Jerry Jackson

Posts Tagged ‘Tripoli’

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NATO Reportedly Bombs Libyan University

In Human Rights, Military, NATO, Society, World Government, World News on June 14, 2011 at 2:01 am


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Bombing of Libyan School

Press TV reports that NATO has bombed a university in Tripoli, killing students and staff. “New images have emerged showing the aftermath of an alleged NATO air raid targeting Tripoli’s Nasser University. The attack reportedly left many university staff and students dead,” reports the Iranian state-funded network. “Libyan state television says dozens of others were also injured.”

The bombing was not reported by CNN or The New York Times.


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According to the Christian Science Monitor, “evidence of casualties [in Libya] has been thin, despite more than 160 cruise missile strikes by US and British forces, and at least 175 sorties by those and French and a Canadian jet fighter in the last 24-hour count.”
Evidence is “thin” because the corporate media refuses to believe the Libyan government and does not actively research claims of civilian deaths. Humanitarian wars are usually reported as surgical strikes and when the reality of dead civilians can no longer be denied, they are explained away as collateral damage.
Soon after NATO began bombing the country, officials denied civilians die in its bombing raids. Only the death of Gaddafi loyalists and other Libyans criminalized by the United Nations are reported killed in the air strikes.
Last week the New York Times insisted bombing raids in heavily populated urban areas do not kill civilians. “The Libyan government has a growing record of improbable statements and carefully manipulated news events,” wrote John Burns, following his Pentagon script closely. “Sightings of civilian casualties have been rare.”
The New York Times also reported that aluminum tubes were sighted in Iraq. Due in part to the widely reported lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the United States invaded the country and subsequently killed over a million Iraqis.


NATO Bombing

A NATO air strike in Tripoli, a city of 2 million people. NATO and the New York Times would have you believe civilians do not die in such raids.

According to Pentagon figures allegedly released by Wikileaks, the invasion of Iraq resulted in the death of 66,081 civilians. The U.S. installed Iraqi Iraqi Health Ministry put the number at 87,215. In 2007, a ORB survey of Iraq War casualties put the number at 1.2 million.
On May 31, Libya accused NATO of killing 718 civilians and wounding 4,067 in 10 weeks of air strikes. “Since March 19, and up to May 26, there have been 718 martyrs among civilians and 4,067 wounded — 433 of them seriously,” said government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, citing health ministry figures which the AFP said cannot be independently verified.
Joshalyn Lawrence filmed Libyans wounded during NATO air strikes. “The Lawrence videos, on the WBAIX channel, of hospitalized civilians is evidence that, rather than injuries and killings by bombs being ‘rare’ or reporting ‘blunders,’ they are realities,” writes Deborah Dupre for Bay View. “In the videos, one after another wounded innocent civilian described atrocities to Cynthia McKinney, in a fact-finding mission with a team including a delegation of former MPs and professors from France, all now in Tripoli.”
“Interestingly, the efforts of the Washington Post, New York Times, Associated Press and others to portray Libya’s claims on the bombings as ‘absurd’ are patently false and are merely efforts to defend in the court of public opinion the indefensible bombing of civilians going about their lives in a heavily populated area,” the former Georgia Congress woman wrote on June 7.
The blood-thirsty neocons, of course, called McKinney’s fact finding mission an act of terrorism. “McKinney is part of a long Western leftist tradition of progressive sycophants traveling to adversarial lands in an effort to undermine America,” writes FrontPage Mag, the mouthpiece of former Marxist David Horowitz, who received money from the known CIA operative Richard Mellon Scaife.
The corporate media mostly ignored McKinney’s trip and her reports of civilian deaths and continued to follow the Pentagon script as it has now for decades.
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Libya protests spread and intensify quickly

In Activism, Human Rights, Libya, Society, World News on February 22, 2011 at 4:32 am

Scores of people have been reported killed in continuing violence in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, amid escalating protests against Muammar Gaddafi‘s 40-year rule across the north African nation.


Deep cracks were showing and Gaddafi seemed to be losing vital support, as Libyan government officials at home and abroad resigned, air force pilots defected and major government buildings were targeted during clashes in the capital.

At least 61 people were killed in Tripoli on Monday, witnesses told Al Jazeera. The protests appeared to be gathering momentum, with demonstrators saying they had taken control of several important towns and the city of Benghazi, to the east of Tripoli.

Protesters called on Monday for another night of defiance against Gaddafi, despite a harsh security crackdown by his government.

A huge anti-government march in Tripoli on Monday afternoon came under attack by security forces using fighter jets and live ammunition, witnesses told Al Jazeera.

Libyan authorities have cut all landline and wireless communication in the country, making it impossible to verify the report.


As violence flared, the Reuters news agency quoted William Hague, the British foreign secretary, as saying he had seen some information to suggest that Gaddafi had fled Libya and was on his way to Venezuela.

But Al Jazeera’s Dima Khatib, reporting from the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, said government officials there denied that Gaddafi was on his way to the South American country.

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The Libyan deputy foreign minister also denied that Gaddafi had fled the country.

With reports of large-scale military operations under way in Tripoli, a spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon said the UN chief held extensive discussions with Gaddafi on Monday, condemned the escalating violence in Libya and told him that it “must stop immediately”.

”]Protests against Gaddafi's rule have prompted harsh reprisals in several cities

” … The secretary-general underlined the need to ensure the protection of the civilian population under any circumstances. He urged all parties to exercise restraint and called upon the authorities to engage in broad-based dialogue to address legitimate concerns of the population,” Ban’s spokesperson said.

For this part, several Libyan diplomats at the country’s UN mission called on Gaddafi to step down.

Ibrahim Dabbashi, the deputy ambassador, said that if Gaddafi did not relinquish power, “the Libyan people [would] get rid of him”.

“We don’t agree with anything the regime is doing … we are here to serve the Libyan people,” he told Al Jazeera.


Dabbashi urged the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent mercenaries, weapons and other supplies from reaching Gaddafi and his security forces.

He said the Libyan diplomats were urging the International Criminal Court, the Netherlands-based body, to investigate possible crimes against humanity in the Libyan context.

Arab League to meet

Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, called for an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League to take place on Tuesday. The aim is to discuss the current crisis in Libya and to put additional “pressure” on the government, he told Al Jazeera.


Talking to Al Jazeera, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the UN Ibrahim Dabbashi condemns Gaddafi’s regime

Hamad bin Jassim said the international community must act now. “I feel a big sympathy for the Libyan people. We don’t accept using force in this way or any way against the people or against any nation from their governments,” he said.

“And we make our declaration in this space and we think that the international community should also take a stand against what is happening in Libya at the moment.”

“I think the [UN] Security Council has to play a role. The condemnation is not enough … I think the five permanent members and others, they should take the responsibility and do something to help the civillian people in Libya, because what is happening is not acceptable in any way.”

Earlier in on Monday, Ahmed Elgazir, a human-rights researcher at the Libyan News Centre (LNC) in Geneva, Switzerland, told Al Jazeera that security forces were “massacring” protesters in Tripoli.

Elgazir said the LNC received a call for help from a woman “witnessing the massacre in progress who called on a satellite phone”.

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Libya Protests: Gadhafi Weakens As Protests Escalates.

In Activism, Human Rights, Libya, Society, World News on February 22, 2011 at 4:17 am

The old medina in Central Tripoli; There are 2...

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CAIRO — Deep cracks open up in Moammar Gadhafi‘s regime after more than 40 years in power, with diplomats abroad and the justice minister at home resigning, air force pilots defecting and a fire raging at the main government hall after clashes in the capital Tripoli. Protesters called for another night of defiance in Tripoli’s main square despite the government’s heavy crackdown.

Gadhafi’s regime appeared to be preparing a new major assault in the capital Monday night in an attempt to crush unrest that has already swept the eastern parts of the country – leaving Libya‘s second largest city in protesters’ control – and was now overwhelming the capital of 2 million people.

State TV at nightfall Monday announced that the military had “stormed the hideouts of saboteurs” and called on the public to back the security forces as protesters called for a new demonstration in central Green Square and in front of Gadhafi’s Tripoli residence.

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Military warplanes were seen swooping low over the city in the evening, and snipers had taken position on the roofs of buildings around Tripoli, apparently to stop people from outside the capital from joining the march, according to Mohammed Abdul-Malek, a London-based opposition activist in touch with residents.

Communications into the capital appeared to have been cut, and mobile phones of residents could not be reached from outside the country. State TV showed images of hundreds of Gadhafi supporters rallying in centralGreen Square Monday evening, waving pictures of the Libyan leader and palm fronds.

The eruption of turmoil in the capital after six days of protests and bloody clashes in Libya’s eastern cities sharply escalates the challenge to Gadhafi, the Arab world’s longest ruling leader. His security forces have unleashed the bloodiest crackdown of any Arab country against the wave of protests sweeping the region, which toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. At least 233 people have been killed so far, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The chaos in Libya, an OPEC country that is a significant oil supplier to Europe, was raising international alarm. Oil prices jumped $1.67 to nearly $88 a barrel Monday amid investor concern. European nations were eying an evacuation of their citizens.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, visiting neighboring Egypt, called the Libyan government‘s crackdown “appalling.”

“The regime is using the most vicious forms of repression against people who want to see that country – which is one of the most closed and one of the most autocratic – make progress,” he told reporters in Cairo.

The heaviest fighting so far has been in the east. In Libya’s second largest city, Benghazi, security forces opened fire on Sunday on protesters storming police stations and government buildings. But in several instances, units of the military turned against them and sided with protesters.

By Monday, protesters had claimed control of the city, overrunning its main security headquarters, called the Katiba.

Celebrating protesters raised the flag of the country’s old monarchy, toppled in 1969 by a Gadhafi-led military coup, over Benghazi’s main courthouse and on tanks around the city.

“Gadhafi needs one more push and he is gone,” said Amal Roqaqie, a lawyer at the Benghazi court, saying protesters are “imposing a new reality … Tripoli will be our capital. We are imposing a new order and new state, a civil constitutional and with transitional government.”


Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, went on state TV in the early hours Monday with a sometimes confused speech of nearly 40 minutes, vowing to fight and warning that if protests continue, a civil war will erupt in which Libya’s oil wealth “will be burned.”

“Moammar Gadhafi, our leader, is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him,” he said. “The armed forces are with him. Tens of thousands are heading here to be with him. We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet.” he said.

He also promised “historic” reforms in Libya if protests stop, and on Monday state TV said he had formed a commission to investigate deaths during the unrest. Protesters ignored the vague gestures. Even as he spoke, the first clashes between protesters and security forces in the heart of Tripoli were still raging, lasting until dawn.

During the day Monday, a fire raged at the People’s Hall, the main hall for government gatherings where the country’s equivalent of a parliament holds its sessions several times a year, the pro-government news web site Qureyna said.

It also reported the first major sign of discontent in Gadhafi’s government, saying justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil resigned from his post to protest the “excessive use of force against unarmed protesters.”

Libya’s U.N. ambassadors called for Gadhafi to step down, and there were reports of a string of ambassadors abroad defecting. Libya’s former ambassador to the Arab League in Cairo, Abdel-Moneim al-Houni, who a day earlier resigned from his post to side with protesters, issued a statement demanding Gadhafi and his commanders and aides be put on trial for “the mass killings in Libya.”

“Gadhafi’s regime is now in the trash of history because he betrayed his nation and his people,” al-Houni said.

A Libyan diplomat in China, Hussein el-Sadek el-Mesrati, told Al-Jazeera, “I resigned from representing the government of Mussolini and Hitler.”

Two Mirage warplanes from the Libyan airforce fled a Tripoli air base and landed on the nearby island of Malta, and their pilots – two colonels – asked for political asylum, Maltese military officials said.

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