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The smell of decaying bodies hangs over the rows of loosely packed sand as the caretaker moves through the cemetery on Ajdabiyah's southern edge. Embarak Hamid has buried 81 people in recent days. A group of volunteers from the town, working quickly beneath the searing sunlight, have already cleared a new row. They say they will likely fill it with dozens more bodies by nightfall, as they search the corners of a city laid waste in some places by a government bombardment that lasted 11 days straight.
In little more than 24 hours, the line of Libyan rebel control has lurched forward yet again, sweeping more than 100 miles (160 km) to the west, through the towns of Ajdabiyah, Brega and Ras Lanuf, and along a coastal road of mostly desert sand dunes in between. For 11 days, the pro-rebel town of Ajdabiyah had been under siege, cut off from water and electricity, and subject to seemingly random shelling by the forces of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. But on Saturday, after a night of allied air strikes, rebel fighters poured into the city and pushed on to the towns further west; they paraded as they have before through a morbid playground of war-ravaged streets and shredded tanks. Meanwhile, men who had stayed behind to fight in Ajdabiyah said their families could now return from the outlying villages to which they had fled. Those pushing forward promised again to reach Gaddafi's stronghold of Sert in a matter of days.
But the Libyan civilians populating the front line, as it shifts from Benghazi to Ajdabiyah, Brega and Ras Lanuf, have little doubt that rebel advancement and safety from government shelling and siege is heavily, if not entirely, dependent on allied air strikes. It's a fact that is troubling to both the rebel fighters and the Western governments seeking to extricate themselves from an increasingly complicated civil war. But without their assistance, the residents say, their towns would have been totally devastated and both rebels and rebel sympathizers hunted down, kidnapped or killed.
For a number of people, the missiles that freed Ajdabiyah after a week of stalemate came far too late. Much of the town is now silent and abandoned; the bullet holes and collapsed walls of apartment blocks and storefronts bear witness to the city's scourging by Gaddafi. Charred, shattered dishes, pots and pans, and the heavy metal shards of armaments, lie in the blackened rubble of one anonymous family's kitchen in a first-floor apartment in the 7th of October neighborhood. A crushed baby carriage and television set lie in the ruin of another room, and the charred refrigerator door hangs open to a swarm of flies, allowing someone's asthma medication to incubate on a rack beside the remains of rotting food.
BIN JAWWAD, Libya -- Rebel forces on Monday fought their way to the doorstep of Moammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, a key government stronghold guarding the road to the capital Tripoli.
The lightning rebel advance of the past few days, backed by powerful international airstrikes, has restored to the opposition all the territory they lost over the past week and brought them to within 60 miles (100 miles) of this bastion of Gaddafi's power in the center of the country.
"Sirte will not be easy to take," said Gen. Hamdi Hassi, a rebel commander at the small town of Bin Jawwad, just 18 miles (30 kilometers) from the front. "Now because of NATO strikes on (the government's) heavy weapons, we're almost fighting with the same weapons, only we have Grad rockets now and they don't."
Libya's rebels have recovered hundreds of miles (kilometers) of flat, uninhabited territory at record speeds after Gaddafi's forces were forced to pull back by international air strikes that began March 19.
In a symbolic diplomatic victory for the opposition, the tiny state of Qatar recognized Libya's rebels as the legitimate representatives of the country the first Arab state to do so.
Hassi said there was fighting now just outside the small hamlet of Nawfaliyah, 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Sirte and scouting parties had found the road ahead to be heavily mined.
He added that the current rebel strategy was to combine military assault with an attempt to win over some of the local tribes loyal to Gaddafi over to their side.
"There's Gaddafi and then there's circles around him of supporters, each circle is slowly peeling off and disappearing," Hassi said. "If they rise up it would make our job easier."
Witnesses in Sirte reported Monday there had been air strikes the night before and again early in the morning, but the town was quiet, and dozens of fighters loyal to Gaddafi could be seen roaming the streets.
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama will make his case for U.S. involvement in Libya to an anxious public Monday night, while officials offered assurances that military action there does not set a precedent for how the U.S. will handle similar uprisings throughout the Middle East.
White House aides were reluctant to spell out details of Obama's speech, set for 7:30 p.m. EDT Monday. However, deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough said the rationale Obama would lay out for involvement in Libya cannot be applied to escalating clashes between pro- and anti-government forces in Syria and elsewhere.
"Obviously there are certain aspirations that are being voiced by each of these movements, but there's no question that each of them is unique," McDonough said. "We don't get very hung up on this question of precedent."
McDonough sidestepped questions about whether Obama would lay out an exit strategy for U.S. actions in Libya, saying only that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would discuss those details Tuesday during a key international meeting on Libya in London.
At a separate event in Washington earlier Monday, Obama said the U.S. involvement in Libya would be, "limited, both in time and scope."
The president's remarks to the nation come after the administration scored an important diplomatic victory. NATO ambassadors on Sunday approved a plan for the alliance to assume from the U.S. command all aerial operations, including ground attacks.
That will help Obama assure the nation he can deliver on his promise that the United States will be a partner in the military action against Libya, but not from the driver's seat. Bickering among NATO members delayed the process.
Ahead of Monday's speech, Obama and his top national security officials worked to set the stage for the address Obama in his weekly radio and Internet address, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Clinton with appearances on Sunday television news shows.
But as they made the rounds, neither Clinton nor Gates could say how long the U.S. mission would last or lay out an exit strategy.
BIN JAWWAD, Libya -- Libyan government tanks and rockets blunted a rebel assault on Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte on Tuesday and drove back the ragtag army of irregulars, even as world leaders prepared to debate the country future in London.
Rockets and tank fire sent Libya's rebel volunteers in a panicked scramble away from the front lines, before the opposition was able to bring up truck mounted rocket launchers of their own and return fire.
The two sides traded salvos over the small hamlet of Bin Jawwad amid the thunderous crash of rockets and artillery shells as plumes of smoke erupted from the town. The steady drum of heavy machine gun fire and the pop of small arms could also be heard above the din.
"There aren't a lot of us in Bin Jawwad right now," said Faisal Ali, a 20 year-old-rebel who had retreated from the town. "If (Gadhafi) has enough firepower and forces using tanks, he will surely take over Bin Jawwad," he added, noting that the rebels' special forces, one of their few trained units, had not yet retreated.
The latest rebel setback emphasizes the see-saw nature of this conflict and how the opposition is still no match for the superior firepower and organization of Gadhafi's forces, despite an international campaign of deadly airstrikes.
A U.N.-mandated no-fly zone and campaign of strikes by the U.S. and its allies helped rebel forces regain territory lost of the past week, when they were on the brink of defeat by government forces.
TRIPOLI, Libya A Libyan woman who burst into a Tripoli hotel to tell foreign journalists how she was gang raped by Moammar Gadhafi's troops will face criminal charges, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.
The spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said the men accused by Iman al-Obeidi are now suing her. A son of a high ranking Libyan official was among those she claimed had raped her, he said.
"The boys she accused are bringing a case against her because it's a very grave offense to accuse someone of a sexual crime," Ibrahim told reporters in the Libyan capital.
Al-Obeidi made headlines when she rushed distraught into Tripoli's Rixos Hotel on Saturday, seeking to speak to foreign media. She claimed she was detained by a number of Gadhafi troops at a Tripoli checkpoint on Wednesday. She said they were drinking whiskey and handcuffed her, and that 15 men later raped her.
Al-Obeidi's claim could not be independently verified. The Associated Press only identifies rape victims who volunteer their names.
As she started to tell her story, al-Obeidi was tackled by waitresses and government minders and dragged away from the hotel, and has since been missing. Her parents claim she is held hostage at Gadhafi's compound in the Libyan capital.
Libyan authorities have alternately labeled al-Obeidi a drunk, a prostitute and a thief.
Ibrahim on Tuesday refused to discuss al-Obeidi's whereabouts. But in an interview with the AP on Sunday, he had said she was with her sister in the Libyan capital. He also said at the time that police have a file on al-Obeidi for prostitution and petty theft.
However, al-Obeidi's parents told satellite Al-Jazeera Television on Monday that their daughter is a lawyer now pursuing a post-graduate degree.
When unrest exploded in Libya last month, Khamis Gadhafi--the youngest son of the country's embattled leader Muammar Gadhafi--wasn't around. He was on an internship program in the United States.
Khamis, who runs Libya's special forces, quickly returned to his home country, where he has led a military unit that has brutally suppressed rebel forces.
The internship, which lasted a month, was sponsored by AECOM, a Los Angeles-based global engineering and design company that has been working with the Libyan regime to modernize the country's infrastructure. Khadis made stops in San Francisco, Colorado, Houston, Washington, and New York City, meeting with high-tech companies (including Google, Apple, and Intel), universities, and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. While in the Big Apple, Khamis even took in the Broadway show "Mamma Mia."
News of Khamis's internship, which was approved by the State Department, was first reported by ABC News.
Since coming home, Khamis appears to have played a key role in helping his father's regime in its violent campaign to quell the uprising. He has led the elite 32nd Reinforced Brigade, known at the Khamis Brigade, which reportedly has been involved in brutally suppressing rebel forces.
Vice Adm. William Gortney of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the Khamis Brigade, whose headquarters were the target of U.S. Tomahawk missiles, as "one of the most active in terms of attacking innocent people."
On Monday night, Libyan television showed Khamis dressed in his military uniform and greeting people at his father's Tripoli compound.
A spokesman for AECOM told CNN that the company was "shocked and outraged" to learn of Khamis' military role.
AECOM added in a statement: "The educational internship, which consisted of publicly available information, was aligned with our efforts to improve quality of life, specifically in Libya, where we were advancing public infrastructure such as access to clean water; quality housing; safe and efficient roads and bridges; reliable and affordable energy; and related projects that create jobs and opportunity."
This keeps getting better and better.
Until uprising, Gadhafis son was on U.S. internship
When unrest exploded in Libya last month, Khamis Gadhafi--the youngest son of the country's embattled leader Muammar Gadhafi--wasn't around. He was on an internship program in the United States.
Khamis, who runs Libya's special forces, quickly returned to his home country, where he has led a military unit that has brutally suppressed rebel forces.
The internship, which lasted a month, was sponsored by AECOM, a Los Angeles-based global engineering and design company that has been working with the Libyan regime to modernize the country's infrastructure. Khadis made stops in San Francisco, Colorado, Houston, Washington, and New York City, meeting with high-tech companies (including Google, Apple, and Intel), universities, and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. While in the Big Apple, Khamis even took in the Broadway show "Mamma Mia."
News of Khamis's internship, which was approved by the State Department, was first reported by ABC News.
Since coming home, Khamis appears to have played a key role in helping his father's regime in its violent campaign to quell the uprising. He has led the elite 32nd Reinforced Brigade, known at the Khamis Brigade, which reportedly has been involved in brutally suppressing rebel forces.
Vice Adm. William Gortney of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the Khamis Brigade, whose headquarters were the target of U.S. Tomahawk missiles, as "one of the most active in terms of attacking innocent people."
On Monday night, Libyan television showed Khamis dressed in his military uniform and greeting people at his father's Tripoli compound.
A spokesman for AECOM told CNN that the company was "shocked and outraged" to learn of Khamis' military role.
AECOM added in a statement: "The educational internship, which consisted of publicly available information, was aligned with our efforts to improve quality of life, specifically in Libya, where we were advancing public infrastructure such as access to clean water; quality housing; safe and efficient roads and bridges; reliable and affordable energy; and related projects that create jobs and opportunity."
Until uprising, Gadhafis son was on U.S. internship - Yahoo! News
This keeps getting better and better.
Until uprising, Gadhafis son was on U.S. internship
When unrest exploded in Libya last month, Khamis Gadhafi--the youngest son of the country's embattled leader Muammar Gadhafi--wasn't around. He was on an internship program in the United States.
Khamis, who runs Libya's special forces, quickly returned to his home country, where he has led a military unit that has brutally suppressed rebel forces.
The internship, which lasted a month, was sponsored by AECOM, a Los Angeles-based global engineering and design company that has been working with the Libyan regime to modernize the country's infrastructure. Khadis made stops in San Francisco, Colorado, Houston, Washington, and New York City, meeting with high-tech companies (including Google, Apple, and Intel), universities, and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. While in the Big Apple, Khamis even took in the Broadway show "Mamma Mia."
News of Khamis's internship, which was approved by the State Department, was first reported by ABC News.
Since coming home, Khamis appears to have played a key role in helping his father's regime in its violent campaign to quell the uprising. He has led the elite 32nd Reinforced Brigade, known at the Khamis Brigade, which reportedly has been involved in brutally suppressing rebel forces.
Vice Adm. William Gortney of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described the Khamis Brigade, whose headquarters were the target of U.S. Tomahawk missiles, as "one of the most active in terms of attacking innocent people."
On Monday night, Libyan television showed Khamis dressed in his military uniform and greeting people at his father's Tripoli compound.
A spokesman for AECOM told CNN that the company was "shocked and outraged" to learn of Khamis' military role.
AECOM added in a statement: "The educational internship, which consisted of publicly available information, was aligned with our efforts to improve quality of life, specifically in Libya, where we were advancing public infrastructure such as access to clean water; quality housing; safe and efficient roads and bridges; reliable and affordable energy; and related projects that create jobs and opportunity."
Until uprising, Gadhafis son was on U.S. internship - Yahoo! News
Well, if you don't want to risk waking up with a whore then you shouldn't go to bed with a whore.
This keeps getting better and better.
Until uprising, Gadhafis son was on U.S. internship
Until uprising, Gadhafis son was on U.S. internship - Yahoo! News
Well, if you don't want to risk waking up with a whore then you shouldn't go to bed with a whore.
Huh? explain?
Well, if you don't want to risk waking up with a whore then you shouldn't go to bed with a whore.
Huh? explain?
My take is that AECOM offered him an internship to improve their relationship with Gaddafi (a political business decision), and are scrambling to limit the negative PR now that the son is showing signs of being every bit as unpleasant as the father.
They would have considered this potential eventuality before offering the internship, and the negative press it could generate, but decided to go ahead with it anyway to strengthen their business relationships within Libya.
Hence my observation about waking up with whores.
The United States and Britain have said they are willing to consider arming Libyan rebels if Muammar Gaddafi continues to cling to power in the face of an opposition military campaign backed by international air strikes.
U.S. President Barack Obama said a negotiated settlement to end the conflict is still on the table if Gaddafi was to stand down, but supplying weapons to anti-government fighters could be an alternative route.
"I think it's fair to say that if we wanted to get weapons into Libya, we probably could," Obama told ABC. "We're looking at all our options at this point."
UK prime minister, David Cameron, echoed his comments saying that arming the rebels was a legal extension of the U.N.-mandated action in Libya and would not violate an arms embargo.
"Our view is that this would not necessarily rule out the provision of assistance to those protecting civilians in certain circumstances," he told Britain's parliament. "So ... we do not rule it out but we have not taken the decision to do so."
Gaddafi's forces continued to claw back territory captured by rebels on Wednesday as gains made under cover of western air strikes were lost to the firepower of the government troops.
Under heavy bombardment from Gaddafi's forces, rebel fighters were forced to pull out of the oil town of Ras Lanuf, Reuters said. A euphoric westward advance begun by the rebels after government troops were driven by air strikes from the gateway town of Ajdabiya now appeared to be in disarray.
"Gaddafi hit us with huge rockets. He has entered Ras Lanuf," rebel fighter Faraj Muftah told Reuters
On Tuesday, forces loyal to the government retook the town of Nawfaliyah, 75 miles east of Gaddafi's hometown Sirt, ambushing the rebels and forcing them into a panicked retreat eastwards.
With no end in sight to the conflict, a group of 40 governments and international bodies met in London on Tuesday to discuss options for Libya.
The group agreed to continue the airstrikes against Libyan forces until Gaddafi complied with a U.N. resolution to end attacks on civilians and to set up a "contact group" of nations to coordinate help for a post-Gaddafi Libya.
KAMPALA, Uganda -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is welcome to live in the East African nation of Uganda, the president's spokesman told The Associated Press on Wednesday, in what appears to be the first country to offer him refuge.
An intense diplomatic effort is under way to find a country where Gadhafi can go, as an international military effort against Gadhafi's forces continues.
The spokesman for Uganda's president, Tamale Mirundi, told the AP that Gadhafi would be welcome in Uganda. He said Uganda's policy is to accept asylum seekers, especially because so many Ugandans fled the country during the longtime rule of dictator Idi Amin.
"So we have soft spots for asylum seekers. Gadhafi would be allowed to live here if he chooses to do so," Mirundi said.
Another possible reason Uganda might accept Gadhafi is that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is, like Gadhafi, among the old guard of African leaders. Museveni has been in power for 25 years, though he won re-election in February amid signs that many Ugandans still genuinely support him.
Gadhafi has been in power for more than 40 years.
Museveni had planned to travel to Libya in mid-March, but sent his foreign minister instead. Days later, Museveni issued a nine-page statement denouncing the U.S. and European military action for interfering in what he said was an internal matter. He also praised Gadhafi, though he urged the Libyan leader to negotiate with the rebels.
"Whatever his faults, is a true nationalist," Museveni said of Gadhafi. "I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests."
One complicating factor to Gadhafi's living in Uganda may be the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor has said he will decide by May whether to seek an indictment against Gadhafi. Uganda is a signatory to the statute that created the court.
Muslims in Uganda may welcome Gadhafi as well. Muslim leader Hamuza Kaduga noted that Gadhafi paid for a large modern mosque in Kampala and has supported other projects.
Uganda currently hosts more than 20,000 refugees from Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea and Rwanda.
DENVER -- The Air Force Academy confirms that a son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi visited the school last month during a U.S. tour that included businesses and other schools.
Academy spokesman Lt. Col. John Bryan said Wednesday that Khamis Gadhafi got a standard VIP tour of the school on Feb. 7 eight days before the Libyan uprising began.
Bryan says it included academic, athletic and residential buildings, and briefings from the dean of faculty and the vice superintendent.
Bryan says Gadhafi wouldn't have learned anything of benefit to the Libyan military.
The U.S. tour, first reported last week, was organized by an infrastructure company with business interests in Libya. It was cut short when the Libyan uprising erupted.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA has sent small teams of operatives into Libya after the agency's station in the capital was forced to close, and officers assisted in rescuing one of the two crew members of an F-15E Strike Eagle that crashed, an American official and a former U.S. intelligence officer told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The agency's precise role in Libya is unclear. Intelligence experts said the CIA would have sent officials to make contact with the opposition and assess the strength and needs of the rebel forces battling Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in the event President Barack Obama decided to arm them.
The American official and the former U.S. intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the CIA helped safely recover the fighter jet's weapons specialist, who was first picked up by rebels. The pilot was rescued by Marines.
They suffered only minor injuries, the military has said. Officials have declined to say what mission the F-15 was on at the time of the crash March 21. The crew ejected after the aircraft malfunctioned during a mission against a Libyan missile site.
The former intelligence officer said some CIA officers also had been staging from the agency's station in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.
The New York Times first reported the CIA had sent in groups of CIA operatives and that British operatives were directing airstrikes.
Obama said in a national address Monday night that U.S. troops would not be used on the ground in Libya. The statement allowed for wiggle room as the president explores options in case he decides to use covert action to ship arms to the rebels and train them. That would require a presidential finding.
In that event, the CIA would take the lead, as it has done in the past such as in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks and the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. In those covert action programs, CIA officers along with special operation forces were sent in, providing arms to opposition forces to help fight the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The White House said Wednesday it is assessing options for "all types of assistance" to the rebels.
In a thundering blow to Muammar Gaddafi's standing and the morale of his regime, Libya's Foreign Minister Moussa Kusa defected to London on Wednesday night, in the regime's most high-profile break since the Western bombing campaign began nearly two weeks agoif not, indeed, the most momentous split in the Libyan government in years.
Kusa, who has long been one of Gaddafi's most trusted aides, landed at London's Farnborough Airport at about 9 p.m., after slipping across Libya's border into Tunisia earlier this week. He was flown on a British military jet, and immediately requested political asylum. "Kusa is not happy about how the government has handled the conflict," said his friend, Noman Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was aligned with al-Qaeda until 2008, speaking to TIME late Wednesday night. Benotman said Kusa revealed earlier this month that he was distressed that Gaddafi had once again turned Libya into a pariah state, after years of Kusa's careful work in restoring its standing in the U.S. and Europe. "He was the key figure to rehabilitate Libya with the international community," Benotman said by phone. "Now it is all gone."
Kusa's defection comes just one day after Western and Arab leaders met in London for a key coalition meeting to decide the next steps in their campaign against Gaddafi. There, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other leaders warned Gaddafi that his time in power was quickly running out, and invited those around him to ditch the regime before it was too late. Kusa appears to have been the first to flee but Benotman says he is unlikely to be the last. "I'm aware of dozens of people in Tripoli who are not happy," said Benotman, who was in Tripoli when the revolt erupted in mid-February, and who has close contacts with high-level Libyan officials. "The message being delivered is that they have to make a decision now."
Earlier this week, rebel forces in Libya fought their way to the outskirts of Sirte, a seafront city about the size of Tallahassee. The day before, pushing westward along the coast from Ajdabiya, they'd recaptured the oil towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf -- Sirte, experts said, was the last major obstacle standing in the rebels' path to the capital city of Tripoli.
Sirte. Before Sunday, few outside Libya had heard of it. Now it's being portrayed as the key to Libya's hopes for democracy, the fulcrum on which the nation's fate would turn. Its importance can be explained partly by location, its proximity to the capital. But it mattered for other reasons, too, reasons that reveal a lot about a conflict with complexities outsiders are only beginning to grasp.
In 1942, as every Libyan schoolchild knows, a future authoritarian ruler was born in a tent outside the city. He went to school in the city itself, not that it was much of a city at the time. Even after he came to power in 1969, Sirte was a quiet rural outpost in a country that was pretty provincial.
Then, in the late 1980s, he decided to make his hometown the new capital. So what if it was in the middle of nowhere? He was Muammar al-Gaddafi. Who would stop him?
He began moving government offices there and ordered the construction of Soviet-style administrative buildings. He built a conference center whose unusual design brings to mind an enormous tent. Sirte would be his Brasilia, a fabricated city in the wilderness. It was a monument to an idea, that idea being the greatness of Gaddafi.
The plan never panned out. Even with its new hotels and wide, well-paved roads, Sirte was a dull backwater and no one wanted to move there, certainly not government officials who made lives for themselves in Tripoli. In a rare instance of Gaddafi not getting what he wanted, the officials stayed where they were. But the hotels, the conference centers, the infrastructure -- all remained intact.
Charles O. Cecil, a retired diplomat who served in Libya in 2006, said that during his stay in the country many of these buildings stood half-empty, concrete-and-glass metaphors for the unfulfilled promises of Gaddafi's so-called revolution. A city built as a monument to Gaddafi's power had turned out to be, quite literally, an empty symbol.
On Wednesday, when asked why the Libyan rebels were retreating, one of their spokesmen, Colonel Ahmed Bany, said archly, "You are obviously well aware of the difference between a tank and a Kalashnikov." It could be the difference between victory and defeat.
The rebels have repeatedly emphasized their relative hopelessness in squaring off against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, using only an apparently large supply of light arms, including AK-47s, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. These arms are no match for Gaddafi's tanks, the rebels say. To succeed, they require large weapons to defeat the regime's tanks and Grad missiles. "Our forces have only got light weapons, and are facing military might," said Bany. "No matter how enthusiastic or courageous [the rebels may be], a handgun has no chance against [Gaddafi's forces]. Might is might, but if you don't have the military might behind it to enforce that might, then it's useless."
But what kind of armaments could the rebels use right now? Said Bany: "The types of weapons that we're seeking are the type that would be able to eliminate or destroy [Gaddafi's] military mechanization." Asked whether his forces are also in need of communications and logistical support, Bany said, "Right now we are suffering from this problem difficulty of communications. We are trying as best we can to have communications with the components of our forces. And we are in communications with them and are able to contact them, but we are in need of more-advanced equipment."
Questioned about the presence of al-Qaeda elements in the ranks of the rebel army, Bany said, "We don't have this type of fundamentalist thinking or attitudes. So it's not on our part to be organizing any type of al-Qaeda cells within our ranks. If there are Libyans who were associated with al-Qaeda around the world previously and who are now back in Libya fighting, they are fighting as Libyans. The association with al-Qaeda is nonexistent here. They are fighting as Libyans."
I was under the impression that tanks were being destroyed from the air by US / UK / French jets.
But I'm not really following this story....
I was under the impression that tanks were being destroyed from the air by US / UK / French jets.
But I'm not really following this story....
Some of them are but once Ghaddafi gets tanks inside the rebel cities there nothing we can do, we can't bomb the whole city otherwise we kill the rebels as well. The rebels need RPGS, Rocket launchers and missiles to counter the tanks and other heavy weapons from Ghaddafis army.
