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| Africa North |
| Libyan desert town shakes off Qaddafi rule |
| 2011-03-03 |
| [Arab News] The men, armed with handmade weapons, knives and automatic rifles, hunker down in an unfinished concrete building meant to one day be a hotel. They lie on mattresses, drink tea and take turns watching the long road to Tripoli for any sign of imminent attack. The men at the impromptu hilltop post are the first line of defense for their remote town of 18,000 in Libya's northwestern desert, which shook off the rule of Muammar Qadaffy -- "Liberated Nalut," as the graffiti sprayed on walls in town proclaimed. "The youth here lost hope in this country," said Mustafa, a 37-year-old civil servant among the men. "So when the uprising started, we took whatever arms we could find and we went kaboom!-- we took our town back." He, like many others in the town spoke on condition their full names not be used for fear of retaliation. The rebellion in Libya has been centered along the long Mediterranean coast where most of its population of 6 million live. Nearly the entire eastern half of the coast has broken away from Qadaffy's regime, leaving him in control of the seaside capital of Tripoli and nearby cities in the west. But the uprising is also raging in this corner of Libya's sparsely populated desert hinterland, 140 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Tripoli. An News Agency that Dare Not be Named news hound spent two days with the self-declared "revolutionaries" in Nalut, one of a string of "liberated" towns nestled in the Nafusa Mountains near the border with Tunisia. The border crossing -- 40 miles (68 kilometers) from Nalut along a winding mountain road -- was briefly in the hands of anti-Qadaffy forces for several days. But military units loyal to Qadaffy moved in Monday and retook it. That, and the presence of an army base only a short drive away to the north, raised fears in Nalut that the military was now moving on the town. On Monday, residents worked furiously to erect what defenses they could. At the town entrance, they used a bulldozer to pile up a hill of dirt and rocks as a road barrier. Others dug trenches for defenders to take cover in. Exhausted and their faces lined with fear, organizers at the town's former State Intelligence Service building -- now a community center -- made harried phone calls to sympathetic former army officers, trying to get information on the military's movements. "We only have Kalashnikovs," one man screamed into the phone. "What do you think we can do with those?" Farther east in the Nafusa mountain range, the military did strike Monday night, attacking the opposition-held town of Zintan. Troops in about 20 vehicles with heavy machine guns launched the assault but were repulsed by armed residents and allied army units, who captured one of the vehicles, said two residents of Zintan. "We will not give it up no matter what forms of terrorism" Qadaffy uses, one man in Zintan said. "From now on, people will not accept anything less than freedom and a democratic state." At least three other towns in the mountain range, which is dominated by members of Libya's ethnic Berber minority, have also been taken over by the opposition, said Nalut residents, who are in touch with their brethren. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 I'm pretty sure the carpets are too expensive for that sort of thing, Frank. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-03-03 22:11 |
| #3 would carpet-bombing Berbers be inappropriate, I'm thinking so, but I have a tin ear for cultural quirks? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-03-03 22:00 |
| #2 The Berbers seem to be a contrary people -- they fought against the Roman emperors for a great many years over differences in Christian theology. I think it was Constantine who sent out the legions to settle the issue, but I could be wrong. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-03-03 21:30 |
| #1 Interesting that the Berbers have joined in the rebellion, since they are also restive on the other side of the border. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2011-03-03 11:17 |