalil's conciliatory words, explaining that the president had simply reiterated previous UN declarations.

A local rebel leader in Benghazi said intense disagreements persist over the ceasefire issue, with most of the political leadership firmly opposed to any truce.

The internal friction is in some ways predictable. More than four decades of authoritarian rule by Colonel Qaddafi have fragmented the opposition and atrophied its ability to co-ordinate its activities and public message. Also, there are the inevitable tensions between Libyan opponents to Colonel Qaddafi who went into exile and those who remained at home.

There are generational clashes, too. Older Libyan army veterans who have joined the insurgency are often seen by younger rebels as part of the "institution of dictatorship," General Outrani said.

However, in a war, youthful zeal rarely outweighs a marked disadvantage in know-how and weaponry, a fact that General Abdel Fatah Younes, the rebel chief of staff, acknowledged on Monday.

"The youth were not organised, they were driven by enthusiasm," he said in an interview with The National. "Now a lot of members of the army joined the rebels, but to confront the well-trained Qaddafi forces is not an easy task."

For the rebels, there have been positive developments. On Monday, Italy became the third government to recognise the council. In addition, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, told the House of Commons that his government would provide communications equipment to the outgunned rebels in their fight against pro-Qaddafi forces.

For General Younes, however, this is still not enough.

"We need more advanced weapons - at least we need weapons that Qaddafi has," he said, specifically citing the need for helicopters. While acknowledging that rebel forces have some degree of co-ordination with Nato warplanes, he complained that co-operation left a great deal to be desired.

"When we ask them to hit a target, it takes from six to ten hours for them to strike," he said.

[gunnut]

They want helicopters

They also want NATO to do more, but less, at the same time. Basically they want their air strikes whenever, wherever they please, while not have any foreign military personnel on the ground.

[troung]

Hey we owe them...


Libyan rebels to NATO: Do your job properly
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1971745/

The Libyan rebels said on Tuesday that NATO was too slow to act and they would ask the UN Security Council to suspend its operation unless it “did its job properly“.

“Either NATO does its work properly or we will ask the Security Council to suspend its work,” said Abdel Fattah Younes, head of the rebel forces, speaking at a news conference in Benghazi in the rebel-held east.

[troung]

April 1, 2011
A rebellion divided: spectre of revenge killings hangs over eastern Libya
By GRAEME SMITH
A rebellion divided: spectre of revenge killings hangs over eastern Libya - The Globe and Mail

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Near the town of Darna, a freshly dug grave marks the spot where Libyan rebels are said to have executed a group of Moammar Gadhafi's soldiers.

Libyan rebels hanged at least two suspected pro-Gadhafi fighters in the chaotic early days of the uprising, witnesses say, revealing for the first time a bitter struggle within the rebellion about how to contain the anger unleashed after decades of oppression.

The full extent of revenge killings in eastern Libya is unknown. Near the coastal city of Darna, locals say they discovered a heap of bodies in the badlands south of town, where at least a dozen men appeared to have been executed with gunshots to the head. But the circumstances of those deaths remain unclear.

Doctors at four rebel-controlled medical facilities say they struggled - and failed on at least one occasion - to prevent mobs from killing patients accused of loyalty to Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.

The arguments over the fate of suspected pro-Gadhafi prisoners, whether in the emergency wards of Al Bayda or among screaming crowds in Darna, illustrate the tension between educated leaders and fiery young people that has emerged as a defining feature of the rebellion.

The New York Times quoted anonymous U.S. officials this week saying they have cautioned the rebels against harming civilians, even suggesting that air strikes could target anti-Gadhafi forces if they fail to respect the laws of armed conflict.

The actions of those who desperately tried to save the lives of pro-Gadhafi prisoners weren't motivated merely by the fact that such revenge killings would sap the rebels' international support. More fundamentally, they felt themselves fighting for the soul of the revolution.

Abdul Karim bin Taher, a 60-year-old English teacher, stood in the shadow of a rusty pedestrian bridge in Darna where he saw revolutionaries hang a man on Feb. 23 and recalled how he tried to stop the murder, pleading with the crowd to avoid becoming like Col. Gadhafi's thugs.

"If we do the same things he did, what's the difference between them and us?" he said.

Ultimately, moderates such as Mr. bin Taher appear to have gained the upper hand after the initial burst of violence in towns along Libya's eastern coast, with most stories of revenge killings confined to the first week of the revolution.

Those captured by the rebels remain in grave danger, however. Hospitals sheltering injured pro-Gadhafi fighters must keep them hidden and guarded. At one medical facility, on a quiet floor, a handwritten sign in Arabic - "Closed for repairs" - marks the secret door leading to the prisoners.

A guard carrying two Kalashnikov rifles banged on the door, and other gunmen inside confirmed the guard's identity before removing a metal bar and allowing visitors inside. Past the barred door, a series of locked rooms contained suspected pro-Gadhafi fighters recovering from their injuries.

Now safely in the hands of rebels who appear to respect human rights, the patients said they were eating well and were being treated kindly. One of them sat in a wheelchair and seemed incapable of speaking for himself, babbling softly in confused sentences. A rebel gunman kissed him on the forehead, a gesture of affection.

"The revolutionaries tried to hang him," said a young attendant in a white doctor's coat. "The rope broke. They thought he was dead, so they put him in the freezer. He is still alive, but his brain is not working."

Medical records confirmed that the man arrived at the hospital unconscious, showing signs of strangulation, but other details of his story were unclear. A day after his first contact with journalists, rebels transferred him to another location.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, said he is familiar with the man's case. "It's quite sensitive," he said. "He is a witness to a mass execution."

Other such incidents have occurred since the beginning of the revolution, Mr. Bouckaert said.

"There were quite a number of cases of hangings," he said. "A lot of unruly armed elements detain people on their own initiative, without proper oversight."

The two most public executions, with hundreds of witnesses, allegedly happened in the early morning of Feb. 18 in the city of Al Bayda, and on the evening of Feb. 23 in the smaller city of Darna. In both cases, witnesses say, a mob lynched a dark-skinned soldier suspected of being an African mercenary.

Paranoia about mercenaries remains strong among the rebels, despite assurances from human-rights groups that most of the fighters among the pro-Gadhafi forces are Libyan citizens. Rebels have frequently treated dark-skinned prisoners more harshly than men of Arab ancestry.

That distinction was made brutally obvious to doctors at the intensive care unit of Al Bayda's main hospital on Feb. 17 when they admitted two men - one black, the other with the local olive-skinned complexion - who stood accused of fighting the rebels. A crowd gathered outside the hospital, calling for blood. Some armed rebels pushed their way into the ward.

"They had guns and knives," said Mahmoud Anass, 27, a resident on duty that night. "It was really scary. They wanted to kill the black soldier."

Doctors managed to hold off the enraged youths until a few hours after midnight, when the rebels dragged the two patients into the street.

"An old man tried to stop them," said Faraj Khalifa, a doctor. "He said our religion does not permit the killing of unarmed men. But the youths were very, very angry. They hanged the black man in front of the hospital."

The patient with lighter skin was beaten, shot, and returned to the emergency room, Dr. Khalifa said.

A cellphone video later circulated among residents showing a Christian cross tattooed on a black man. Locals pronounced this as proof that the hanged man, whom they called "John," had been a non-Muslim outsider.

Not everybody agrees that John was lynched. A female doctor claimed that the man died of his wounds before he was hanged, although she acknowledged that she did not see the incident herself.

Rebel officials deny the story, or remain vague about it. "We had no hangings," said Uthman Suleiman, 32, who describes himself as a security chief for the rebels, sitting in a room filled with war trophies, weapons and ammunition. "No, no, no, it's all rumours."

The main spokesman for Al Bayda's rebel council, Mohammed Mabrouk, said he saw John in intensive care at the hospital but did not know what happened to him.

The rebel military says it has not killed any prisoners. "I don' know about any executions," said Ahmad Zine Al-Abedine, chief military prosecutor, while cautioning that he could speak with confidence only about the rebels' actions in Benghazi, not further up the coast in Al Bayda or Darna. "Maybe it's just a rumour," he said.

During a visit to the rebels' main jail on Monday in Benghazi, guards said they were holding about 76 prisoners suspected of involvement with pro-Gadhafi forces - with more arriving all the time, as fighting continues.

The chief prosecutor promised that all of them would receive a fair trial, with defence lawyers, after the fall of the Gadhafi regime.

Such formal systems did not exist in the turbulent early days of the uprising, however, when justice was meted out by whomever won the argument with gunmen in the street. This produced wildly different outcomes for the various pro-Gadhafi groups captured by the rebels. More than 160 of the soldiers who fought the rebellion during several days of bloody standoff at the airport south of Darna were eventually released after ceasefire talks brokered by respected elders.

Before the ceasefire, however, a group of 22 soldiers who broke through the rebels' barricades near the airport on Feb. 23 seem to have fared worse. Residents say the soldiers climbed into three pickup trucks and raced down the highway that winds down the cliffs toward Darna, blasting their way through a rebel encampment along the way. Two revolutionaries were killed.

The surviving rebels called ahead to warn the city of an impending attack. Locals say that a rebel commander named Abdul Hakim Al-Hasadi organized an ambush near the outskirts; the 45-year-old had quickly become a prominent figure among the rebels because of his expertise in guerrilla warfare, which he received at training camps in Afghanistan from 1999 to 2002. (In an earlier interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Al-Hasadi declined to say who operated his training camp; al-Qaeda ran camps in the same part of Afghanistan during that period.)

The rebels caught all 22 soldiers and started transporting them in pickup trucks back to Darna; although seven leapt from the back of the trucks they were recaptured the next morning in a neighbouring village. The remaining 15 arrived at the central mosque in Darna, where a large crowed gathered and called for their execution.

"We were screaming, 'Please don't do this,'" said Jamal El-Magri, 48, a veterinarian who now serves on Darna's rebel council. "My own cousin was killed at the airport, but I'm a Muslim and I must respect the prisoners of war."

Mr. El-Magri said a group of educated men tried to shelter the prisoners inside the mosque and planned to disperse them among safe houses with families in the city. Most of them were bundled into vehicles and kept away from the mob, he said, but men in the crowed snatched one of them from the back of a pickup truck. He saw them hang him with rope from a green pedestrian bridge near the mosque.

Families that sheltered the prisoners that night remain afraid to speak to the media, fearing retribution. Abdel Gadir, 29, said one of his friends took in a group of prisoners and soon found it difficult to keep them.

"His door alarm rang in the middle of the night," Mr. Gadir said. "Men with guns were in the road with covered faces. They told him, 'Give us those criminals.'"

The masked men took away the prisoners. The next day, Mr. Gadir said he returned home in the evening to his village of Makhtuba, 20 kilometres east of Darna, and found his neighbours upset. They had discovered a pile of bodies, apparently executed with gunshots, at a nearby crossroads known as Hisha.

"My friend said, 'Our revolution has taken a wrong turn,'" Mr. Gadir said. "Each of the bodies had a bullet in the head."

A local mullah organized a team of men and a backhoe to bury the corpses, he said. None of them were willing to talk about the incident on Friday, although a freshly heaped pile of earth remains at the crossroads in the barren scrubland. Graffiti scrawled on a nearby wall marks the spot as a resting place for soldiers "killed by Gadhafi," an explanation repeated by some others in Darna. They claim the executed men were killed by their own officers for disobeying orders.

No organized units of pro-Gadhafi forces existed at that location by the time of the apparent killings, however, which supports Mr. Gadir's belief that they were executed by rebels.

Whatever truths remain buried under the dusty earth, locals say the community has reacted with horror to the excesses of the revolution's initial days. During the Friday prayers after the hanging, clerics spoke out against extra-judicial killings. City leaders have recently asked Mr. Al-Hasadi, the guerrilla expert with experience in Afghanistan, to take a less prominent role in local defences.

"Now that we have freedom," Mr. Gadir said, "we don't want to make the same mistakes again."

[dave lukins]

They also want NATO to do more, but less, at the same time. Basically they want their air strikes whenever, wherever they please, while not have any foreign military personnel on the ground.

They'll be sending out for pizza next

[troung]

Even with western PR people they can't stop being douche bags.

Libyan rebels blame airstrike lull on Turkey
Ankara working on cease-fire

Libyan rebels blame airstrike lull on Turkey - Washington Times

By Eli Lake

-

The Washington Times

7:55 p.m., Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Libyan rebels, angry about a lull in NATO airstrikes on dictator Moammar Gadhafi's forces, are directing their rage at Turkey, the only Muslim member of the alliance.

Earlier this week, the rebels turned back a Turkish ship carrying food and medical aid to Benghazi, and on Wednesday they physically attacked the Turkish Consulate in the eastern city.

"Turkey is blocking NATO attacks" on Col. Gadhafi's forces, Guma el-Gamaty, coordinator for the rebels' Interim National Transitional Council in Britain, told The Washington Times in a phone interview from London.

"We believe the reason why NATO attacks have come down in the last four or five days is because Turkey is vetoing a lot of them," Mr. el-Gamaty said.

However, Turkey has pursued an aggressive campaign to broker a cease-fire between the rebels and the Gadhafi regime.

On Monday, Ankara hosted meetings with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Abdulati Obeidi, the acting foreign minister for Col. Gadhafi, who was named after his predecessor, Musa Kusa, defected to London last week.

"Change in Libya is necessary," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said in an interview Wednesday. "We want this to be peaceful. We want civilians not to be on the receiving end of any harm. We want the natural resources of the country to be unharmed."

Mr. Arinc acknowledged that Turkey has yet to designate which Libyan officials and entities with assets it will freeze, as required by the U.N. Security Council resolutions authorizing the allies' Libyan operation. Russia, the European Union, the U.S. and Switzerland have published such assets freeze lists.

"Turkey has ongoing work on this," he said, adding that the Turkish government intends to comply with the Security Council resolutions.

Ali Aujali, the official representative of the Transitional National Council of the Libyan Republic in the United States, said Turkey's position on Libya has been inconsistent.

"The Turkish position from the beginning is not consistent," Mr. Aujali said in an interview. "We have not seen many consistent statements. But now it seems they are adopting themselves to be a kind of mediator and work with both sides. I am happy to see Turkey shift the regime from one side to the middle."

Meanwhile, Mr. el-Gamaty, the Transitional Council official in Britain, said Libyan rebels have reliable information that Turkey is selling fuel to the Gadhafi regime.

Other rebel sources said shipments of Turkish fuel had arrived in Az Zawiyah and Tripoli.

Az Zawiyah, a western city formerly controlled by the rebels but now in the regime's grip, was the scene of "unspeakable atrocities" by Col. Gadhafi's forces, according to a rebel spokesman who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.

The relationship between the rebels and Turkey has become strained over the past week.

Over the weekend, a Turkish ship evacuated 250 people wounded in fighting in the western city of Misurata. The ship, which docked in Benghazi on its way to Turkey, was greeted by throngs of cheering Libyans.

The decision to turn away the Turkish aid ship "was seen as snub for Turkey's position against the effective support by NATO and the allied forces to equip the pro-democracy [Transitional Council] in its fight against the Gadhafi regime," a source close to the opposition council in Benghazi said on the condition of anonymity.

"The reason for Turkey's obstruction has not been understood," he added.

The command and control center of NATO's Libya operations is based in the Aegean port of Izmir.

NATO took full control of Libyan operations from a U.S.-led coalition last week.

A Turkish official dismissed the rebels' allegations as "completely false and unfounded."

"Turkey has been actively participating in a number of efforts within NATO and by itself to impose the no-fly zone, arms embargo and providing humanitarian aid," Ibrahim Kalin, a senior adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told The Times in an e-mail.

"Actually, Turkey is the only country at the moment that is conducting a major humanitarian aid and medical operation in Benghazi and Misurata," he added.

Last month, the government in Ankara named Omer Solendil, a former ambassador in Libya, as an envoy to the Libyan opposition in Benghazi. Turkey also is representing U.S. diplomatic interests in Tripoli.

Turkey was initially reluctant to support airstrikes in Libya, and in a speech last month Mr. Erdogan said Turkey "will never point a gun at the Libyan people."

On a visit to London last week, Mr. Erdogan had also rejected the idea of arming the rebels saying it "could be conducive to terrorism."

Anti-Gadhafi forces say they are angry about Mr. Erdogan's position.

"The protesters are saying that Erdogan disappointed them and are urging him to take his place alongside the Libyan revolutionaries," Ali Davutoglu, Turkish consul general in Benghazi, was quoted as saying by Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper.

In Washington on Wednesday, the White House acknowledged that President Obama had received a letter from Col. Gadhafi asking for a cease-fire with NATO, adding that it urged the Libyan dictator to end his attacks on civilians.

The U.S. ended close air support missions for the rebels over the weekend, prompting calls from the rebels to continue the mission.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC

[troung]

Libya rebels 'pressured into Lockerbie apology'

Leaders say Libyans not to blame for Gaddafi's acts, accusing Britain of trading document for seized funds

Libya rebels 'pressured into Lockerbie apology' | World news | The Guardian
* Chris McGreal in Benghazi
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 April 2011 22.05 BST
* Article history

Mustafa Abdul Jalil
Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the rebels’ council, has signed an apology for the role of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in the Lockerbie bombing. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

Libya's rebel administration has said that it signed an apology for the Gaddafi regime's role in IRA attacks and the Lockerbie bombing under pressure from the British government, and that the document is the result of "misunderstanding".

After initially denying that the document existed, the revolutionaries' governing council acknowledged that its chairman, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, had indeed signed an apology on behalf of the Libyan people for Gaddafi's provision of semtex used in IRA bombings and for the blowing up of the Pan Am flight in 1988. It also promised compensation.

Amid division and confusion over the declaration, which some blamed on a translation mix-up, council officials said that the issue of the Libyan government's responsibility for attacks in the UK came up only because it was pressed on the revolutionary administration by the British.

Officials in the rebel government say the Lockerbie and IRA issues are not a priority for them given that they are fighting a military campaign to overthrow Gaddafi while trying to administer the rebel-held areas. They say that there are few Libyans who believe they are responsible for Gaddafi's acts or that they should apologise for him.

Council officials privately said that the Foreign Office pressed Jalil to invite a British lawyer, Jason McCue, head of the Libya Victims Initiative, to Benghazi. McCue arrived saying that he was seeking an "unequivocal apology" in the name of the Libyan people and $10m compensation for each death in IRA attacks. All of his demands were met by Jalil.

Council officials said that they regarded McCue as working with a team of British diplomats in Benghazi, led by the UK's ambassador to Rome, Christopher Prentice. Prentice has declined to talk to the press. A council spokesman, Essam Gheriani, said that Jalil had had little choice but to sign as part of the rebel administration's attempts to win diplomatic recognition and gain access to desperately needed funds frozen overseas.

"The whole world knows the Libyan people are not responsible for Gaddafi's acts over 40 years. An apology is not warranted for the simple reason that the Libyan people did not participate in these acts," said Gheriani. "But there is the situation in the international arena."

Britain is holding about £100m in Libyan currency seized from a ship that could be released to the rebel administration, which is needs funds to meet next month's civil service pay roll as well as for imports of food.

Asked if Jalil was pressured by Britain, Gheriani said: "It depends on how you define pressure. I request something from you when you want something from me. It could be defined as pressure."

Four countries – France, Italy, Qatar and Kuwait – have recognised the transitional council as the de facto government of Libya. Besides the British envoy, there are diplomatic missions from several other countries, including Turkey, as well as an EU delegation visiting Benghazi.

"The international arena is the most important for the time being, more important than the military front," said Gheriani. "We need those frozen assets. They will be frozen until they have a legitimate body they can be released to, so we need recognition. This is essential for us."

The rebels are also negotiating with an American envoy sent to Benghazi, Chris Stevens, who served at the US embassy in Tripoli until it was shut down. The US holds about $30bn in frozen Libyan assets. It is unlikely to offer full diplomatic recognition to the rebel administration in the short term but a state department spokesman, Mark Toner, said Washington was looking for ways to get some of that money to the revolutionary council.

"We are going to look at some ways to enable them to meet some of their financial needs and how we can help to do that through the international community, given the challenge of sanctions," he said.

But given the ever present fears among American politicians of Islamism, Stevens is seeking specific commitments on a future democratic system, respect for human rights and a commitment to the struggle against al-Qaida.

The revolutionary council's desperation to avoid even a hint of Islamism has led it to deny repeatedly that rebel-held areas have been infiltrated by followers of Osama bin Laden, most recently after an assertion by the US's Nato operations commander, Admiral James Stavridis, that "flickers" of al-Qaida and Hezbollah had been detected in the Libyan uprising.

The rebel leadership dismisses such claims but recognises that they have to be addressed. "It's taking up our time and effort replying to those fears and apprehensions, that we are not al-Qaida. But we have to say it every time," said Gheriani.

[NeilE]

^

To be honest I find it a bit ridiculous that a request was made to the rebels to apologise for Gaddafi's actions. It would be akin to asking the Iraqi people to apologise for Sadaam or for North Koreans to apologise for Kim Jong-il. Why on earth should the Libyan rebels have to apologise and compensate victims that suffered under a dictator who oppressed them as well?

[kato]

Besides which the victims were already - financially - compensated years ago.

[Double Edge]

And justice for his ppl for all the nonsense perpertrated over thirty years is still pending.

[Chogy]

This thing smelled from the beginning and the corpse is getting riper.

To me, it looks like a coup attempt with a veneer of "popular uprising" so as to be more palatable to the international community.

[troung]

Libya's fledgling government
Early days, early rivalries
The rebels are trying to create order very slowly out of chaos
Libya's fledgling government: Early days, early rivalries | The Economist
Apr 7th 2011 | BENGHAZI | from the print edition

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THE day after Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s forces attacked oil installations in Libya’s east, hundreds of workers converged on the Benghazi headquarters of Libya’s largest oil producer, the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, better known as Agoco, to complain about the running of the oil industry under the new order. A raucous meeting ended only when Agoco promised to keep the head of its management committee, whom the oil workers had chosen when they joined the uprising, despite objections from the transitional national council, the rebels’ fledgling government. “People don’t understand we’re in a war,” says an Agoco manager.

Such infighting, along with damage to the oil installations, is hurting a company which, under the colonel’s control, had been a rare example of professional order in an otherwise chaotic state. But bitter rivalries have surfaced, now that the strongman’s grip has been removed. “Local godfathers are trying to carve up the country as fast as foreign players,” moans an engineer recruiting members for a trade union.

The generator at Mislah, which produces some of Libya’s best-quality oil, was attacked by pro-Qaddafi forces just as the national council was preparing to sell its first tanker of oil. It pushes oil north from three of Libya’s largest fields 560km (348 miles) to the port of Tobruk. Engineers say the facility may take months to repair. With the colonel’s forces able to operate in the desert, most oil workers have fled. “We’ve shut down operations until military forces are deployed,” says the council’s new oil-corporation head, Wahid Bugaigis, back from exile in Houston.
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* Energy industry
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In Benghazi other rows have erupted, partly over sharing the spoils of office. People have begun to mutter against the council—and against Westerners for not helping enough. Some grumble that old families from the Turkish Ottoman era, such as the Bugaigis and the Gherianis, related by marriage, are getting too many of the jobs in the budding new set-up; “We won’t let them substitute one family business for another,” says a Libyan oilman.

Rivalries have also arisen in the rebel forces. Some say the overall commander is Khalifa Haftar, a general who has returned to help the rebels after many years in retirement in the United States. But Abdel Fatah Younis, Colonel Qaddafi’s former interior minister who switched sides in late February, insists that he is in charge and that General Haftar has no official post.

The rebels have virtually no institutions to hold their eastern zone together. But the vacuum is steadily being filled. Courts have started to function again. The rebels have even set up an embryonic intelligence service. The nights have become quieter since the police, back in action, started to question people wielding unlicensed weapons. After dusk volunteers man checkpoints inside Benghazi and outside its main hotels. Businessmen say that mobile telephones and the internet will be reconnected to the outside world within a week or two. Despite the no-fly zone, aircraft and even military helicopters fly in and out of Benghazi’s rebel-held airport.

Yet people are getting anxious and even angry as they fear that outsiders, including NATO, might be losing enthusiasm for the cause. “The mood on the street is changing,” says a Libyan businessman, sounding suspicious of outsiders’ motives. “Our people are being killed,” he says. “We might ask all foreigners to go away.”

As people begin to suspect that a military stalemate may last months, some are worrying that the self-appointed council may entrench itself with no accountability. It presents itself as the new Libya’s legislature, with a “crisis-management committee” as its government, alongside a plethora of lesser committees. But it is not always clear who is in charge or where lines of command are being drawn.

The council has yet to begin untangling the legal and legislative knots that have snarled up the economy for so many years. For instance, Colonel Qaddafi’s Law Number Four, which empowers the state to confiscate private property and resell it, has yet to be repealed. But doing so would set off a string of compensation claims, which the courts are not yet equipped to assess. “We want our houses back,” says Maha al-Shahumi, who helps to run a fledgling prosecution service in the council’s courthouse. “We won’t rest till we do.”

Some of the new order’s more liberal backers say the council should set up mechanisms forthwith to ensure openness. It should schedule provincial elections, start drafting a new school syllabus and promise a rapid reform of the army and security service, once the colonel has been toppled. In particular, the new council, based as it is in the east, must widen its composition and strive to persuade Tripolitanians in the west that a decent new order is being built. It must also reassure foreign governments that it can be a worthy interlocutor.

But it may be premature to tackle such issues. For one thing, the rebels still hope they will have captured Tripoli within a few months, if not sooner. And until they do, it is hard to see them starting to create a brave new world, in either the east or the west of their devastated country.

from the print edition | Middle East & Africa

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[gunnut]

This is Obama's mess. We could have stayed out. Or can we somehow pin this on Bush?

[troung]

To be honest I find it a bit ridiculous that a request was made to the rebels to apologise for Gaddafi's actions. It would be akin to asking the Iraqi people to apologise for Sadaam or for North Koreans to apologise for Kim Jong-il. Why on earth should the Libyan rebels have to apologise and compensate victims that suffered under a dictator who oppressed them as well?

Look at the considerable number of people who served him for years who now have posts in the rebel government.