5165 items | 11 visits
Dealing with the war against Libya, the rebels, the NATO intervention, the no fly zone, and humanitarian imperialism.
Updated on Apr 02, 16
Created on May 04, 11
Category: Government & Politics
URL:
In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, filmmaker and columnist Farai Sevenzo ponders Libya's relationship with the rest of Africa.
To lose one dictator as the year began may have been fortuitous, to lose two and a possible third in the space of three months seems miraculous.
End QuoteHe had no qualms about pitching his tent in our capitals”
The desert winds of change blowing across North Africa are howling a firestorm in the direction of the conundrum that is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and Africans are reeling from the speed of it all.
It has been six days since Khalifa Hifter was appointed the top military commander for the Libyan rebel forces fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. His appointment was noted by reporter Nancy Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers, a US regional chain that includes the Sacramento Bee and the Kansas City Star.
Two days later, another McClatchy journalist, Chris Adams, wrote a brief biographical sketch of Hifter that left the implication, without saying so explicitly, that he was a longtime CIA asset. It headlined the fact that after defecting from a top position in Gaddafi’s army, Hifter had lived in northern Virginia for some 20 years, as well as noting that Hifter had no obvious means of financial support.
The World Socialist Web Site published a Perspective column March 28 taking note of both the McClatchy articles and earlier reports providing more details of Hifter’s connections to the CIA. These included a 1996 article in the Washington Post and a book published by the French weekly Le Monde diplomatique. (See A CIA commander for the Libyan rebels”)
Both the McClatchy sketch of Hifter’s background and the WSWS Perspective have been widely circulated on the Internet. The WSWS perspective has been linked to by a myriad of left-liberal and antiwar web sites, although, significantly, there has been no mention of Hifter in the press of the International Socialist Organization and other pseudo-socialist groups that adapt themselves politically to the pro-Obama liberal milieu.
BENGHAZI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's forces rocketed the main fuel depot in Misrata on Saturday, intensifying a two-month siege on the rebel-held city that has claimed civilian lives and prompted warnings of a humanitarian crisis.
Government forces sent Grad rockets slamming into the depot, which contains vital stores of fuel for cars, trucks, ships and generators powering hospitals and other key sites in a city left darkened by electricity cuts, said witnesses and residents.
Fuel tanks were engulfed in flames hours after the early morning attack, as firefighters battled the blazes. No one was injured, a doctor said.
The attack raised fears of shortages, though some of the fuel had already been moved to other sites in anticipation of such a strike.
"After a few days, we may have a big crisis," said Misrata resident Mohammed Abdullah, speaking by Skype since regular phone lines have been cut. "He wants to bring Misrata's people to their knees, and make them surrender," Abdullah said of the Libyan leader. "Surrendering is impossible."
Libyan rebels say city will be starved of fuel after light aircraft drop bombs on oil tanks
Norway contributes with six F-16 fighters in the war in Libya. The period to which Norway has committed itself to participate with the planes going out in about six weeks.
Photo: Lars Magne Hovtun / Armed Forces
Exclusive: Boat trying to reach Lampedusa was left to drift in Mediterranean for 16 days, despite alarm being raised
TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyan rebels have taken full control of the western port city of Misrata, a rebel fighter said Sunday, but he suggested it was too early for them to consider advancing to try to confront Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces around the capital.
Meanwhile, the head of Britain's armed forces, Gen. David Richards, urged NATO to widen the range of targets the alliance's planes are allowed to hit in the effort to stymie the Gadhafi's regime's attacks on protesters. Richards' remarks, published in The Sunday Telegraph in London, warned that "more intense military action" was needed or the conflict could end in stalemate.
In Misrata, rebel fighter Abdel Salam described the situation in Misrata as static.
5165 items | 11 visits
Dealing with the war against Libya, the rebels, the NATO intervention, the no fly zone, and humanitarian imperialism.
Updated on Apr 02, 16
Created on May 04, 11
Category: Government & Politics
URL: