NATO under fire: Libyan rebels accuse alliance of slacking off

[Obambam]

NATO bombing failing to help the insurgents on the ground.
It has been back and forth battles between the insurgents and Col Gaddafi's forces.

The rebels has been mistakenly bombed twice in a short space of two weeks.

NATO under fire: Libyan rebels accuse alliance of slacking off — RT

Anti-Gaddafi forces losing the battle on the ground in Libya have turned to criticizing NATO. The rebels have struck out at the alliance for not doing enough to help and not supplying them with weapons.A veteran of the Libyan army Muftakh Abdul Ghani served his country all the way to retirement. Now he is fighting for the revolution and is among the few rebels at the front with military training and experience.

“Our forces are not even,” Ghani said. “We are ready to fight to death, but with these weapons we do not stand a chance against Gaddafi.”

Since NATO took control over the no-fly zone operation, its planes have made more than 1,000 sorties into Libya, including 400 attack missions. The alliance claims around a third of Gaddafi’s forces have now been destroyed.

However, despite help from the skies, on the ground the rebels are still taking a pounding.
“NATO has failed. There are civilians in Misrata and we daily have many martyrs and yes, they have been delaying taking proper actions against the Gaddafi troops,” said opposition spokesperson Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga.

For the rebels, taking the town of Brega means clearing the way west. However, just when it seemed they were at the doorstep of the oil-rich town, a new series of mortar attacks by Gaddafi’s forces triggered a chaotic retreat.
Just a week ago the opposition stronghold, the city of Benghazi, was filled with revolutionary euphoria. It seemed the entire city praised NATO for its support.

Now, with the frontline constantly moving back and forth, and the list of those killed or missing growing each day, the rage among many locals over the alliance’s current tactics seems to be rising as well.
Moreover, Reuters reported NATO’s planes mistakenly attacking the rebels’ positions 20km away from Brega on Thursday. Libyan doctors in Ajdabiya, a city some 50-60km east of Brega, say that at least 13 people have been killed in this attack.
However, eyewitnesses to the attack claim that the planes did not resemble the coalition forces, but in fact belonged to Gaddafi and killed at least 40 rebels.
Several tanks have also been destroyed or damaged according to AP, while the rebels have immediately started pulling their forces back to Ajdabiya.

According to RT’s Egor Piskunov, who is now located in Benghazi, right after this assault in Brega’s vicinity, the opposition forces near the city of Ajdabiya were reported to have been attacked and forced to retreat in chaos. The army was also seen evacuating. There is speculation that the shelling of Ajdabiya is continuing both at its western and eastern gates, reports Piskunov.
Driven by the fear of advancing Gaddafi forces, several thousand rebels and Ajdabiya inhabitants are now fleeing from the city in the direction of Benghazi, Itar-Tass reports.

Protests against NATO actions are becoming a common scene in Benghazi. Many are accusing the alliance of failing to protect civilians. Rebels are not asking for help anymore, they are demanding it.
“What are they waiting for, for Gaddafi to kill us all?” said opposition activist Abdul Nasr Al Sharif. “We demand a new UN resolution which would allow arming us!”

However, experts say arming the rebels alone would not help swing the war.
“What the rebels need is not so much arms. They can use arms, but without training they are not going to be able to do anything,” said author and journalist Barry Lando.
Former Belgian Senator Pierre Galand believes that even today there is room for negotiation between the sides of the conflict.

Reports are now surfacing that the US and Egypt are covertly training anti-Gaddafi forces, going beyond the mandate of the UN resolution that established the no fly-zone.

 

[Qasibr]

How ridiculous is this. The powers that be supported these regimes for decades, against the will of their people. And now, finally when the natural political evolution was at the brim, at a point when people were already contemplating the changes that would come when old US-backed stooges like Husni Mubarak would die off and leave the political plain open to changes the people would like, they engineer crap like this.

And Libya, even in the wikileaks articles, Gaddhafi was one of the very few leaders in that part of the world that weren't following US dictates on every major issue of importance, and they've even been bombed for that, over a decade ago. Still, under this guy their per-capita income went from one of the lowest in Northern Africa to one of the best in that region. And all of a sudden this CIA sponsored revolution comes in, these "rebels" pop up and are very well-funded and well-supplied. They have the media, even the global media, on their side spreading propaganda on how good and wonderful they are. News coming out from rebel-held areas of how they resort to extortion are brushed under the carpet.

But even then, when these rebels can't do anything and are only good at loosing battles, and the CIA sees it's plans, for yet another quick regime change fail, they get their puppets, the UN and NATO together and begin bombing the Libyan Army.

This is like having China and Russia fund a seperatist group somewhere in the US, give them $$$ and fame(International media coverage), promise them important political positions in a new govt setup, and have them undermine the current US government. And then, when the US tries to rein in the foreign-sponsored "rebels" China and Russia have a couple of their friends get together, start a propaganda campaign against the US on the two or three main media outlets, and eventually start bombing the US army, air force installations, if the Chinese&Russian funded rebels repeatedly fail to achieve any real success.

And to people naive enough to believe the US would never do something like this, read some history. Read "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, go search for "The War on Democracy" on Google Video, a documentary by John Pilger on the dozens of democracies and dictatorships the US has overthrown when it suited their interests. And they weren't the only ones, there was "Great" Britain before them, Portugal and Spain in South America, France in Algeria and Africa, Italy trying to colonize Libya after WW1, to steal it's natural resources. Every western superpower fit this pattern.

Shame seeing that right in front of our eyes, it's really quiet a tragedy, the very magnitude of their carnage, slavery, and slaughter. This is colonialism 2.0. You don't send in armies to capture land and enslave people, that's costly - and you might loose some of your own people in the struggles that ensue. No, instead you have your multinationals go in, in places as far away as Vietnam and Cambodia, people slaving off there for 18 hours a day to earn $1 a day. Can't afford to get sick or quit, people are easily replaceable many people lined up to get jobs. Just so Nike or some other US based multinational corporation could report higher 1st quarter earnings. And they control who gets elected or not, overthrowing leaders, even popularly elected leaders, if they stand up for their country's interests, against western interests.

What a wonderful world. And these exploitative cobras have the audacity lecture everyone on morality. And we ignorant monkeys don't know anything about anything really, to come up with a proper response.

 

[below_freezing]

We will bring a better future for humanity. The end of the mafia state is near.

 

[Jango]

the lubyans are honestly the dumbest nation in the world......after knowing what the US and NATO id to afghanistan adn iraq...they first invited them to come to libya and now this...trust me this is only the first in the series!!....US is even pondering that they should send their ground troops to libya....then they will capture the oil.

 

[below_freezing]

the lubyans are honestly the dumbest nation in the world......after knowing what the US and NATO id to afghanistan adn iraq...they first invited them to come to libya and now this...trust me this is only the first in the series!!....US is even pondering that they should send their ground troops to libya....then they will capture the oil.

It is not Libyans that are fighting. Gaddafi opened the country's armory to Libyan citizens. He trusts them so much, that he would allow the people to have heavy weapons, and not turn against him. And he was right. Gaddafi enjoys immense popular support, while the rebels are a scattered force of terrorists backed by the Wall Street regime.

 

[Leviza]

Nato has refused to apologise for a "friendly fire" attack on rebel tanks in eastern Libya that killed at least four people.


Rear Adm Russ Harding said that, until Thursday's incident, Nato had not been aware that rebel troops had started to use tanks.

"Our job is to protect civilians," he told a news conference.

Rebel forces reacted with anger at the air strike on their tanks near the eastern town of Ajdabiya.

However, rebel commanders had stressed that it would not damage relations with the allied force.

Rear Adm Harding, speaking in Naples, described the situation between the towns of Ajdabiya and Brega - where the attack happened - as "very fluid" with vehicles "going backwards and forwards".

He said government tanks known to have previously targeted civilians in the town of Misrata had been on the road on Thursday. At that point, Nato did not know that rebel troops had begun to bring out their tanks.

"It would appear that two of our strikes yesterday may have resulted in the deaths of a number of [rebel] forces who were operating main battle tanks," he said on Friday.

"I'm not apologising," he told reporters.

"The situation on the ground, as I said, was extremely fluid and remains extremely fluid. Up until yesterday, we had no information that the ... opposition forces were using tanks," he added.

"Our role is to protect civilians. Tanks have been used in the past to directly target civilians."

Explanation call
The rebels hit in Thursday's air strike had been moving a group of tanks, armoured vehicles and rocket launchers near the front line between the towns of Ajdabiya and Brega in more than 30 transporters.

Nato's Rear Admiral Russell Harding: "Until yesterday we had no information that the rebels were using tanks"
One rebel commander told the BBC he saw at least four missiles land among rebel fighters.

Rebels said four rebels died, while local doctors told the BBC at least 13 fighters had been killed in the strike. Many more were injured.

The BBC's Wyre Davies in Ajdabiya said there was considerable anger among rebel troops about the incident. They were asking why rebel units were hit, when they could be seen clearly advancing in a westerly direction towards the front line.

Rebel commander Gen Abdelfatah Yunis had earlier called on Nato to give a "rational and convincing explanation" about the incident.

He also said such mistakes must not be repeated and called for better co-operation in the future.

source...

 

[F-16_Falcon]

NATO will fight against all Muslim countries.

 

[Jango]

It is not Libyans that are fighting. Gaddafi opened the country's armory to Libyan citizens. He trusts them so much, that he would allow the people to have heavy weapons, and not turn against him. And he was right. Gaddafi enjoys immense popular support, while the rebels are a scattered force of terrorists backed by the Wall Street regime.

my friend...i by the word libyans mean the rebels...they first invite the allies while knowing their past exploits and then they expect them not to bomb them and ask for better support.

 

[Qasibr]

The "rebels" inviting the US and allies, there's more to this. It is unnatural and very strange that a string of "revolutions" props up in rapid succession, it seems more like these rebels consist of bought-off elements of the Libyan society, media, ex-military, etc.

The west was only "invited" when these rebels, despite being very well-funded, could not achieve any substantial gains, and were on the retreat. NATO or some other form of overt/open western military presence was liable to come, after the covert/hidden CIA funded campaign flounders.