Tag: gadhafi
Libyans Vote In Parliamentary Elections Amid Ongoing Violence

Libyans Vote In Parliamentary Elections Amid Ongoing Violence

By Laura King and Amro Hassan, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — Libyans went to the polls Wednesday in parliamentary elections meant to bring a measure of stability that has been elusive in the turmoil-weary North African nation.

Libya in recent weeks has been roiled by some of its worst fighting since the 2011 civil war that led to the toppling and killing of strongman Moammar Gadhafi. A renegade ex-general embarked last month on a self-declared war on Islamist armed groups, and before that, rival militias had been battling for power and spoils including oil wealth.

According to election authorities, 1.5 million Libyans registered to vote in balloting for 200 members of parliament, with about 1,600 candidates seeking seats. It marked the third nationwide vote in as many years.

Dozens of people have died since the start of an offensive by retired Gen. Khalifa Hifter. That fighting has taken place mainly in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, but it has also spilled into the capital, Tripoli, where the parliament was stormed by gunmen.

Fears that Hifter was attempting a coup spurred calls for these elections to replace the much-reviled General National Congress, whose mandate had expired. It was not clear whether rival factions would accept the results of Wednesday’s voting.

AFP Photo/Abdullah Doma

Rival Militias Battle In Benghazi In Latest Sign Of Chaos In Libya

Rival Militias Battle In Benghazi In Latest Sign Of Chaos In Libya

By Mohamed Juma and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

BENGHAZI, Libya — Rival armed groups battled Friday with warplanes and anti-aircraft guns in the eastern city of Benghazi in the latest outbreak of militia-linked chaos in energy-rich Libya.

Fighters from a faction led by a retired general used aircraft bearing military insignia to bomb a barracks on the outskirts of the city occupied by an Islamist group, witnesses said. The defenders responded with antiaircraft fire.

Prime Minister Abdullah Thani went on nationwide television and declared that security forces would restore order. But the North African nation’s military is outgunned by rogue armed groups.

More than 2 1/2 years after the death of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya is awash with weaponry, much of which has fallen into the hands of independent militias. Many of the groups are associated with particular tribes or parts of the country.

The weak central government has been unable to rein them in, although it has partly co-opted some armed factions by putting them on the government payroll. Libya’s once-lucrative oil and gas industry has been ravaged by the slide into lawlessness, with militias seizing control of oil fields, ports and other installations.

Friday’s fighting raged in several parts of Benghazi and nearby areas, according to residents. Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city, was the cradle of the anti-Gadhafi uprising. It was the site of an attack on U.S. facilities in September 2012 that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The barracks bombardment was carried out by a group led by Khalifa Haftar, a former general who was a rebel commander in the uprising against Gadhafi. Local news reports said his group — which calls itself the National Army and whose ranks include a number of deserters from the regular armed forces — claimed through a spokesman that it was moving against “terrorists” operating in Benghazi.

The city has been racked in recent months by violence, including assassinations, abductions and unrelenting attacks against security forces. Two soldiers were killed Thursday.

The United States and other Western governments are moving to help the Libyan government train a professional military but there has been little headway, and the armed forces have been ineffectual in dealing with crises.

In March, Libya’s navy was unable to prevent an illicit oil tanker from embarking from an eastern port with a cargo of crude oil that rebels had seized to sell on the black market. U.S. Navy SEALS intercepted the vessel and returned it to the Libyan government.

AFP Photo/Abdullah Doma

Former CIA Agent, Now In Havana, Discusses Gadhafi’s ‘Secret World’

Former CIA Agent, Now In Havana, Discusses Gadhafi’s ‘Secret World’

By Juan O. Tamayo, El Nuevo Herald

MIAMI — U.S. fugitive and renegade CIA agent Frank Terpil is still living in Havana and easily recounting his days helping former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to murder his political enemies, according to a recently released British documentary.

Co-producer Michael Chrisman said Terpil, 74, was interviewed at his Havana home in December and gave the impression of leading a somewhat bored life, “with little to do (and) spending much time frequenting Havana watering holes nursing a drink.”

He has a much younger Cuban girlfriend, and asks friends and visitors to supply him with the occasional English language book, said Chrisman. The Showtime documentary is titled “Mad Dog: Inside the Secret World of Muammar Gaddafi.”

The interview focused on Terpil’s relations with the Libyan dictator, killed in a 2011 revolt, and not on his links to his Cuban hosts because “he was no doubt taking a gamble upsetting them by doing the interview,” the co-producer added.

Terpil, a CIA operative who resigned from the agency in 1970, is one of more than 70 U.S. fugitives reported to have received safe haven in Cuba. Many are viewed by Havana as victims of U.S. political persecution, such as black-rights militant Joanne Chesimard.

He fled the United States in 1980 to escape a U.S. indictment on charges of conspiracy to murder and delivering more than 20 tons of plastic explosives to Gadhafi and turned up in Lebanon but eventually settled in Cuba.

Cuba’s General Intelligence Directorate recruited Terpil, gave him the code name of Curiel — guinea pig — and used him in 1987 to try to recruit a CIA worker in the former Czechoslovakia, retired agency analyst Brian Latell wrote in his book, “Castro’s Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA and the Kennedy Assassination.”

The Canadian government announced in 1995 that its embassy in Havana had been told that Cuban authorities had arrested Terpil, but provided no details on the reasons for the detention or what happened to him afterward.

One foreigner living in Havana said that in 2000 a Cuban friend at a ballet performance pointed out a man sitting nearby and identified him as Terpil. The man was accompanied by a younger Cuban woman, the foreigner said.

Terpil fled the United States after U.S. federal prosecutors accused him and business partner Ed Wilson of conspiracy to commit murder and the sale of plastic explosives to Libya. A New York state court earlier had sentenced him to 53 years in prison after trying him in absentia on charges of conspiring to smuggle 10,000 submachine guns.

Chrisman said that during the Havana interview for the documentary, produced by Fresh One Productions for Showtime, Terpil admitted he helped Gadhafi run a campaign to track down and assassinate the Libyan dictator’s enemies abroad.

“I would say Murder Incorporated, yeah, murder for hire. Gadhafi thought that anybody who was a dissident, they were going to be eliminated,” Terpil said. In one case, he added, the dictator wanted the head of one of his foes brought to him in a cooler.

Chrisman said Terpil also recounted hiring two Cuban exiles from Miami, telling them they were to assassinate Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal.” The Cubans backed out when they realized the real target was a Gadhafi foe, he added.

“Terpil expressed no remorse or misgiving as he told his story matter-of-factly, with an edge of morbid humor, about his time helping to run and supply Gadhafi’s international terror campaign,” said a news release for the documentary.

A native of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, Terpil has claimed that he was forced to resign from the CIA after the agency learned that when he was posted in India he ran a hard-currency scam through Afghanistan, for his personal profit.

He has acknowledged working for dictators such as Uganda’s Idi Amin, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, as well as the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt.

And he has sometimes claimed, and at times provided evidence, that he had CIA approval for some of his allegedly rogue operations. He was a close friend of Ted Shackley, a CIA deputy director of covert operations who died in 2002.

AFP Photo/Abdullah Doma

Syrians Call For Foreign Help

The revolutions that have swept across the Arab world this year have raised debates about the extent to which Western powers should intervene. Libyan rebels are taking over the last Gadhafi strongholds, but fighting rages on in other countries as people seek to topple oppressive regimes.

Protesters in Syria began resisting President Bashar al-Assad’s rule six months ago, a struggle that has killed more than 2,200 people. Unlike Libya, which saw military intervention by NATO and other outsiders, protesters in Syria have insisted that there be no foreign influence during the revolution up until this point. But, as the government intensifies its brutal crackdown on dissenters, thousands of Syrian protesters have begun to call for outside help.

This does not mean they are hoping for military action; rather, according to the Associated Press, “they are largely calling for observation missions and human rights monitors who could help deter attacks on civilians.” Assad has ignored earlier pleas to observe human rights, however, so the international community must decide how to most effectively respond to Syrians’ calls for help.

Since Assad still has the loyalty and support of the armed forces, the protesters have been facing a brutal, bloody assault. The violence has often been indiscriminately directed at civilians. On Wednesday, security forces killed several people who lived in an area that had been opposing Assad. Human Rights Watch even reported that the regime is removing patients from a hospital and preventing doctors from reaching those wounded in the fighting.

There is no doubt that the Assad regime has been brutally killing Syrians; the murkier debate is how the international community should respond. So far, foreign groups and governments have tried to put economic pressure on Assad’s government. The European Union has already banned imports of Syrian crude oil and is moving toward banning investment in Syria’s oil industry. The United States has already implemented these measures, as well as freezing all Syrian assets. Nonetheless, the violence continues.

The Obama doctrine has been generally regarded as successful throughout the Arab revolutions, since the United States has been able to support democratic uprisings without full-scale military efforts. But as Syrian protesters call for international help and Assad intensifies his crackdown, the president faces a tough decision.