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Libya - civil unrest & now NATO involvement

Talking of accuracy this morning on BBC a reporter said they'd been told by one source that the first plane headed out to UK had 120 passengers, but someone in security at LHR said 78; the banner said 71. When I checked my tweets a little later there was one tweet from BBC saying 120 and another just a few minutes later saying 150.

And that's without a comms blackout.
 
Barking_Mad said:
Frankly I take all media reports and quotes with a massive grain of salt. The scope for propaganda is huge especially from western governments.
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Although most of the information is coming via protesters' networks and in a situation like this if you start giving bad information you quickly lose credibility as a source. Their aim is to get their information re-published by mainstream media (which is also why they translate into english) as their own tweets and blogs have very limited reach unless picked up by others. They don't have time to invent great big stories to suit themselves and then reinvent a new 'front' if they get caught out talking rubbish. One of the key things they have done is provide 'leads' that AJE, BBC, CNN etc have then picked up on - for example they make a tweet and upload a photo or youtube clip, and then AJE etc phone through and talk to someone on the ground - for example a doctor at a hospital where the dead bodies have been taken.

Sure we can be cynical if we want to, but ultimately we have to judge the information on it's plausibility - just like we treat all the other information we get via the BBC or anyone else - after all *everyone* has an agenda of some kind, even if they don't think they do - they always have some reason for pointing a camera in a certain direction or asking a certain question, otherwise you'd just get ramdom pictures of clouds drifting past someone's window.
 
That seems to be one of a set of three posted on the same youtube channel today:

CLIP 1

uploaded 11 hours ago
google arabic-english translation = "Bombing on the city corner"

Go to Google Maps location: 32.752263,12.727715

If you use satellite view and zoom right in you can see the square-shaped trees in Az Zawiyah Central Park that can also been seen in the first youtube clip.

CLIP 2
[video]http://www.youtube.com/user/libyaforever1#p/a/u/1/EQoq69L9Zx0[/video]
uploaded 10 hours ago
This is the one teqniq posted above and is captioned "Bombing on the city corner 2"

Interesting to note that it shows a mosque tower which could be the one mentioned in this report:

"...The Associated Press published a report quoting a witness saying by telephone in Zawiya that troops had fired automatic weapons and an anti-aircraft gun at a mosque where protesters, some armed with hunting rifles, had camped for days. Immediately after Gadhafi finished, Zawiya residents called the Al-Jazeera satellite channel from a mosque in which casualties were being treated for gunshot wounds. It wasn't clear whether it was the mosque that was featured in the AP report. Lutfi Abdullah, the imam, told Al-Jazeera, "We don't want to hear Gadhafi, because he's crazy. As of now, there are 17 people killed in Zawiya, and many others injured. Gadhafi just said he would kill us all, so I urge all the countries to help us. Zawiya, and two cities east of Tripoli, Misrata and Tajura, were under assault by pro-Gadhafi forces in what appeared to be an effort by the dictator to extend his control beyond Tripoli, where onslaughts by loyalists and African mercenaries seem to have crushed the uprising for now..." http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/24/2083475/gadhafis-forces-pound-3-libyan.html

here is a photo of the mosque there:
48146898.jpg

(lots more local photos can be found via google maps)

CLIP 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/user/libyaforever1#p/a/u/0/K3hN4hy21rc[/video]
uploaded 1 hour ago
This final one is captioned (via google translation): "Demonstrations in the corner and the capture of rebel arms"

NB: looking at where the sun is in the sky you can roughly estimate the approximate time of day and direction of camera for each clip.
 
Lots of people are tweeting that AJ is reporting live from Zawiya "being attacked by mercenaries and airplanes right now" (maybe by phone?) however I can't yet see anything on AJE.
 
The reports of Tripoli being cleaned up in preparation for foreign journalists to visit seems finally to have lead to the expected propaganda attempt, but it doesnt seem to have worked out very well:

The authorities were apparently preparing for the arrival of a group of foreign journalists invited by the regime to try to create an impression of normality. But the move appeared to have backfired when one of the group, an Italian correspondent, was kicked and punched by a militiaman at a checkpoint on his way into the city.

Fabrizio Caccia of the daily Corriere della Sera was assaulted after producing his Italian passport. "Fabrizio was trying to show them he had a visa. He told me he was punched in the ear and kicked on the hand," said the head of the paper's Rome bureau, Marco Cianca, who spoke to the reporter after he reached a hotel in the city. The nine Italian journalists flew into Tripoli airport to find there was no one there to collect them, Cianca said.
Click to expand...

Taken from this Guardian story which covers a lot of other recent developments:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/24/muammar-gaddafi-libya-offensive
 
@ classicdish Oh good lord. Manchester United and APC's

On a more serious note I fully expect lots more people will die before all this is over.
 
classicdish said:
Lots of people are tweeting that AJ is reporting live from Zawiya "being attacked by mercenaries and airplanes right now" (maybe by phone?) however I can't yet see anything on AJE.
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AJE often runs far behind AJ Arabic. The twitter report about this that I heard was that someone was on the phone to AJ Arabic and while they were talking an attack started and then the phoneline went dead.
 
Feeling unfairly criticized and sorry for himself, Gaddafi has come out with some surreal ramblings. Translation courtesy of the BBC.

“There are people who have been in power longer than me, like Queen Elizabeth of Britian, and nothing has happened to her” Col Gaddafi Feb 2011-02-24
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Hopefully his last words. Who is writing his scripts for him?

On a harsher note what's coming out now on some of the videos just knocks the wind out of you. There are some pretty graphic ones of mercenaries being linched and protesters being sniped, which I am not going to post the links to. This is no romantic revolution, it's hell. I just hope that the anti gaddafi forces aren't just sitting back on their immidiate gains. They need to take the initiative and send columns to Tripoli. No evidence of that happening though.
 
Disappointing and worrying if he's extending his control and his soldiers motivated by money in the case of mercenaries and possibly tribal loyalty.
 
Anudder Oik said:
...send columns to Tripoli...
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Columns of what? Some of those 1950s soviet rust buckets can barely move, probably have enough fuel to go twenty miles and enough ammunition for a few shots - which might actually hit something if you rounded up a decent crew who were also suicidal enough to want to get into them. More likely you'll see pickups full of guys with AKs, RPGs and the occasional gerry-mounted AA gun. Unfortunately they'd last until the first set of anti-tank artillery or air attack.

There is now evidence from pilots that Gadafi had started flying his mercenaries in eary this month and he has long been paranoid about a military coup - his safety mechanism was to keep ammunition and fuel away from his regular troops and overseen by his elite units. What he didn't remove beforehand he has probably been trying to blow up using attack jets (at least one arms dump was still cooking off today near the egyptian border).
 
elbows said:
AJE often runs far behind AJ Arabic. The twitter report about this that I heard was that someone was on the phone to AJ Arabic and while they were talking an attack started and then the phoneline went dead.
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Yeah that's what I've seen people say as well. Someone told me to look at the 'red news ticker'. It led me to this story which goole translate has a bash at english-ing http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/524473C4-B4BF-44F6-B9EE-306E40F0C747.htm?GoogleStatID=9

Rough summary = Gaddafi attacks Zawiya and Misurata this morning using heavy weapons and poisonous gas (!!!) leaving dozens dead.

In Zawiya he attacked a rally of 30,000 people at the mosque with machine guns and anti-aircraft weapons - doctors report 12 bodies and 150 wounded. Also mercenaries gathered near the city to attack the demonstrators.

In Misurata the "Gaddafi battalion" attacked the city's airport killing 4 before being fought off, and that ciy is now back under protester control although they feel vunerable located between Sirte and Tripoli (gadafi strongholds).

A witness told AP that Gadafi's forces have taken all the injured and dead from hospitals in Zawiya and Tripoli to cover up what they have done, taking them to Mitiga military airport (Tripoli).

...and then some stuff about Tripoli and armed battalions etc. spreading out in the day and going somewhere else at night time.

Also from an Egyptian newspaper, reporting Libyan state media:

"...Az-Zawiya is a crowded, middle-class town home to a number of pro-Gaddafi military officers and the site of Libya's biggest oil refinery. Al Jazeera news agency stated there were fierce clashes between pro- and anti-government forces for control of the key town. As the battle to unseat Gadaffi encircles the capital, the Libyan president addresses the elders of Az-Zawiyah via television, where he accuses a drug-crazed mob of youths spurred by Al-Qaeda of killing four policemen. The state news agency, Jana, reported it as three "terrorists" that attacked a security forces post in Az-Zawiyah and slit the throats of three policemen on Thursday, amid news of heavy fighting in the town..." link: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsCon...ries-to-influence-Libyans-while-his-forc.aspx

Another tweet suggested that Gadafi has cancelled his "press tour" of Tripoli because he has failed to capture either Zawiya or Misurata.

Personally speaking I have been watching some images of him and he looks a bit ... erm ... unwell in the head, losing it even aside from what he is saying - just his body language alone, a bit jerky, exaggerated, lost in space.

I am kind of surprised that he didn't managed to take back Misurata airfield even with his supposedly expensively-equipped and professional soldiers. I think it isn't long now. I expect he will hide in a bunker in centre of Tripoli, using the city filled with mercenaries and any semi-loyal residents as a kind of 'human shield'...

(!!! - that's what the translation said, but I kind of doubt it somehow.)
 
Here's a good round up of today - and the situation tonight/tomorrow by The Australian newspaper
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...stand-in-tripoli/story-e6frg6so-1226011812593

"...Gaddafi elite forces are concentrated in Tripoli. The 32nd Brigade, also known as the Khamis Brigade because Gaddafi's fifth son commands it, guards the western entrance to the city. Its huge, heavily-fortified modern barracks stands beside the road to Tunis, near a satellite town called Janzour. Another huge barracks stands beside the road to Benghazi, guarding the eastern entrance to the capital, and a third borders the main road south to the airport..."

They even manage to get in a subtle dig at the British Gov being unable to rescue the desert-bound oil workers (unlike the Germans who were saved by a private convoy that suddenly appeared) :D

Right, I am clocking off for the night. Let's see what tomorrow brings!
 
Not much evidence of oil funded mercenary's protecting the oil companies kit .....(back around 12 pages ...butcherspoon et all )

What about the Germans and the British oilmen cleaned out of all equipment out in the desert.... vehicles ,computers , and other stuff
 
You caught the faith, there?

UK should perhaps ask the Germans for tips on how to get the oilmen out, seeing as they already fetched the German ones, leaving the Brits behind.
 
quimcunx said:
You caught the faith, there?

UK should perhaps ask the Germans for tips on how to get the oilmen out, seeing as they already fetched the German ones, leaving the Brits behind.
Click to expand...

I bet the Germans were waving as their well-engineered jets flew off to freedom leaving the poor Brits behind. :mad:
 
Telegraph reports special forces (SAS) at work in Libya helping to evacuate UK citizens, can't help but wonder if they're not also marking up targets for any future attack...
 
Oh dear, afraid Im not terribly surprised by this, which is from the Guardians live blog:

8.55am: Venezeuela's top diplomat has said the United States and other western countries are trying to create a movement inside Libya aimed at toppling Moammar Gadhafi, while the country's president, Hugo Chavez, has taken to Twitter in an apparent show of support for Moammar Gaddafi.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro did not condone or condemn Gaddafi's violent crackdown in Libya, but called for a peaceful solution to the turmoil and questioned the accuracy of western media reports from the country.

"They [the US and other countries] are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya," Maduro said.

"Libya is going through difficult times, which should not be measured with information from imperial news agencies," Maduro added, referring to western media.

In a Twitter message on Thursday, Chavez wrote: "Viva Libya and its independence! Gadhafi is facing a civil war."

It was the first time that Chavez has publicly referred to the violence in Libya.
Click to expand...
 
Kid_Eternity said:
Telegraph reports special forces (SAS) at work in Libya helping to evacuate UK citizens, can't help but wonder if they're not also marking up targets for any future attack...
Click to expand...

So Cameron will use our best troops to help oilmen escape from a bit of danger in a country in utter turmoil. But he refused to send them to rescue aid worker Linda Norgrove who was in mortal danger.

Nice prioritys dave.
 
Looks like we're in for a day of Tripoli is 'quiet and all clean, no one on the street - lockdown' 'brutal crackdown lots dead' and 'protesters have taken a govt building in Tripoli' this one has a video.

Also statetv has announced lots of new subsidies for the people.
 
1156: A Tripoli resident emails the BBC's Arabic Service, saying: "The situation is very tense. We don't know what will happen after prayers. We are fearful. There are queues for bread and fuel. Also my internet connection is faster than anything I have experienced before. I am suspicious. We were not attacked from the air, but the terror we lived through on Sunday and Monday was unimaginable."
Click to expand...

and

1259: Eyewitnesses in Tripoli say that security forces are now shooting at protesters in the capital's suburbs.
Click to expand...

I've been drained just hearing about this stuff for days, struggle to imagine what its like to actually be caught up in the middle of it :(
 
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