AlJazeera: Gaddafi 'being tracked by satellite'

Libya's National Transitional Council says that Muammar Gaddafi, the country's toppled leader, is in the southern desert region of the country, and that it is only a matter of time before he is captured.

Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, the vice-chairman of the NTC, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that satellites have been tracking the former Libyan leader south of Sabha.

"We have confirmed reports that Gaddafi is in the southern Libyan desert. He's not staying in one place. He is moving around with a small convoy which consists of his closest aides and bodyguards," he said.

Ghoga added that the fighters' priority is currently to take full control of Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown and one of the last places still contested between the NTC and Gaddafi loyalists.

"Once the liberation of Sirte has been achieved – our fighters will track down Gaddafi himself."

Battle for Sirte rages

NTC commanders have moved up tanks into the ousted leader's hometown to fire at buildings from close range to try to dislodge the remaining snipers loyal to Gaddafi who are now surrounded on all sides in one small part of the city.

Die-hard loyalists to the deposed leader have not given up the fight, answering NTC attacks in the city with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. An NTC commander said Gaddafi's besieged forces were no longer using heavier weapons.

"We have control of the whole of the city except neighbourhood 'Number Two' where the Gaddafi forces are surrounded," Khaled Alteir, a field commander in Sirte, said on Thursday.

"This operation is on its dying breath," said another commander, Colonel Mohammad Aghfeer.

The siege of Sirte, which began after the capital Tripoli fell to the NTC two months ago, has held up Libya's transition to normality as the country's new leaders say they will only start building a democratic system after the city is captured.

Green flags, the banner of Gaddafi's 42-year rule, still fly above many buildings in Sirte, but, another NTC commander said, the defending forces appear to have lost their cohesion.

"We've noticed now they are fighting every man for himself," said Baloun Al Sharie, a field commander. "We tried to tell them it's enough and to give themselves up, but they would not."

NTC officers say Gaddafi loyalists fear reprisals if they give themselves up.

NTC 'abuses'

Some captured fighters have been roughed up by NTC forces and Amnesty International issued a report on Wednesday saying Libya's new rulers were in danger of repeating human rights abuses commonplace during Gaddafi's rule. The NTC condemned practices highlighted in report.

 "Such acts could have possibly been perceived as acceptable at the beginning [of this revolution], given the brutal crimes committed by Gaddafis mercenaries – however today – they are unjustifiable," Ghoga said.

Close to the centre of the fighting in Sirte, government forces found 25 corpses wrapped in plastic sheets. They accused groups loyal to Gaddafi of carrying out execution-style killings. Five corpses shown to a Reuters news agency team wore civilian clothes, had their hands tied behind their backs and gunshot wounds to the head.

As the tanks pounded the apartment blocks where Gaddafi's men are holed up, pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns moved in behind, then infantry armed with AK-47s began their assault.

One field hospital received two NTC dead and 23 wounded on Thursday. One of the dead men had been hit while taking food up to the fighters on the frontline, doctors said.

In the skies, NATO aircraft have been carrying out reconnaissance missions and Britain said its jets had bombed and destroyed two pick-up trucks belonging to Gaddafi's forces in Sirte on Wednesday.

Air corridors

But as the battle for Libya draws towards what the NTC and NATO hope will be a close, both the new government and the Western alliance which helped topple Gaddafi are looking towards a return to normality.

The provisional Libyan government and NATO signed an agreement on Thursday to immediately open air corridors for international civilian flights from Benghazi, and domestic flights between the second city and Tripoli and Misrata.

This is one of the first steps toward NATO lifting its no-fly zone over Libya imposed after Gaddafi began a military assault on civilians protesting his one-man rule.

Philipp Roesler, Germany's economy minister, said 150 wounded Libyans would be treated in Germany. Berlin plans to support Libya with medical supplies and aid and help in training and educating young Libyans, he said.

"We are here because we see the most important raw material of Libya, it is not oil and gas...[it is] the younger people who started the revolution here. They need future and perspective after their victory," Roesler told a news conference in Tripoli.

Suspicious oil contracts

In another development, Ali Tarhuni, the NTC’s oil minister, vowed that Libya would investigate "every penny" of suspicious oil contracts signed under Gaddafi’s regime, which was responsible for what he called "unbelievable corruption".

"There will be specialised committees that will look into all these contracts and agreements starting with the oil sector," Tarhuni said, without giving details on contracts or companies.

Libya's oil production, which collapsed after the uprising in February, is expected to rise to nearly one million barrels per day by April from the current 400,000, Nuri Berruien, the head of the state-run National Oil Company, said.

 

Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/10/201110140613310311.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial6&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_term=tweets&utm_medium=MasterAccount

Civil war in Syria? By Gwynne Dyer

BACK in 1989, when the communist regimes of Europe were tottering towards their end, almost every day somebody would say `There`s going to be a civil war.` And our job, as foreign journalists who allegedly had their finger on the pulse of events, was to say: `No, there won`t be.`

So most of us did say that, as if we actually knew. But the locals were pathetically grateful, and we turned out to be right.

It was just the same in South Africa in 1993-94. Another non-violent revolution was taking on another dictatorship with a long record of brutality, and once again most people who had lived their lives under its rule were convinced there would be a civil war. So we foreign journalists (or at least some of us) reassured them that there wouldn`t be, and again we turned out to be right.

Now it`s Syria`s turn, and yet again most of the people who live there fear that their non-violent revolution will end in civil war. It`s not my job to reassure them this time, because like most foreign journalists I can`t even get into the country, but in any case I would have no reassurance to offer. This time, it may well end in civil war. Like Iraq.

The Assad dynasty in Syria is neither better nor worse than Saddam Hussein`s regime was in Iraq. They had identical origins, as local branches of the same pan-Arab political movement, the Baath Party. They both depended on minorities for their core support: the Syrian Baathists on the 10 per cent Alawite (Shia) minority in that country, and the Iraqi Baathists on the 20 per cent of that country`s people who were Sunni Arabs.

They were both ruthless in crushing threats to their power. Hafez al-Assad`s troops killed up to 40,000 people in Hama when Sunni Islamists rebelled in Syria in 1982, Saddam Hussein`s army killed at least as many Shias in southern Iraq when they rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War, and both regimes were systematically beastly to their local Kurds.

When the American invaders destroyed Saddam Hussein`s regime in Iraq in 2003, however, what ensued was not peace, prosperity and democracy. It was a brutal civil war that ended with Baghdad almost entirely cleansed of its Sunni Muslim population and the whole country cleansed of its Christian minority. Only the Kurds, insulated by their own battle-hardened army and their mountains, avoided the carnage.

So if the Baathist regime in Syria is driven from power, why should we believe that what follows will be any better than it was in Iraq? The country`s ethnic and sectarian divisions are just as deep and complex as Iraq`s.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/civil-war-in-syria.html

CNN: Syria opposition gains regional backers

(CNN) -- International powers put more heat on Syria's government Tuesday, as a new umbrella opposition group gained key backers in the Arab world and China exhorted the government to respond to people's "reasonable" demands.

The developments come amid a seven-month government crackdown against protesters, an ongoing operation that has stirred condemnation across the world.

The United Nations estimates that 2,900 people have been killed. Activist groups have said the toll exceeds 3,000. The government says it is fighting armed gangs that have killed 1,100 members of the security forces.

The new opposition movement, the Syrian National Council, has received backing from a coalition of Egyptian activists -- the Democratic Alliance for Egypt.

Syrian opposition gains Arab support

Clashes intensify in Syria

The alliance and the council held a meeting in Egypt, said Sayed el-Badawi, whose al-Wafd party is a member of the alliance.

"The meeting aimed to foster a stronger relationship between the Syrian Council and the Egyptian parties," Adeeb Shishakly, a senior member of the Syrian National Council told CNN. "At the conclusion of the meeting, the 43 parties recognized the Syrian National Council as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people," he said.

Egypt's military and political leaders have not recognized the Syrian opposition group, despite the delegation's efforts. The Arab League has not recognized it either.

But in Libya, the new authorities there have recognized the Syrian National Council as the "sole representative of the Syrian people."

The support from Libya and the Egyptian parties comes two days after Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem warned countries against recognizing the opposition.

"Syria will take strong measures against any country that recognizes the opposition council formed in Turkey," al-Moallem said Sunday.

"I am not interested in what they seek," he said, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

Syria hailed last week's vetoes by China and Russia of a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at the Bashar al-Assad regime. But even though they opposed the U.N. initiative, both countries have called for changes in Syria.

On Tuesday, China exhorted the government to react properly to calls for change.

"We believe the Syrian government should respond to people's reasonable expectations and appeals, and resolve the issues through dialogue and consultations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said.

Last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his country wants an end to the bloodshed and is calling for the regime to implement changes, state-run RIA Novosti reported Friday.

"If the Syrian leadership is unable to complete such reforms, it will have to go, but this decision should be made not by NATO and certain European countries, it should be made by the people of Syria and the government of Syria," Medvedev told the Russian Security Council.

Many world powers have been outraged over the government's crackdown. The European Union and United States have already imposed sanctions against the regime.

The EU Monday demanded that al-Assad step aside, saying his government's crackdown on opposition demonstrations could amount to crimes against humanity.

CNN's Salma Abdelaziz, Jennifer Deaton and Amir Ahmed contributed to this story.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/11/world/meast/syria-unrest/index.html?hpt=wo_c1