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Gaddafi flees Libya
NOSLEEP
Member Posts: 4,526
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8339096/Libya-Colonel-Gaddafi-flees-to-Venezuela-as-cities-fall-to-protesters.html
Credible Western intelligence reports say that Muammar Gaddafi has fled Libya and is on his way to exile in Venezuela, according to William Hague, the foreign secretary.
Several media have also reported rumors that Colonel Gaddafi was headed to Venezuela.
Following an emergency EU meeting of foreign ministers on the situation in Libya, Mr Hague was asked if Britain, or other Western countries, knew if Col. Gaddafi had left Tripoli.
"About whether Col. Gaddafi, is in Venezuela, I have no information that says he is although I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there," he said.
British officials stressed that Mr Hague was referring "not to media reports but information from other channels". "This is credible information," said a diplomat.
Mr Hague said that the foreign office was offering "every possible assistance" to the 3,500 British nationals currently in Libya.
"There should be restraint instead of violence, dialogue instead of repression in Libya. Human rights should be respected. We are concerned at this stage about our nationals in Libya," he said.
Credible Western intelligence reports say that Muammar Gaddafi has fled Libya and is on his way to exile in Venezuela, according to William Hague, the foreign secretary.
Several media have also reported rumors that Colonel Gaddafi was headed to Venezuela.
Following an emergency EU meeting of foreign ministers on the situation in Libya, Mr Hague was asked if Britain, or other Western countries, knew if Col. Gaddafi had left Tripoli.
"About whether Col. Gaddafi, is in Venezuela, I have no information that says he is although I have seen some information that suggests he is on his way there," he said.
British officials stressed that Mr Hague was referring "not to media reports but information from other channels". "This is credible information," said a diplomat.
Mr Hague said that the foreign office was offering "every possible assistance" to the 3,500 British nationals currently in Libya.
"There should be restraint instead of violence, dialogue instead of repression in Libya. Human rights should be respected. We are concerned at this stage about our nationals in Libya," he said.
Comments
He and Hugo Chavez should make a exciting team in Venezuela.
I saw where he ordered fighter jets to fire on the people, Some of the pilots fled the country.
did he tell them to drop bombs between the minarets and up the casbah way? [:D]
sorry I just had to
quote:Originally posted by cartod
I saw where he ordered fighter jets to fire on the people, Some of the pilots fled the country.
did he tell them to drop bombs between the minarets and up the casbah way? [:D]
sorry I just had to
Don't apologize for that. Any Clash reference is a good reference.[8D]
quote:Originally posted by cartod
I saw where he ordered fighter jets to fire on the people, Some of the pilots fled the country.
did he tell them to drop bombs between the minarets and up the casbah way? [:D]
sorry I just had to
If he had that certainly would "Rock the casbah rock the casbah!!"
Wulfmann
"Fools learn from their own mistakes. I learn from the mistakes of others"
Otto von Bismarck
At least until these all turn into Islamic theocracies.
Which one's next?
This is what it looks like to have Obama's foreign policy legacy slip through his hands like shifting desert sands.
Tunisia
Egypt
Now Libya...if Gaddafi has left his son will pick up the sword and carry on in his fashion if not more brutal. His statement today was that the goverment would fight to the last bullet. It will be a blood bath either way.
Next will be Baharain...already fired on protestors.
Quatar is having protests along with Yemen and Oman. The whole area is about to melt down. In a void the radical Isalmic movement will step up to the plate...just like in Iran.
Quatar is having protests...A meltdown in Qatar could compicate things for us.
We have a fair sized military presence there.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/libya-crumbling-amid-massacre-reports-20110222-1b2tp.html
Protesters overran several Libyan cities and Tripoli was being rocked by violence some residents said was a "massacre", as the pillars of Muammar Gaddafi's hardline four-decade rule begins to crumble.
A suggestion in Brussels by British Foreign Secretary William Hague that Gaddafi may have left the country for Venezuela was swiftly denied by Caracas, home to the embattled Libyan leader's firebrand ally President Hugo Chavez.
A still image is seen taken from video footage posted under the title "Tripoli protesters set ablaze police station at Souq Al Jum'uah". A Reuters reporter confirmed that police station was on fire.
Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro spoke to his Libyan counterpart Mussa Kussa, who told him Gaddafi was "in Tripoli, exercising his powers of state and confronting the situation in the country", the foreign ministry in Caracas said in a statement.
The uprising spread to the Libyan capital itself, with gunfire rattling Tripoli, where protesters attacked police stations and the offices of the state broadcaster, Gaddafi's mouthpiece, and set government buildings ablaze.
Residents of two districts in Tripoli said in Cairo by telephone there had been "a massacre".
"What happened today in Tajura was a massacre," one said. "Armed men were firing indiscriminately. There are even women among the dead."
Another witness in Fashlum said helicopters had landed what he called African mercenaries who opened fire on anyone in the street, causing a large number of deaths.
There have also been unconfirmed reports that warplanes had begun indiscriminate bombing across the capital, leaving scores dead.
Two Libyan fighter pilots - both colonels - flew their single-seater Mirage F1 jets to Malta and said they had defected after being ordered to attack protesters in Benghazi, Maltese military and official sources said.
Malta is the closest European state to Libya, just 340 kilometres north of its coastline.
Italy put all military air bases on maximum alert after the fighters landed, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was "alarmed" by clashes in the former Italian colony.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called on Tripoli to stop the deadly crackdown, saying in a statement: "I am shocked by the indiscriminate use of violence against peaceful protesters in Libya."
Several Libyan diplomats at the United Nations joined calls for Gaddafi to quit, US media reported, with deputy ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi telling CNN Gaddafi has "declared war" on the Libyan people and is committing "genocide".
In an interview with BBC World, Dabbashi added: "I think it is the end of Colonel Gaddafi, it is a matter of days, whether he steps down or the Libyan people will get rid of him anyway."
Celebrated and influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa that any Libyan soldier who can kill Gaddafi should do so "to rid Libya of him", he told Al-Jazeera.
Benghazi, Libya's second city and an opposition stronghold in the east, fell to anti-regime demonstrators after military units deserted, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) reported earlier.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon told Gaddafi in a phone call that the violence "must stop immediately" and called for a broad-based dialogue, a UN spokesman said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy also condemned the "unacceptable use of force" and called for an "immediate halt" to the violence.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, on a surprise visit to Libya's eastern neighbour Egypt, where long-time president Hosni Mubarak was swept out on February 11 by a tide of people power, also slammed the violence.
"The violence, the brutality, that has got to stop, that is completely unacceptable," he told Britain's ITV news.
The 27-nation European Union urged all sides to show restraint.
US President Barack Obama was "considering all appropriate actions" as Washington ordered all non-essential staff out of Libya and warned Americans to avoid travel to the north African country.
Libyan state television said security forces were battling "dens of terrorists" in a sweep that has killed a number of people, without specifying where or who was being targeted.
State television reported that Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, had set up a commission to probe "the sad events", and that it would include "members of Libyan and foreign rights organisations".
He had already appeared on television early on Monday to warn of looming civil conflict.
"Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms... rivers of blood will run through Libya," he said.
"We will take up arms... we will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other... Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia."
He added that Libyan armed forces had launched air strikes on arms depots outside urban areas, state television reported, quoting the official Jana news agency.
"The armed forces have bombarded arms depots situated far from populated areas," the broadcaster reported in a banner across the screen.
IFHR head Souhayr Belhassen said protesters controlled Benghazi, Sirte, Tobruk in the east, as well as Misrata, Khoms, Tarhounah, Zenten, Al-Zawiya and Zouara, closer to the capital.
It said the protests had resulted in up to 400 deaths. Human Rights Watch earlier cited a death toll of 233.
Libya's justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, resigned in objection to "the excessive use of force" against demonstrators, the Quryna newspaper website reported.
In Cairo, Libya's Arab League envoy said he too had stepped down to "join the revolution". Tripoli's ambassador to Delhi also quit, as did a diplomat in Beijing, Al-Jazeera television reported.
Oil prices soared above $105 per barrel on the turmoil, and the Fitch agency downgraded Libya's debt rating a notch from BBB+ to BBB.
British and French energy giants BP and Total were also evacuating some staff from Libya, which holds Africa's biggest oil reserves, as other European governments and firms also scrambled to evacuate their citizens.
(CNN) -- Moammar Gadhafi emerged Tuesday morning on state-run television in a 40-second appearance to say that he is not in Venezuela as rumored, but in Tripoli.
"I want to have some rest," the embattled Libyan leader told a reporter in front of what Libyan television said was his house as he pulled out an umbrella in the rain. "Because I was talking to the young man at Green Square, and I want to stay the night with them but then it started raining. I want to show them that I am in Tripoli, not in Venezuela. Don't believe those dogs in the media."
Green Square is where pro-government demonstrators have been located.
We have a fair size in Baharain as well. Smaller ones in UAE and Oman.
Friend in Kuwait right now says they even protested there recently.
Hear that he is still there and still having his private militias wiping citizens out! What a shame . . . and a sham.
Hope thingsd get better after all the blood and lives are lost.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8344034/Libya-civil-war-breaks-out-as-Gaddafi-mounts-rearguard-fight.html#
Forces loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi made good on threats to trigger a civil war in Libya on Wednesday night, by taking up positions across the capital, Tripoli and launching a rearguard fight against rebels in major cities.
Residents of parts of the capital were trapped in their homes as "thousands" of soldiers patrolled the streets accompanied by African mercenaries.
Tanks took up positions around public buildings including government offices, while sandbag defences were also being built.
"We will fight until death," a pro-Gaddafi soldier in his early 20s said outside a military compound close to Tripoli's Green Square, which had been cleared of demonstrators by yesterday morning.
"The country needs stability at a time like this, and this is what we are providing. The people are on our side."
Residents said bodies were still piling up in hospitals from the shootings of the previous two days.
"Anywhere we go there is danger," said one woman, a 28-year-old mother of four who asked not to be named. "All we want is food and fresh water for our children but it is impossible to find. Security is the only concern of the authorities."
As ministers, generals and diplomats around the world defected, government spokesmen loyal to Col Gaddafi were trying to rally people to his side.
Col Gaddafi signalled a fightback in a speech on Tuesday, when he called on supporters to "chase away the rats and terrorists" who he said were plunging the country into civil war.
Ahmed al-Zuwi, secretary general of the People's Committees, the leading authorities, said the government was in control.
He blamed the unrest on the Gulf state of Qatar, which he said had ordered al-Jazeera, the television station owned by its royal family, to "spread lies" as part of a trade dispute.
General Jameel al-Kadiki, deputy commander of the air force, denied that his jets had bombed civilians but said they had been forced to prevent opponents "meddling" with military supplies and "using them against the Libyan people".
Later, the deputy foreign minister, Khaled Khaim, summoned EU ambassadors to claim that al-Qaeda had set up a base in the city of Darnah, under rebel control for several days. The cell was headed by a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay, he said.
But the area under government control was shrinking. Most of the east is now held by protesters and is relatively peaceful, though there were reports of dozens of deaths in shootings in al-Bayda, east of Benghazi, on Tuesday evening.
The numbers who have died in the fighting was not certain. Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, said reports of 1,000 dead were "credible".
Maj Gen Suleiman Mahmoud al-Obeidi, a former eastern army commander, was with troops in Tobruk. Misrata, a major coastal city to the east of Tripoli, and Zawiya to the west, were also said to be under rebel control, with video footage showing a Gaddafi poster being thrown down in the former.
But opposition groups said the Khamis Brigade, loyal to and named after Col Gaddafi's youngest son, was now moving against these towns.
Soliman Albrassi, a resident of Misrata, said loyalist forces were attacking the television station there.
"Gaddafi will burn all cities under his control," he said. "We will not let escape with all of this."
Loyalist forces were also fighting back in the city of Sabratha, famed for its Roman ruins, after rebels burned government buildings and police stations.
Col Gaddafi and his sons seemed to be working on a plan to regroup in Tripoli and the province of Sirte, his birthplace, which is also assumed to remain loyal, before using his forces to fight back.
Two crew of a Sukhoi-22 ground attack jet ejected and allowed their plane to crash after refusing orders to bomb Benghazi, the eastern city where the revolution started.
One bank worker in Benghazi, who asked not to be named, said: "All the people in Benghazi are ready to fight against anyone who is sent from Gaddafi's side. There is no way back for him."
But Mohammed Ali Abdullah, deputy leader of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, a leading exile group, said he was concerned that the parts of the army that had defected had shown no sign of willingness themselves to take the revolution on.
"We aren't seeing the army's different brigades trying to reinforce themselves to take on the Khamis Brigade and the mercenaries," he said.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
He's toast. When the crowds gert to him, there won't be much left to bury.
Now we'll never know if he was a distant relative of Michael Jackson.
Is anyone inclined to think the US has had any hand in events taking place in any of these Arab countries? As in shades of Ed Lansdale or Bill Colby, Lucien Conein and crew types stirring things up in VietNam or the DR, Guatamala, Cuba and Iran many years ago? I realize it may seem counterintuitive now, but maybe 5 years down the road we have a greater presence in the region, stable "close to" democracies and cheap gas, maybe?
This is all spontaneous, coincidence?
Let's see
Tunisia
Egypt
Now Libya...if Gaddafi has left his son will pick up the sword and carry on in his fashion if not more brutal. His statement today was that the goverment would fight to the last bullet. It will be a blood bath either way.
Next will be Baharain...already fired on protestors.
Quatar is having protests along with Yemen and Oman. The whole area is about to melt down. In a void the radical Isalmic movement will step up to the plate...just like in Iran.
If those nations viewed war as Iran has (it has not started a war in over 100 years--compare that to Israel, for example), things might improve quite a bit.
You do recall, of course, Iran tried to approach the US right after 9/11 but Cheney rebuffed all their efforts.
You also know, of course, the US engineered a CIA plot to overthrow the elected Prime Minister and put the Shaw back into power--which led to the popular Islamic Revolution which we face today.
quote:Originally posted by medic07
Let's see
Tunisia
Egypt
Now Libya...if Gaddafi has left his son will pick up the sword and carry on in his fashion if not more brutal. His statement today was that the goverment would fight to the last bullet. It will be a blood bath either way.
Next will be Baharain...already fired on protestors.
Quatar is having protests along with Yemen and Oman. The whole area is about to melt down. In a void the radical Isalmic movement will step up to the plate...just like in Iran.
If those nations viewed war as Iran has (it has not started a war in over 100 years--compare that to Israel, for example), things might improve quite a bit.
You do recall, of course, Iran tried to approach the US right after 9/11 but Cheney rebuffed all their efforts.
You also know, of course, the US engineered a CIA plot to overthrow the elected Prime Minister and put the Shaw back into power--which led to the popular Islamic Revolution which we face today.
Well, I agree that, while Shaw was unforgettable in "Jaws", he would've been a lousy dictator.
quote:Originally posted by KSUmarksman
quote:Originally posted by cartod
I saw where he ordered fighter jets to fire on the people, Some of the pilots fled the country.
did he tell them to drop bombs between the minarets and up the casbah way? [:D]
sorry I just had to
Don't apologize for that. Any Clash reference is a good reference.[8D]
Should he stay or should he go?