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| Africa North |
| BRSC leader denies shelling Benina saying it is Hafter |
| 2016-11-14 |
| [Libya Herald] A Benghazi Islamist myrmidon has accused the army and Khalifa Hafter of shelling areas of the city that are already under their control. In the last 48 hours, shells and rockets have been falling in and around Benina. In a clear reference to army attacks on Ganfouda, Wissam Ben Hamid said that Hafter did not mind shelling civilian neighbourhoods. Ben Hamid, the head of Libya Shield ...a conglomerate of pro-Islamist militias deployed across Libya. It reports to the Libyan defense ministry and is organized like a real army unit. Its commander used to head a Benghazi brigade called Free Libya Martyrs... No. 1 and a major figure in the Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council has told Al Jazeera that if his men had wanted to attack other areas of Benghazi, they would have done so long ago and their shelling would have been deadly and accurate. The BRSC along with its IS and Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... allies, both UN-designated terrorist groups, have been holding out in Ganfouda despite being surrounded and apparently blockaded by sea. Ben Hamid said that the army had attacked parts of Benghazi to cover up its own air attacks on Ganfouda as well as the murders of detainees. He cited the two massacres of bound and tortured detainees, apparently of suspected myrmidon sympathisers last month and in July. His denial that the BRSC has anything to do with the shelling and rocketing of the last 48 hours, does not square with a statement a year ago, when Ben Hamid vowed that his forces would continue to shell Benina as long as the Libyan air force were using the airbase for offensive operations. |
| Posted by:Fred |