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| Africa North |
| Libya's New Leaders Order Provincial Fighters to Return Home |
| 2011-09-04 |
| [Tripoli Post] The interim interior and security 'minister' Ahmed Darrad said in Tripoli that fighters from elsewhere in the country, and who had helped to liberate the capital should now go home. "Starting Saturday there will be a large number of security personnel and coppers who will go back to work," he told AFP. "Now the revolutionaries of Tripoli are able to protect their own city." "The responsibility for securing Tripoli should be in the hands of the sons of Tripoli," Abdullah Naqir, head of the newly formed military council of Tripoli, said on Friday, adding that they were grateful for the work of brigades from Misrata, Zintan and elsewhere, but said that as soon as they finish organising their own ranks they should go and rest. Abdurraham al-Keib, who represents Tripoli at the NTC and is a member of the capital's crisis team, told news hounds :"Anybody who is willing to help keep the peace in town and in Libya is welcome," But the NTC is not accepting of "a body that builds itself on its own ... It has to go through a process that filters issues and makes sure that, whatever that body is, is part of the planning for a peaceful Libya." Keib, who is part of Tripoli's crisis management team, admitted that only "a small percentage" of formal police forces have come back to work, in part because they fear for their own safety. "We are trying to tell them that they will be the source of safety. They will come back," he said. The demand by the NTC aims at defusing possible tensions between Tripoli's freshly emerged revolutionaries and the scores of hardened fighters who poured in from other towns to topple the Muammar Al Qadaffy ...a reminder that a single man with an idea can screw up an entire nation... regime that Thursday would have marked the 42nd anniversary of the 1969 coup that brought him to power. He is now a runaway though he shows no sign of surrendering. The NTC's head of military affairs, Omar al-Hariri, said Libya's national army is being rebuilt as the main guarantor of safety and security in the country, although all rebel groups are welcome to come under its umbrella. "We've started the creation of a new national army to protect democracy, institutions and innocent civilians and not just to protect certain select individuals," he told news hounds. Hariri said Libya's national army contains experienced generals and professional units that are capable of playing a critical role in the building of a new and secure Libya. Abdul Razaq Mukhtar, who heads the capital's crisis team, vowed that the NTC will not rest "until the liberation flag is flying over all Libya." "We want to prove to the world ... we are very much capable of building our country." Some of the rebels say that Al Qadaffy and his son Seif al-Islam may be in Bani Walid, southeast of the capital and still held by loyalist troops. The Islamic fascisti who waged war on Al Qadaffy over six months ago, have been pushing towards the dictator's hometown of Sirte, despite having extended a deadline for the city's surrender. Officials from the National Transition Council say they are in no rush to assault loyalist-held Sirte and are keen to take control of the city without bloodshed, as such, the head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, on Friday extended the deadline for the loyalists' surrender beyond Saturday for last another week. In the meantime, the NTC is hoping to negotiate rather than fight the Al Qadaffy loyalists in his hometown of Sirte, with Khaled Zintani, a front man for rebels in the remote mountain town of Zintan, saying: "Military action will be the last option, because after the fall of the capital, we are not in a hurry." He went on to say that tribal elders in Sirte had asked that a delegation from Zintan be sent to Sirte to help with negotiations. Besides, other reports indicate that an elder from Sabha wants to negotiate on behalf of both Sabha and Sirte though they are hundreds of kilometres apart. But rebel fighters are gathering at nearby towns in case an attack is needed, with brigades pushing to the town of Wadi Hawarah, just 48 kilometres away. They are very eager to move without delay, as they are living in harsh conditions in the middle of the desert, and in hot weather, sometimes in temperatures of 50 degrees. The rebels are concentrating on three strongholds still held by Al Qadaffy loyalists: Sirte, Bani Walid and the southern city of Sabha. Abdul Majid Mlegta, co-ordinator of the Tripoli military operations room, reportedly told Rooters, "someone we trust" had said Al Qadaffy had decamped to Bani Walid, 150km southeast of the capital. He said Ali al-Ahwal, Al Qadaffy's co-ordinator for tribes, was also in Bani Walid, a stronghold of the powerful Warfalla tribe, Libya's biggest tribe among a population of six million, but many say their loyalty is divided. "We are capable of ending the crisis but military action is out of the question right now," Mlegta said. We cannot attack this tribe because many of our brigades in Benghazi and Zintan are from Bani Walid. The sons of Bani Walid hold the key." Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... according to former Al Qadaffy front man Moussa Ibrahim, now nicknamed 'Comical Moussa', 'downgraded' to Al Qadaffy front man, the former leader's son, Seif al-Islam, who has become hated in the country as much as his father, has reportedly been travelling around close to Tripoli, meeting tribal leaders and preparing to retake the capital. Ibrahim told Rooters "only yesterday" he was with him, he with Seif. He added: "I move around a lot and I don't have an Internet connection at the moment... "Actually, only yesterday, I was with Mr Seif al-Islam. I joined him on a tour circling Tripoli from the south.. "We are still very strong." |
| Posted by:Fred |