Libyan Revolution Day 74

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21b3UfwXK7k">Scepticism over report of Gaddafi son's death - video (AJE)
The Libyan government says warplanes killed Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son - and narrowly missed the Libyan leader himself.

But NATO has denied targeting Gaddafi in air strikes on Tripoli on Saturday night.

Al Jazeera's Sue Torton reports from the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13253371">Libya crisis: Britain expels Libyan ambassador - video
The Libyan ambassador to the UK has been expelled following attacks on British embassy premises in Tripoli.

Foreign missions in Libya's capital have been targeted by crowds angry at reports that a Nato air strike had killed a son of Col Muammar Gaddafi.

A BBC team there said the UK embassy building had been completely burnt out.

The foreign secretary said the Gaddafi regime had failed in its duty to protect it and that Omar Jelban had been given 24 hours to leave the UK.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/05/01/2263469/sen-graham-met-with-gadhafi.html#ixzz1L6vyBLi0">Cables show S.C.'s Graham met with Gadhafi in 2009
A cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli describes Graham's Aug. 14, 2009, meeting with Muammar Gadhafi and the Libyan dictator's son in a tent in the middle of the night.

The elder Gadhafi, tired from fasting in preparation for Ramadan, largely was silent as his son ranted that the United States had not adequately rewarded Libya for having given up its nuclear program in 2003 and for renouncing terrorism.

...

During their August 2009 meeting in Tripoli, Libyan national security adviser Mutassim Gadhafi - son of Muammar - asked Graham, McCain and Lieberman to help deliver eight C-130 Hercules military transport planes Libya had purchased - in 1972.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/01/gaddafi-son-saif-al-arab">Gaddafi's son Saif al-Arab was well known to German police
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Earlier this year, German prosecutors dropped an investigation into allegations of arms smuggling against him. Der Spiegel reported that the police believed they had solid evidence that Saif (not to be confused with his more prominent older brother Saif al-Islam) had organised the transport of a bag containing an assault rifle, a revolver and ammunition from Munich to Paris in 2007.

Police officers told the magazine the prosecution was abandoned for political reasons and because of the fear that the Tripoli regime would retaliate against German businesses and residents. Prosecutors denied the allegation of political interference.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/01/libyans-dont-believe-gaddafi-pr">Libyans aren't fooled by Gaddafi's clownish propaganda
What do the following have in common: drug dealers, al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, misguided youth, tribal leaders, Nescafé, hallucinatory pills (Tramadol), the CIA, al-Jazeera, the BBC, America, Israel, Denmark, Qatar, the Libyan diaspora, stray dogs, cats, rats and cockroaches?

This is just a snippet from the list of culprits that the Libyan government wants you to believe are responsible for the recent violence in Libya.

Over the last two months we have seen the feeble attempts of the media arm of the Libyan regime try to disseminate pro-Gaddafi propaganda and enhance its stature both abroad and with Libyan civilians via the state television.

State TV broadcasts hours of talk shows every day inviting guests to talk about the current situation. They often have zero insight into the atrocities being committed and some well-known guests have even claimed that dead saints and demons fight amongst the ranks of Gaddafi's forces.

"One month ago (Western countries) were sooo nice, so nice like pussycats," Saif says in a contemptuous sing-song tone."Now they want to be really aggressive like tigers. (But) soon they will come back, and cut oil deals, contracts. We know this game." - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058389,00.html">Saif Gaddafi

http://english.libya.tv/2011/04/25/eastern-libyans-believe-in-national-unity-distrust-au-and-turkish-mediation-survey-reveals/">The first free public opinion poll ever conducted in Libya reveals clues to Eastern Libyan sentiments
* 98 percent of the respondents do not support the division of Libya as a part of the political solution for the current conflict with the Gaddafi regime. Around 95 percent also don’t see any role for Gaddafi or his sons in a transitional period, and think it is impossible to implement any political reform in Libya if Gaddafi or one of his sons stays in power

* Around 96 percent of those polled, believe that the 17th of February revolution can consolidate the national unity of Libya and support the model of a democratic Libya based on a constitution which respects human rights

* Al-Qaeda has not played any role in the 17th of February revolution, say 94 percent of the Eastern Libyans, and 91 percent thinks it’s impossible for Al-Qaeda to play any political role in the new Libya

* The National Transitional Council is seen by 92 percent of those surveyed as “expressing the views and wishes of Libyans for change”

http://jenkinsear.com/2011/03/19/a-legal-war-the-united-nations-participation-act-and-libya/">A Legal War: The United Nations Participation Act and Libya
The above link is to an overview of why Obama's implementation of the NFZ and R2P is perfectly legal under the law. I will not post it entirely here, however, all objections come down to the misinformed position that Obama, by using forces in Libya, was invoking Article 43 of the United Nations. This is wrong. Obama invoked Article 42, which does not require congressional approval to implement. Proof of this is that Article 43 has http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/actions.shtml#rel5">never been used.

It goes like this: The US law (Title 22, Chap. 7, Subchap. XIV § 287d) grants the President the right to invoke UN Article 42 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode22/usc_sec_22_00000287---d000-.html">without authorization, the War Powers Act (Title 50, Chap. 33 § 1541) grants the President permission to act without authorization under http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1541–1548.html">"specific statutory authorization" which, by definition, is what 287d does. § 1543 of the War Powers Act requires the President to report to Congress, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama_explains_libya_mission_to_congress/2011/03/03/ABU9377_blog.html">which he did. One can argue all day and night about the legality of the War Powers Act, doesn't change the fact that under the law as it is written, the President acted within the law.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-march-10-0">March 10 7:28pm Saif al Islam Gaddafi says "the time has come for full-scale military action" against Libyan rebels. He goes on to say that Libyan forces loyal to his family "will never surrender, even if western powers intervene".

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2011/03/2011328194855872276.html">Libyan Karzai? Chalabi? Forget it
Fortunately, the Council wasn't made-in-the-USA or manufactured by another foreign power. Rather it came into existence, a month ago, at Libyans' own initiative, soon after the winds of revolutionary change blew Libya's way, and after its people rose to the occasion with pride and courage.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/31/getting_libyas_rebels_wrong">Getting Libya's Rebels Wrong
Don't buy Qaddafi's line: The rebels aren't al Qaeda.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/04/04/110404taco_talk_anderson#ixzz1HvS7iW22">Who Are the Rebels?
During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers. The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/29/vision-democratic-libya-interim-national-council">A vision of a democratic Libya
The interim national council, formed by opposition groups in Libya, has said it will hold free and fair elections and draft a national constitution. Here is its eight-point plan in full.

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/04/20/left-slipping-towards-qaddafi">The left: slipping towards Qaddafi?
When the revolt against Qaddafi started in Libya, hardly anyone on the left — however broadly defined — could say anything in defence of Qaddafi.

With the start of the "no-fly zone", many on the left started to sideline the issues within Libya and focus their efforts on denouncing NATO.

Now the denunciation of NATO, in turn, is acting as a lever to introduce defence of Qaddafi and denunciation of the rebels into broad-left discourse.

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Everything is done by insinuation and sarcasm, just as old-style Stalinists used to deflect criticism of the USSR by studied wondering whether the regime was quite as bad as extreme Western right-wingers used to say, or whether the right-wingers' motives for criticism might be suspect.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/is-qaddafi-an-anti-racist/">Is Qaddafi an anti-racist?

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One of the signs that you are dealing with a cruder form of propaganda is if the author does not bother to address evidence that contradicts his or her own. To be taken seriously on the question of Qaddafi’s commitment to pan-African values, you have to take a close look at his overall record, something that does not interest Forte who is so anxious to tilt the scales in favor of Qaddafi that he does not bother to conceal the fact that his hand rests upon the scale.

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Mohammed Nabbous, killed by Gaddafi's forces while trying to report on the massacre in Benghazi

"I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to lose the battle" -Mohammed Nabbous, a month ago when all this began

I'm struggling to come up with something to say about this man. I was not aware of the Libyan uprising until I saw Mo's first report, begging for help, posted here on DU. I was stricken. Here was a man giving everything he had to explain a situation that clearly terrified him, I would not call him a coward in that moment, but you could see the fear in his eyes, and desperation in his voice. For 30 days Nabbous would spend many hours covering the uprising in Benghazi. For many nights I would go to sleep with the webcast of Benghazi live on my computer screen, looking to it occasionally to be sure it was still 'there.' Mo treated the chat room as if we were his friends, and in some way, we were. I never signed up to LiveStream to thank him for all his work and it seems somewhat shallow to do so now, given that I was a lurker for so long. Ever since I took over posting these threads "Libya Alhurra" has been linked as a source of information. It wasn't until last night, when I posted, and twitter posted on Mo's adventures out into Benghazi to try to determine the truth of the situation, that Mo's webchannel became a hit, over 2000 people were watching him stream live. This was curious to him because he'd done many reports like this in the past but he appeared somewhat bemused that the view count exploded as it did. Last night Mo became a star. This is a man who first started out with a webcast replete with fear and desperation finally overcoming that aspect of himself and losing that fear, to become someone who was a fighter for the resistance just as much as those who held the guns. Reporting on the front lines of Benghazi became his final act, and for that he should never, ever be forgotten. I'm so sorry Mo that I never got to know you better.

Mo's first report, which many of you may remember, begging for help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EXALI60hg

Mo's last report, a fallen hero trying to spread the word to the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu_iWLn-rg

Mo leaves behind a wife who is with child, she had http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/23/a_bright_voice_from_libyas_darkness">this to say about the No Fly Zone and R2P UN resolution:

We started this in a pure way, but he turned it bloody. Thousands of our men, women, and children have died. We just wanted our freedom, that's all we wanted, we didn't want power. Before, we could not do a single thing if it was not the way he wanted it. All we wanted was freedom. All we wanted was to be free. We have paid with our blood, with our families, with our men, and we're not going to give up. We are still going to do that no matter what it takes, but we need help. We want to do this ourselves, but we don't have the weapons, the technology, the things we need. I don't want anyone to say that Libya got liberated by anybody else. If NATO didn't start moving when they did, I assure you, I assure you, half of Benghazi if not more would have been killed. If they stop helping us, we are going to be all killed because he has no mercy anymore.

http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFLDE7400IU20110501">Libya says regrets attacks on foreign embassies
TRIPOLI May 1 (Reuters) - Libya's government said on Sunday it regretted the attacks on several European embassies, saying its police force was overpowered by crowds angered by a NATO airstrike that killed the son of Muammar Gaddafi.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c915e424-742b-11e0-b788-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1L8s2mr40">Libyan villagers seek refuge in Tunisia
More than 35,000 Libyan villagers have crossed into Tunisia through the Dehiba border crossing in the far south of the country, as fighting continues between rebels and forces loyal to Muammer Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, in the Nafusa mountain range of western Libya.

Shells fired by pro-Gaddafi forces on Sunday landed in the Tunisian border town of Dehiba, about three kilometres from the border itself.

Most of the shells landed in the outskirts of the town, where there are few houses, and no casualties were reported, according to news agencies.

Local Tunisian hospitals nonetheless find themselves treating casualties from both sides in the conflict.

http://english.libya.tv/2011/05/01/resistance-in-the-west-2/">Resistance in the West
People sent me emails with poems and uplifting messages telling me not to cry and be brave for Libya and the Libyan people. I felt the colossal responsibility I carry on the air each and every night as I was supposed to be the rock for my people who are under Gaddafi’s savage merciless attack.

Three callers made me promise on the air not to cry again and be strong saying, “Your tears are precious”. My love for Libya and the kindness of our brave men and women grew even bigger.

More interesting was a call from a young woman from Tripoli who belonged to the same tribe as Gaddafi. She was very proud of her tribe articulated how Gaddafi doesn’t represent her tribe and they are all against him and the “atrocities” he is committing against our people in Libya. She confirmed the concentrated Gaddafi forces in Tripoli and the tight grip they had on the people especially at the gas stations where people wait for hours to fill up their cars.

Another caller from Tripoli stated that he was proud of our channel and thanked God for finally having a voice. He was also proud to share with us the continued secret operations his group is involved in such as changing the names of two schools by painting the new names Ali Hassan Jabber School & the Martyrs School instead of the old names that were obsequious to the Gaddafi regime.

http://cencio4.wordpress.com/works/uae-air-force-mirage-2000s-carrying-bombs/">UAE Air Force Mirage 2000s performing air strikes in Libya?
The following interesting pictures were taken on May 1, 2011, at 14.06Z by Antonio Di Franco, from his home, located a few kilometres to the south east of Sigonella airbase. The images show two UAE Air Force Mirage 2000s carrying a Damocles targeting pod and an MBDA PGM-500 500lbs guided bomb (“Hakim”) along with two MICA air-to-air missiles.

http://blogs.channel4.com/world-news-blog/awaiting-safe-passage-from-misratas-bloody-war/16019">Awaiting safe passage from Misrata's bloody war
We’re sitting at the harbour master’s office perched on a dusty hill. To one side the Mediterranean shimmering in the heat, to the other the ghost like empty harbour.

A vast silent grain elevator, idle grim painted tug boats, huge silent container cranes and in the haze the three now cold blast furnaces of Misrata’s deserted steel works.

We’ve come up to this hillside because waiting at the closed dock gates is not a good idea. We were woken, several miles away, earlier this morning, by a volley of Grad missiles fired into the harbour area by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

So they say we are safe up on our little hillside, surrounded by late spring flowers growing in the sand dunes and swallows languidly hawking flies.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11122/1143500-82-0.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml">Shell in Misurata Adds to a City's Grim Toll
MISURATA, Libya -- On the night he would die, Muhammad Abdulhamid Sbikhee, a night watchman at a local school, was at home with his wife and their seven children. They shared a small, ground-floor apartment that opened to a tiny yard that opened in turn to an urban dirt alley.

Misurata had been shelled for several weeks running, and Mr. Sbikhee, a quiet man with a thick gray beard, was both worried and prepared, a neighbor and his wife said.

His children's two bedrooms faced the direction from where many of the high-explosive shells and rockets from the forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had been fired. Around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when more shells began landing and exploding in his neighborhood, Mr. Sbikhee and his older son sent his children, ages 1 to 17, to the other side of their apartment. He told them to hurry through the kitchen, outside, across the narrow slot of open sky, and to sleep on cushions he had arranged in a storage room near the cement wall beside the alley.

His instincts were good. It was safer there. Then he returned inside, to the bedroom he shared with his wife, Soad Warayeth. The artillery shell met him there.

By Rory Mulholland (AFP) – 2 hours ago

BENGHAZI, Libya — Moamer Kadhafi pumping petrol into a winged camel, Kadhafi with the tail of a snake and a forked tongue, Kadhafi as Dracula.

The flamboyant Libyan strongman is fuelling a flourishing cartoon caricature scene in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Those are just a few of the themes produced by a group of young artists who reached not for their guns but for their coloured pens and spray cans when Libya's revolution kicked off in mid-February.

One of them paid for it with his life, gunned down by secret police.

The group now goes by the name of their dead colleague, Qais al-Halali, and continues its work from a ramshackle office in a makeshift media centre next to the rebel headquarters on the city's seafront.

...


http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5grTyorId23nSahF5vQidwhE-ogYA?docId=CNG.b90089cb488b64b8bb88c2cd05aa8f87.2b1

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8487429/A-legitimate-target.html">A legitimate target
The reported deaths in a Nato air strike of a son of Muammar Gaddafi and three of his grandchildren has moved the battle for control of Libya on to a new plane. Mobs have sacked the British and Italian embassies in Tripoli, Britain has expelled Libya's ambassador in London, and Russian criticism of the coalition has intensified. Yet this should not come as a surprise. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorised "all necessary measures", a phrase allowing broad interpretation, to stop Col Gaddafi killing civilians.

From obvious targets such as tanks on the road to Benghazi, Nato has moved on to strike what it calls "command and control" centres: that is, any point from which government action against the rebels is being prosecuted. As the chief prosecutors are Col Gaddafi and his immediate entourage, they have become legitimate targets, whatever the coalition may say about targeting structures and not individuals.

http://english.libya.tv/2011/05/02/colonel-bani-gaddafi-should-face-bin-ladens-fate/">Colonel Bani: Gaddafi should face Bin Laden’s fate
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi should face the same fate as al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden who was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces, a Libyan rebel spokesman said today.

“We are very happy and we are waiting for the next step. We want the Americans to do the same to Gaddafi,” said military spokesman for the National Transitional Council Colonel Ahmed Bani.

“We know Osama bin Laden is fighting against us, he is our enemy also,” he said, adding that Libyan pro-democracy fighters had evidence al Qaeda sympathisers had been fighting against them.

Eleanor Hall reported this story on Monday, May 2, 2011 12:31:00

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Doctor Murhaf Jouejati is a professor of International Politics at Georgetown University who was an advisor to the Syrian delegation to the Middle East peace talks during the 1990s. He says he has been shocked that the protests are continuing in the face of the Syrian regime's crackdown.


MURHAF JOUEJATI: It is, of course, in the history of Syria unprecedented and here I have to say I am in awe and absolute admiration of those protesters who are going there day after day with their bare chests to take the bullets of the army and the security forces so it is absolutely stunning that it is keeping the momentum that it has.

...


ELEANOR HALL: Is this on a par with say the siege of Misurata by the Libyan government?

MURHAF JOUEJATI: I think this is worse in that Misurata is getting a lot of attention. There are journalists that are able to go to Libya from the side of the protesters.

Here the people of Daraa are alone. Even those protesters, demonstrators that want to come in from neighbouring towns and villages in order to help to supply food are being kept away by the security forces. So here you do have a town that is truly is on its own and is receiving no assistance from anyone anywhere.

If they are unchecked and they continue carrying out these mass arrests and this collective punishment, what we have is a genocidal situation.

ELEANOR HALL: People say it couldn't reach the horror of the situation in the 1980s but do you think it could get to that point?

MURHAF JOUEJATI: The difference between now and the 1980s is that people discovered it after the fact. This is happening before our very eyes so the situation is not very similar to Hama but the results are going to be equally dire if they receive no assistance.

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http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2011/s3205342.htm

RORY MULHOLLAND AJDABIYA, LIBYA - May 02 2011 11:18

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The frontline is a few kilometres west of the town, on a desert highway where a small band of volunteer warriors have built berms and dug trenches and keep watch for signs that Gaddafi's troops might be headed their way.

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"We drove west towards Brega a few days ago and engaged Gaddafi's troops on the road," said Abdullah Salah, a rebel commander at the front. He declined to give details but said a few of his men were injured in the skirmish.

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Nato firepower from the air is helping keep the status quo as the ragtag rebels regroup and train -- with the help of military advisors sent by France, Britain and Italy -- for what they hope will be a push west.


The fighters here were ebullient, boasting that they would soon be marching on the Libyan capital to bring an end to Gaddafi's 41-year-old rule.

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http://mg.co.za/article/2011-05-02-stalemate-leaves-frontline-libyan-rebel-city-deserted

Monday, May 2, 2011 03:09 AM
By Encarnacion Pyle

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Now, about 2,500 Libyan students at Ohio State University and other North American colleges face losing scholarship money needed to finish their degrees.

The United States froze $30 billion in Libyan assets in February. Shortly afterward, students from the north African country were told there would be no scholarship money after May 31.

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"It's a really, really bad situation," Ako-Adounvo said. "Sadly, some students might be forced to return home, despite fears for themselves or their families."

Some students have reported being threatened by Libyan officials for supporting the rebels who are leading the uprising against dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Students can try to seek asylum or prove they have a severe economic hardship so they can get a job off-campus, Robinson said. But the best solution would be for the U.S. government to grant Libyans "temporary protected status" so they can't be deported while their homeland is racked by civil war.


http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/05/02/libyan-students-at-osu-feel-effects-of-civil-war.html?sid=101

Mon May 2, 2011 11:20am GMT
By Tarek Amara


DEHIBA, Tunisia -

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Artillery shells fell on and around the town of Dehiba on the Tunisian side of the border, residents told Reuters, the site of an incursion on Friday by forces loyal to Gaddafi that provoked fury in Libya's western neighbour.

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"I HOPE THIS WILL END"


The spokesman, called Abdulrahman, told Reuters by telephone that NATO aircraft had bombed positions held by government forces, saying he heard aircraft overhead, followed by two explosions, one of which destroyed a tank near the town.

"The military has been trying to enter the town from three sides: the east, southeast and northeast. The revolutionaries managed to repel an attack from the east," he said.

Saleh Aouni, a Libyan from the town of Yafran, which has been under siege by pro-Gaddafi forces for weeks told Reuters after he crossed into Tunisia: "We can no longer live there ... Not an hour goes by without shelling."

In tears, he said: "I hope this will end and I can return to a Libya without Gaddafi."

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http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE74103S20110502?sp=true

By Lin Noueihed


TRIPOLI, May 2 (Reuters) - Libyan government forces bombarded the port of rebel-held Misrata with rockets and shellfire on Monday, disrupting operations to bring supplies in by sea to the besieged city.

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"The port is under heavy shelling today too, they have fired around 100 rockets so far. The shelling on Misrata has not stopped in the past 36 hours," the spokesman, who identified himself as Hassan al-Misrati, told Reuters by telephone.


"It seems that NATO have forgotten about us and this has emboldened the Gaddafi forces."

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French surgeon Gerrard Le Clouerec, who does not work for the Libyan government, was asked to independently identify the bodies of Saif al-Arab, 29, and two children. He said all three had died due to a blast but the children's faces had been obliterated so they were difficult to identify.


Le Clouerec said he also saw the body of a young man of about 30, with a beard and a thin moustache whose face matched a photograph he had been shown of Saif al-Arab.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/libya-idUSLDE74112N20110502

By ZEINA KARAM – 26 mins ago


BEIRUT – Syrian troops conducted door-to-door raids in cities and towns across the nation Monday, arresting scores of people in a campaign of intimidation aimed at crushing the six-week uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime, activists said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said hundreds of people had been arrested over the past two days alone. He said the arrests often included several members of the same family.

"The arrests are ongoing, from the besieged southern city of Daraa to the country's north and passing through the suburbs of Damascus," he said.

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Rights groups say at least 545 Syrians have been killed since authorities began their crackdown on the uprising.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110502/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

Last Modified: 02 May 2011 12:05


Al Jazeera demands information from Syria on whereabouts of journalist missing since arriving in Damascus on Friday.



Dorothy Parvaz arrived in Damascus via a Qatar Airways flight from Doha on Friday afternoon



Al Jazeera has demanded immediate information from Syria about one of its journalists who has been missing in the country since Friday afternoon.

Dorothy Parvaz left Doha, Qatar, for Syria on Friday to help cover events currently taking place in the country. However, there has been no contact with the 39-year-old since she disembarked from a Qatar Airways flight in Damascus.

Parvaz is an American, Canadian and Iranian citizen. She joined Al Jazeera in 2010 and recently reported on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for the network.

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An Al Jazeera spokesman said: “We are concerned for Dorothy’s safety and wellbeing. We are requesting full cooperation from the Syrian authorities to determine how she was processed at the airport and what her current location is. We want her returned to us immediately.”

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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/20115211460620208.html

By KARIN LAUB and BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press – 56 mins ago


TRIPOLI, Libya – Mourners shouted for revenge Monday as some 2,000 people in the Libyan capital greeted a funeral procession carrying Moammar Gadhafi's second youngest son, who officials say was killed in a NATO airstrike.

The crowd jostled to get close to Seif al-Arab Gadhafi's coffin as it was taken out of a black hearse and placed near a cemetery in Tripoli. Some people prayed, some flashed victory signs and others shouted at the top of their lungs.

"Revenge, revenge for you Libya," shouted the crowd around the coffin, which was draped in the green Libyan flag and was topped with a wreath of flowers that were wilting in the heat. "We demand revenge for our martyrs."

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110502/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_libya_346

Monday, 2 May 2011

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During the weeks of Nato airstrikes, Saif al-Arab was conspicuous by his absence as his siblings were wheeled out for propaganda purposes and to attack the policies of the West. It was perhaps unsurprising considering his colourful track record. In US diplomatic cables detailing the excesses of the regime and its fractious first family, there are few mentions of the 29-year-old – other than for his hard-living ways – with the focus instead on the struggle for succession between his more ambitious brothers.

One cable, written by the US ambassador to Tripoli, Gene Cretz, in March 2009 and published by the WikiLeaks website, describes him as the least publicly known of the Gaddafi children. "He lives in Munich, where he pursues ill-defined business interests and spends much time partying."

While partying, it appeared that Saif al-Arab got into several scrapes that attracted the attention of the police. He appeared in the pages of the German media in 2006 when he was reportedly involved in a scuffle at a Munich nightclub. An article the following year suggested that he fought with a bouncer who tried to throw out his female companion when she began to undress on the dancefloor.

In 2007, his house and hotel suite were raided by police over allegations of illegally possessing weapons. Bavaria's Interior Ministry said last month that in the four years to 2010, he was investigated on 10 counts ranging from speeding to bodily harm. All the investigations against him were dropped.

...


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/saif-alarab-a-playboy-known-for-his-hardliving-ways-2277677.html

Letter from Libya

by Jon Lee Anderson May 9, 2011


...


At the clinic, most of the medical staff had evacuated after an ambulance was hit by a shell, killing one of their doctors and several nurses. A lone doctor remained, along with Osama, who was friendly, and spoke extraordinarily good English. A rangy man of forty-eight with warm brown eyes and an aquiline face that resembled a beardless Abraham Lincoln’s, he showed off his ambulance. To aid the war effort, he and some friends had adapted a Toyota Land Cruiser pickup into a mobile emergency-treatment center. The vehicle, painted white with a red crescent, was parked at the clinic entrance, where Osama was busily cleaning it.


When I asked Osama how he had learned English, he said, “I’m from Martinsville, Virginia.” He was Libyan, but his wife, Suzi, was half American. A onetime Libyan Arab Airlines engineer, Osama had, with Suzi, raised four children in Benghazi. But in the nineties, with Libya isolated by international sanctions because of Qaddafi’s refusal to hand over suspects in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Osama had struggled to make a living. In 2007, after the sanctions had been lifted, he moved with his family to Henry County, Virginia, near where Suzi’s mother lived. There, he found he could make money by exporting construction equipment to Benghazi, and he flew back and forth to supervise the business. With pride, Osama told me that he had become a U.S. citizen, and was now a member of Henry County’s volunteer fire department.


His wife and their two young daughters were in Virginia, he explained, but he and his two sons were in Libya, doing whatever they could for the revolution. While Osama was driving his improvised ambulance, his younger son, Yousef, a seventeen-year-old high-school student who was living in Benghazi with a relative, was taking part in the rallies held daily in front of the revolution’s headquarters, a beat-up courthouse on the city’s seafront promenade. Muhannad, his elder son, a twenty-one-year-old medical student, was fighting at the front. Osama’s description of Muhannad reminded me that a few days before, in Ras Lanuf, I had noticed a young Libyan-American fighter, fair-haired and blue-eyed. He was wearing a mujahideen-style pakul cap, and he waved and smiled at me from a jeep that was making its way to the front line. I asked Osama if his son had light hair and wore an Afghan cap, and he beamed: “Yes, that’s him! That’s my son.”


Osama lamented the inexperience of rebels like Muhannad and his friends. Qaddafi’s soldiers were largely veterans and mercenaries, backed up with significant artillery, most of it Soviet-era. The rebels, by contrast, had set up a base in Benghazi where Army veterans gave volunteers a brief training in how to load, clean, and fire a Kalashnikov; many fighters did not get even this rudimentary instruction. Osama said, “The boys at the front, some of them have never seen a gun before.” Qaddafi had appeared on TV and called the rebels “cockroaches,” swearing to hunt them down “house by house.” Osama concluded, “It’s no longer only about freedom now, this revolution; it’s about survival, and protecting one’s family.”

...


Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/09/110509fa_fact_anderson#ixzz1LDQ6anvi

May 2, 2011 at 10:13 AM

A Microsoft employee who had been detained in Libya has been released.

Khalid Elhasumi, Microsoft's country manager for Libya, had been in detention in Tripoli since March 19.

Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos confirmed Monday that Elhasumi was released at the end of last week


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2014937211_microsoftmanagerinlibyahasbeenreleased.html

2 May 2011 – The United Nations is exploring ways to re-enter Tripoli as soon as possible, a spokesperson for the world body said today, following the announcement that 12 international staff left owing to unrest in parts of the Libyan capital.

...


The UN said that humanitarian operations are still being carried out and there are still international staff members in the rebel-held city of Benghazi. It hopes to return to the capital as soon as the situation allows.

“Humanitarian operations are continuing, with the redeployed staff from Tripoli supporting operations in western Libya from Tunisia,” UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that, as of yesterday, more than 12,000 people had been evacuated from the besieged city of Misrata. It also remains concerned that deaths and injuries continue to be reported from the fighting there.


http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38247&Cr=libya&Cr1=

• Humanitarian aid cannot reach city's harbour
• Evacuees and casualties stranded in the assaults


Xan Rice in Misrata
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 May 2011 20.16 BST


Muammar Gaddafi's forces have bombarded Misrata with missiles and tank fire, preventing ships carrying humanitarian aid from entering the port for a fourth straight day.

The sustained attacks on the port are causing deep concern in the city, which has been surrounded by Gaddafi's troops on land for more than two months. Food, medical supplies and other aid can only be delivered through the harbour, while migrant workers and casualties can only be evacuated by boat.

...


A ferry chartered by the International Organisation for Migration has been forced to wait offshore since Saturday morning. It is due to collect at least 800 African workers who have been trying to escape the city for weeks, and who have been forced to endure the barrage of missiles in recent days. More than 30 hospital patients, four of them in intensive care, are also waiting to board the ship.

"We know the only way to keep Misrata alive is to keep the harbour open," said Hafed Makhlouf, the controller and ship pilot of the port. "Gaddafi realises this too, and knows that the only way to extinguish the revolution is by starving the people."

On Sunday, just hours after Makhlouf had pleaded for Nato to stop the attack on the port, it was pounded again by dozens of missiles that struck the land as well as the sea around the harbour mouth. A checkpoint on the road to the port was also destroyed, killing two guards.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/libya-rebels-gaddafi-bombard-misrata

8:46pm UK, Monday May 02, 2011
Mark Stone, Sky News reporter, in Tripoli


Osama bin Laden was a wanted man well before the 9/11 attacks, before the attack on the USS Cole and before the US Embassy bombings in east Africa.

...


The Gaddafi government believed Bin Laden was involved and passed its evidence to Interpol who clearly agreed.

To this day, Interpol arrest warrants exist for the murder suspects. The "wanted" page for Bin Laden also identifies Tripoli as the original issuer of the warrant.

But there are other theories too. Herr Becker had been involved in the investigation into the 1998 Lockerbie bombing and the attack on a Berlin nightclub in 1986, in which two US troops were killed.

Both were said to be Libyan government operations which supports the theory that the Beckers were actually murdered by Libyan secret service agents.

...


http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Bin-Laden-Gaddafi-Libyan-Leader-Issued-Arrest-Warrant-For-Bin-Laden-Well-Before-9-11/Article/201105115984158?lpos=World_News_Second_Home_Page_Feature_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15984158_Bin_Laden%2C_Gaddafi%3A_Libyan_Leader_Issued_Arrest_Warrant_For_Bin_Laden_Well_Before_911