Is Gaddafi cornered?
I would take this news with a huge block of salt.
Now, this I’m rather inclined to believe:
In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited “around 25” men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are “today are on the front lines in Adjabiya”.
Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”.
His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad’s president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, “including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries”.
Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against “the foreign invasion” in Afghanistan, before being “captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan”. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.
These guys sure do get around.
Here’s some speculation as to how and where:
E COULD GADDAFI BE HIDING?
The latest that Gaddafi could have been at his compound in Tripoli was on Sunday evening.
He may be staying at a safehouse in Tripoli, but if he has fled the capital, the dictator would find security in Sirte 280 miles away to the east. Sirte is Gaddafi’s home town and tribes there are fiercely loyal to him.
He has secured backing in the region through patronage and he once wanted to make Sirte the capital of Africa. Some 200 scud missiles are also stored there, giving him a strong military presence.
Gaddafi could also have fled south across the Sahara desert towards his ancestral home of Sabha where the Gadadfa clan originate from. Supporters from Sabha’s mountain towns and dunes would provide shelter.
From Sabha the dictator could flee to Algeria to the west, or Chad, Niger or Mali to the south where he has support.
Gaddafi, his family, aides and generals could also be living in an underground bunker filled with supplies and military controls.
There are still questions as to how Gaddafi could have fled his compound. The dictator claimed in a broadcast on Monday evening that he had ‘discreetly toured’ Tripoli earlier in the day.
Gaddafi’s former aide has said that he used a disguise as a woman do this, but with an entourage of guards at his side, the hunted leader will have been unable to pass rebel checkpoints on the roads out of Tripoli.
Gaddafi’s escape from his compound is more likely to have been through a network of tunnels 2,000 miles long that were built in the 1980s. Heavily-fortified entrances to the nuclear-proof vaults are concealed and along the route there are further barriers and booby traps.
One of the tunnels surfaces at the Rixos Hotel a mile away. Gaddafi mysteriously appeared there on a number of occasions during fighting and his son, Saif al-Islam, made an unexpected appearance at the hotel on Sunday evening.
Two more tunnels are believed to come up at the Mitiga Airport four miles away and at ports on the Tripoli coast. From there Gaddafi could reach safe-havens, however, all known transport routes are being guarded by rebels.
It has also been suggested that the tunnels could surface in the sea, from where the Gaddafi family could use a submarine to travel around the Africa.
The tunnels are believed to be so long that they could com up directly at Sirte or Sabha.
Alternatively they may surface in the desert, from where Gaddai could travel incognito by jeep, jet, helicopter or even camel to a region where he has support.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2029831/Libya–1m-bounty-Gaddafi-MI6-agents-join-hunt.html#ixzz1W4XN2HO6
They are drawn to violence- any violence- like moths to the flame. Malformed little people who deserve to be crushed under the violence they foment.
It’s probably in our interest that Gaddafi be on the loose for awhile so he can be the focus of the disparate groups that make up the rebels. That will provide an excuse for unity while the leaders take care of mundane things like utilities, routine law enforcement, and oil production.
What, no hurricane thread?
Mr. al-Hasidi should be chilling in Gitmo.
What’s the hype about?
This is the endgame for all dictatorships.
It’s how Mubarak “succeeded” Sadat – remember?
I’d like to talk a bit about Libya’s Civil War and Kaddafi.
There are some left-leaning reporters, on seeing that the rebels in Libya have ousted Kaddafi and some of his soldiers from Tripoli, are now using this situation to say: nyah-nyah-nyah….Bush Jr. putting soldiers into the War in Iraq was totally wrong, and Obama’s just using drones + NATO’s bombers was totally right…Bush can’t fight a war, and Obama can…nyah, nyah!
Ok…
There are some problems with thinking that Obama’s going to war in Lybia is just like Bush’s going into the War in Iraq.
1) We, the USA, don’t know that the war in Libya/against Kaddafi’s army is over. Kaddafi might do the Saddam Hussein tactic, as in, he might turn his army into insurgents/terrorists in civilian clothes, and have his insurgent army hide around and in Libya, and his I. army may fight a war against a future Libyan government + NATO for years.
2) In my view, most of the the Libyan rebels/population are on our side, the side of the USA + NATO, the two entities who want to remove Kaddafi + his government/army from Libya. In the start of the war in Iraq, most of the Iraqi population was against our side.
3) Yes, Kaddafi is no longer in his capital, but no one knows how long this war will continue in Libya.
4) I’ll wager that 90% or more of the USA’s population thinks that Kaddafi is a cruel dictator + that he should be removed as the ruler of Libya. That is all well and good. If Kadaffi + his supporters + army are permanently removed from Libya, there is no way to know that the new government/ruler that replaces him will be just as big a murdering dictator as Kaddafi is.
So, I ask that the government of the United States, and all of the world’s people, to not make hasty assumptions about The Civil War in Libya. The Libya War is, [in no way, shape or form], just like the Iraq War in 2010.
Also, let’s not hastily assume that: 1) that on Aug. 26, 2011, that the war is over in Libya, or that 2) the next government in Libya will treat the Libyan people any better than how Kaddafi has treated the Libyan people. We don’t know what Libya’s people or Kaddafi are going to do in the future, and it is folly to believe that we can predict what will happen to kaddafi, or Libya’s people, in the future.