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| Africa North |
| Qaddafi tries to divide opposition |
| 2011-08-05 |
| NICOSIA: Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi was trying his best Thursday to take advantage of a rift in the opposition ranks over the assassination of a top rebel commander last week. Qaddafi's son Seif Al-Islam told The New York Times that his family had forged an alliance with an Islamic group among the insurgents and that they would issue a joint statement soon on their alliance to isolate or wipe out liberals within days. "The liberals will escape or be killed," said Saif Al-Islam, once seen as a reformist and potential successor to his father. "We will do it together." But a top Islamist leader in Benghazi denied they have have forged an alliance with Qaddafi's family. "Seif Al-Islam's statement is baseless. It's a lie that seeks to create a crack in the national accord," Ali Sallabi said by telephone. Sallabi acknowledged talking with Seif Al-Islam. "Our dialogue with them is always based on three points: Qaddafi and his sons must leave Libya, the capital (Tripoli) must be protected from destruction and the blood of Libyans must be spared. There is no doubt about these constants," he said. "We support pluralism and justice. Libyans have the right to build a democratic state and political parties." Sallabi said relations between the Islamists and the liberals are "strong." "We fight with them in the same trenches and Qaddafi and his sons cannot change that," he added. Sallabi's protestations notwithstanding, there were serious differences within opposition ranks with a key group demanding Thursday that senior opposition ministers and military brass be fired. The February 17 Coalition — whose members kick-started the revolt against Qaddafi — said the ministers of defense and international affairs must be sacked following last week's murder of Gen. Abdel Fattah Younis. Abdulsalam El-Musmari, a judge who heads the coalition, criticized the events leading up to Younis' murder and the handling of its aftermath by the governing Transitional National Council (TNC). "We have two main demands," Musmari said. "The resignations of the defense minister (Jallal Al-Digheily) and his deputy and for all the armed groups to fall under the national army or lay down their weapons." In a separate written statement, the February 17 Coalition also demanded the sacking of Ali Alasawi — the TNC's minister for international affairs — and a probe into why he approved a warrant for Younis' arrest. While there has been growing international recognition of the Benghazi-based administration, the opposition is still struggling financially and their fighters are not as well-armed, trained or organized as Qaddafi's. On Thursday they secured a boost when NATO, which is enforcing an arms embargo on Libya, cleared the Cartagena, a tanker carrying enough fuel to fill nearly a million cars, to dock in Benghazi. The shipment belongs to the Libyan government's shipping arm but it has been blocked at sea for months, caught between NATO's efforts to prevent Qaddafi's forces being resupplied and reports that the captain was a opposition sympathizer. A NATO spokesman declined to comment on a report in a petroleum industry newsletter, the Petroleum Economist, that the Cartagena was seized Tuesday night by anti-Qaddafi fighters with the help of special forces from a European state. |
| Posted by:Steve White |