Libyan rebes claim that they have taken Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown, two sons may be dead

[the_future_modernes]

Libya: Citizen Reporting from the Battlefield

Videos continue to seep out from war-torn Libya as protesters battle Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces in a bid to overthrow his 42-year-old regime. Here is a selection of the latest videos taken by netizens on the frontlines of major cities where the battle for Libya is still fought.
The city of Ajdabiya, 160 kilometers south of Benghazi, was captured by Gaddafi forces in mid-March. Many of the 130,000 residents fled leaving behind a ghost town. The few remaining had to endure a harsh siege and daily bombardment, in a city deprived from water and electricity. The following video shows the destruction suffered by civilian areas in the city. When the cameraman asks a young man in the street how he managed to stay, he answers “We've been living is a state of fear” while raising his hand to display a Victory sign. (Video posted by benghazi17feb)MORE

Libyan rebels claim seizing Sirte

Libyan rebels are claiming to have captured the town of Sirte, the home of embattled Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

The Reuters news agency on Monday quoted a rebel spokesman as saying that the town has fallen into the hands of anti-government fighters.

The claim, which could not be independently verified, came as the rebels, bolstered by coalition air strikes, pushed westwards and seized control of the key towns of Bin Jawad, Ras Lanuf, Uqayla, Brega and Ajdabiya in a rapid advance along the coastline.

Coalition air strikes against targets in Tripoli also resumed on Sunday night with explosions heard in the Libyan capital.

Al Jazeera's James Bays has been following the rebel offensive which has seen them claim a string of towns and key oil facilities since Friday.

Our correspondent said Gaddafi's forces appeared to be withdrawing eastwards. Those still in Bin Jawad, the latest town to fall to rebels, surrendered without a fight, Bays said. MORE and video

Libya: Where is Eman Al Obeidy?

“Where is Eman Al Obeidy?” has become a pressing question, after a distraught Libyan woman burst into a Tripoli hotel full of foreign journalists, telling then that scars and bruises on her face and body has been inflicted by 15 Muammar Gaddafi's militia, who arrested her at a checkpoint for two days, where they gang raped her.
The harrowing details of the story and Al Obeidy cry for help have been covered by the Press and are being tweeted, as the world awaits to hear where the woman is, after security bundled her out of the hotel, into a car, which took her to an undisclosed location.
The Telegraph posts a video here and on Twitter, CNN's Nic Robertson shares the details of what happened this morning.
Twitter user @finali curates Robertson's tweets here:
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Libya: Gaddafi's Crimes Mount in Misrata

Amid the stories of destruction and the mounting death toll, Libyan netizens are waking up this morning to news of a liberated Zintan and the pushing back of Gaddafi's forces from Ajdabiya. Meanwhile, the world continues to watch as more evidence of horror and atrocities come out from Misrata, which was continuously pounded throughout the night by Gaddafi's forces.
Here's a round up of reactions from Twitter:MORE

Libyan suicide pilot may have killed Gaddafi's son Khamis

There were reports emerging last night that one of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's sons had been killed during an air strike on Libyan capital Tripoli.

According to Arab newspapers, the dictator’s sixth son, Khamis, was killed when a Libyan suicide pilot deliberately crashed his jet into Gaddafi's Bab al-Azizia compound on Saturday.

The Arabian Business News website claimed Khamis died from his burns later in a Tripoli hospital.

However, the reports have been denied by the Libyan government.
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Libya: Is Khamis Gaddafi Really Dead?

Rumours have been circulating online and in mainstream media for about two weeks that Khamis Al Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed. Tonight, the rumours are making the rounds again, with a new twist. They say the 27-year-old militia leader, who runs a brigade which carries his name, was killed during an air raid on Bab Al Aziziya Compound, where the Gaddafis reside in Tripoli. Unconfirmed reports add that his brother Muattasim was killed by Gaddafi for ‘refusing to follow' orders.
Al Arabiya (Ar) confirms news of Khamis' death, quoting unnamed sources while the Libyan denies it.

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Here are the latest comments from Twitter on Khamis' alleged death:
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Muammar Gaddafi's Son, Khamis Gaddafi, Toured U.S. In Weeks Before Libya Conflict

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi toured U.S. ports and military facilities just weeks before he helped lead deadly attacks on rebels protesting his father's authoritarian regime.

Khamis Gaddafi, 27, spent four weeks in the U.S. as part of an internship with AECOM, a global infrastructure company with deep business interests in Libya, according to Paul Gennaro, AECOM's Senior Vice President for Global Communications. The trip was to include visits to the Port of Houston, Air Force Academy, National War College and West Point, Gennaro said.

The West Point visit was canceled on Feb. 17, when the trip was cut short and Gaddafi returned to Libya, Gennaro said. The uprising there began with a series of protests on Feb. 15.

By late February, forces controlled by Khamis Gaddafi were leading the brutal assault to retake Zawiya, a city near Tripoli that rebels captured soon after the uprising began....the state dept approved the trip and considered Gaddafi a reformer...

The myth of humanitarian war in Kosovo

In reality, Kosovo presents little basis for optimism with regard to Libya. Its success is based on a series of myths.

The first is that in Kosovo, war constituted a morally simple conflict, between aggressive Serbs and victimised Kosovan Albanians; and that Nato, in backing the Albanians, was furthering the cause of human rights. In fact, none of the parties were particularly moral. The war crimes of Serbian forces are well known, but their Kosovan adversaries committed crimes too. In early 1999, Tony Blair believed that the Kosovo Liberation Army was "not much better than the Serbs", according to Alastair Campbell's memoirs. And the UK defence minister George Robertson stated that until shortly before the Nato bombing campaign, "the KLA were responsible for more deaths in Kosovo than the Yugoslav [Serb] authorities had been."

Despite this record, Nato selected the KLA as its ground force, while its planes bombed the Serbs. And after Milosevic capitulated and the bombing ended, Nato forces in effect put the KLA in charge of Kosovo. Once in power, it promptly terrorised ethnic Serbs, Roma and other ethnic groups, forcing out almost a quarter million people.MORE

Missing: Agency and Alternative in the Interventionist Critique

All of these arguments against intervention are understandable and I share them, at least in principle. However, I challenge all those who cite them in arguments against the NFZ that is now being enforced to answer me one question. What would your articles have said when Benghazi turned in to Dresden? Would you still be talking about reinforcing a narrative if the city lay in ruins and tens of thousands were slaughtered? It is difficult to fathom the Libyan people thanking the world for not falling in to Gaddafi’s trap (a narrative and trickery which Libyan’s have not embraced). It is even more difficult to fathom the leftist academic approach of addressing moral bankruptcy by allowing Gaddafi to have his trap both ways – by either keeping a NFZ from being considered (from fears of aiding his rhetoric and allowing him to bomb cities) or by the West attributing to his narrative (even as they keep cities from being bombed). What are we then led to believe, is the alternative just as morally bankrupt of a narrative that Libyans actually do not know what is best for them?!

It is complicated and frightening. No one wants Libya, or any nation, to become another Iraq. Though I do not believe Libya in 2011 is Iraq in 2003, something Juan Cole has pointed out. It is infuriating that the Security Council that passed Resolution 1973 is the same Council that sat idly by as Israeli drones rained death on Gaza in 2008/9. There is no denying the contradictions. It would be simplistic and short-sighted to position those in support of the NFZ as “morally righteous” and those against it as “anti-revolution.” This is simply not the case. But it would be just as simplistic and short-sighted to nor hear the Libyan voices screaming for help from under the weight of their siege.MORE

An Open Letter to the Left on Libya

I am unabashedly cheering the liberation movement on, and glad that the UNSC-authorized intervention has saved them from being crushed. I can still remember when I was a teenager how disappointed I was that Soviet tanks were allowed to put down the Prague Spring and extirpate socialism with a human face. Our multilateral world has more spaces in it for successful change and defiance of totalitarianism than did the old bipolar world of the Cold War, where the US and the USSR often deferred to each other’s sphere of influence.

The United Nations-authorized intervention in Libya has pitched ethical issues of the highest importance, and has split progressives in unfortunate ways. I hope we can have a calm and civilized discussion of the rights and wrongs here.

On the surface, the situation in Libya a week and a half ago posed a contradiction between two key principles of Left politics: supporting the ordinary people and opposing foreign domination of them. MORE