THE HEADLESS CORPSE, THE MASS GRAVE

 AND WORRYING QUESTIONS 

ABOUT LIBYA’S REBEL ARMY

 

The five corpses floated disfigured and bloating in the murky bottom of the water tank. Wearing green soldiers’ uniforms, the men lay belly down, decomposing in the putrid water.

July 22, 2011

By Ruth Sherlock

The Telegraph

The streaks of blood, smeared along the sides of this impromptu mass grave suggested a rushed operation, a hurried attempt to dispose of the victims.

Who the men were and what happened to them, close to the Libyan rebels’ western front line town of Al-Qawalish in the Nafusa Mountains, remains unknown.

But the evidence of a brutal end was clear. One of the corpses had been cleanly decapitated, while the trousers of another had been ripped down to his ankles, a way of humiliating a dead enemy.

The green uniforms were the same as those worn by loyalists fighting for Col. Muammer Gaddafi in Libya’s civil war. No one from the rebel side claimed the corpses, or declared their loved ones missing.

There was no funeral, or call to the media by the rebels to see the ‘atrocities committed by the regime’.

Since the bodies were seen by the Daily Telegraph attempts to discover their identities have been unsuccessful, in part because of obstruction by rebel authorities in the area. Having highlighted the discovery to those authorities the area was subsequently bulldozed and the bodies disappeared.

The find will add to concerns highlighted in recent days over human rights violations by rebel forces. Human Rights Watch last week said that they had looted homes, shops and hospitals and beaten captives as they advanced.

The Daily Telegraph found homes in the village of al-Awaniya ransacked, and shops and schools smashed and looted. The town, now empty, was inhabited by the Mashaashia, a traditionally loyalist tribe that has long been involved in land disputes with surrounding towns.

Human rights groups fear that reprisals may get worse as the rebels advance on towns nearer the capital such as Al-Sabaa and Gheryan which are loyalist strongholds.

The author of the HRW report, Sidney Kwiram, last night called on rebel leaders to investigate the latest find.

“It is critical that the authorities investigate what happened to these five men.”

The bodies were discovered in a water tank just off the main road between Zintan, the main town in the area, and Al-Qawalish as the rebels consolidated their advance.

At the time, rebel commanders, including former government troops who had defected, claimed that the men were most probably killed by Col Gaddafi forces for trying to defect ~ a common allegation.

“The day of our first assault on Al Qawalish we found the bodies there, and they were already in bad shape,” said Col. Osama Ojweli, the military coordinator for the region.

“This is not unusual in Gaddafi’s army. In other battles we have found men, their hands tied behind their backs with dusty wire and executed ~ we found them shot in the head by the regime.”

A colonel, who defected last month and cannot be named, said: “If they think you might leave, they will shoot you.”

His claim was backed up by loyalists captured and held prisoner in the nearby town of Yafran.

But suspicions have been raised after the rebel authorities disposed of the bodies and bull-dozed the site where they were found.

Drivers also said they had military orders not to take journalists to the site. The driver of another news organization reportedly said.

“If you go there I will ditch you in the desert,”

The rebel army is aware that NATO intervention on their side was justified by concern at regime human rights abuses in western capitals.

The Libyan Transitional National Council has now flown officials, including Abdulbaset Abumzirig, deputy minister of justice, to the Nafusa to investigate abuse claims.

“From what I have seen they are treating prisoners very well,” he said. “We have promised to hand them back to their families after the war.”

But Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both said there were documented cases of extra-judicial killings by rebel forces, including deaths in custody under torture.

 

In particular, in the early phases of the uprising, loyalists and sub-Saharan Africans accused of being mercenaries were lynched. Since then, men in rebel-held areas suspected of being members of Col Gaddafi’s security services have been taken from the homes, and subsequently found dead with their hands tied.

Both organizations say these are not on the scale of the abuses perpetrated by the regime. “We have come across a number of cases of executions of suspected Gaddafi fighters in both the east and the west,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of HRW.

“It does fit a consistent pattern, though I don’t think these killings are authorized by the rebel authorities in Benghazi.”

Diana Eltahawy, of Amnesty, said members of the Transitional National Council, the rebel government, had admitted to there being a problem with some of their troops but had not done enough to tackle it.

“There is no comparison with the Gaddafi side. But the concern is that there is not sufficient will to address this in the leadership,” she said. “It needs to be stopped before it becomes worse.”

 

Libyan Rebel Fighter

LIBYA REBELS 

SEEK EXTRA ARMS FROM FRANCE

AFP

Libya’s rebels asked France for extra arms to help them overrun Tripoli within “days”, as they ramped up a pre-Ramadan offensive that has Muammar Gaddafi’s troops on the run in the east.

The request was made in Paris on Wednesday to French President Nicolas Sarkozy by military leaders from the rebel-held city of Misrata, a member of their delegation said.

Rebel leader Mahmud Jibril meanwhile was expected to seek additional aid for their military campaign from Spain during talks in Madrid on Thursday with Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez.

Sarkozy held talks at his Elysee presidential palace with rebel General Ramadan Zarmuh, Colonel Ahmed Hashem and Colonel Brahim Betal Mal, as well as Suleiman Fortia, a local representative of the rebel leadership in Misrata.

Tripoli very soon. Very soon means days,” Fortia told reporters after the meeting. “We are here in France to discuss how we can do the job.”

France is taking part in NATO-coordinated strikes against Gaddafi’s military assets and was the first outside state to formally recognise the rebels’ Transitional National Council.

It has already dropped arms to the rebels in the Nafusa Mountains, southwest of Tripoli, to help them defend themselves against Gaddafi’s forces.

A rebel source said they were looking for similar deliveries of arms and munitions to Misrata.

“Insurgent commanders came to explain to the head of state that the keys to Tripoli are in Misrata,” said a supporter of the rebels, French writer Bernard-Henri Levy, who attended the talks.

“Misrata’s fighters are disciplined, battle hardened and they have a key asset: a military victory already won” against loyalist forces, Levy told AFP after the meeting.

Misrata, around 200 kilometres east of Tripoli, has been controlled by rebels since mid-May, after a two-month siege by Gaddafi’s forces.

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said Gaddafi is losing control of crucial energy supplies as the rebels advance in the key eastern oil town of Brega, in Misrata and in the Nafusa mountains.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the Libyan strongman was “cut off from fuel and cash”.

Rebels claim to have chased the bulk of Gaddafi’s eastern army from Brega while encircling loyalists holed up among oil installations in the northwest of the town.

As part of what now appears to be a countrywide effort to tighten the noose on Gaddafi before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan begins around August 1, insurgents in the west said they were awaiting orders to start a fresh offensive from the Nafusa Mountains southwest of the capital.

During Ramadan, the endurance of even the hardiest volunteers will be tested by desert battle without food and water during the daytime fast observed by the faithful.

But at Brega, rebel gains were stymied by vast quantities of anti-personnel mines planted by retreating loyalists and the difficulties in attacking an estimated 200 Gaddafi troops fighting from positions near vital petrochemical facilities.

That difficulty was laid bare late on Tuesday, when 24 rebel fighters died. It was by far the rebels’ bloodiest day since the battle for Brega began almost a week ago.

A rebel military source said many of the casualties came when troops closing on isolated Gaddafi forces were hit by a line-guided rocket attack.

Outside the town, rebel troops cleared minefields holding up their advance, while trying to dislodge Gaddafi’s artillery to the west.

Libya’s government has denied the rebels retook Brega. The rebels said Gaddafi troops inside the town were largely conscripts and volunteers who were surrounded.

On the front line of the western desert hamlet Gualish, the rebels waited patiently in the shade until the next battle as Ramadan approaches and the searing summer sun grows more intense.

“We are preparing for the battle. We hope (it will take place), God willing, before Ramadan,” or just after, said rebel commander Mokhtar Lakhdar.

“If there is fighting during Ramadan, we will fight as usual. We will not stop until we have liberated Libya,” he said in Gualish, where the mercury hit 45C on Wednesday.

Lakhdar said the rebels were waiting for the green light from their headquarters in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Around him young rebels debated fighting during the fasting month.

“During Ramadan, it will be harder but, God willing, we will not be weakened but rather be stronger. Ramadan is a good time to be a martyr,” said Shaban Aabor, 38.

The next rebel target is Asabah, 80 kilometres south of Tripoli and the last barrier between rebels and the garrison town of Gharyan.