Libya’s Liberation Front Organizing in the Sahel

[jakeXT]

Libya’s Liberation Front Organizing in the Sahel
by FRANKLIN LAMB

On the edge of the Sahel, Niger

“Sahel” in Arabic means “coast” or “shoreline”. Unless one was present 5000 years ago when, according to anthropologists, our planets first cultivation of crops began in this then lush, but now semiarid region where temperatures reach 125 degrees F, and only camels and an assortment of creatures can sniff out water sources, it seems an odd geographical name place for this up-to-450 miles wide swatch of baked sand that runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

Yet, when standing along its edge, the Sahel does have the appearance of a sort of dividing shoreline between the endless sands of the Sahara and the savannah grasses to the south. Parts of Mali, Algeria, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, all along the Libyan border fall within this supposed no man’s land.

Today the Sahel is providing protection, weapons gathering and storage facilities, sites for training camps, and hideouts as well as a generally formidable base for those working to organize the growing Libyan Liberation Front (LLF). The aim of the LLF is to liberate Libya from what it considers NATO-installed colonial puppets. The Sahel region is only one of multiple locations which are becoming active as the Libyan counter revolution, led by members of the Gadahfi and Wafalla tribes, make preparations for the next phase of resistance.

When I entered an office conference room in Niger recently to meet with some recent evacuees from Libya who I was advised were preparing to launch a “people’s struggle employing the Maoist tactic of 1000 cuts” against the current group claiming to represent Libya,” two facts struck me.

...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/04/libya%E2%80%99s-liberation-front-organizing-in-the-sahel/

[Prometheus Bound]

1. You just got to respect this guy for his unrelenting willingness to get into the centre of things.

He is fearless. Didn't he get shot in Tripoli? I don't know if he ever found a doctor to look at the wound or just kept limping around, now down to the Sahel.

He sure has my respect and appreciation.

[jakeXT]

2. Reporting is a dying profession, I remember only one article about his leg

Before Mohammad left, he helped me with my infected leg and told me about a nearby Dr. which made me happy since no others have been available this past week. But as dear readers may come to understand, I soon became reluctant to seek treatment from the doctor who Mohammad recommended although by very great coincidence I have known her wonderful granddaughter, an Arabic-English language interpreter named Aya, for several weeks.

My most recent best bet for immediate medical assistance was my new friend Dr. XX, “Consultant Urological Surgeon” from the British Medical Center here in Tripoli (formerly the Swiss Medical Center until Hannibal Gaddafi had that unfortunate problem with Swiss authorities last winter and his Dad wanted to abolish Switzerland and all things Swiss), hence the fast name change on the Clinic building. Dr. XX is from New Delhi but studied in England and now normally resides in Sheffield, England. He spent the past year working here in Libya, loves the people and the country and was most willing to help me. The problem was that he had to rush to catch the boat out of here for Malta yesterday. Anyhow, he said I had a couple of days left before I would possibly have major leg problems and he gave me the phone numbers of two of his colleagues, one an Indian dentist. So far the phones still don’t work well in Tripoli.

Just a word of background about Dr. Fatima, recommended by Mohammad now that I am resigned to get treatment late today, come what may, following my brief meeting with the good Dr. this morning.

...

I admit to being a little apprehensive because Aya told me one of the Chadian ladies, who recently returned and works as a nurse for Dr. Fatima, must first slice my wound in narrow lines and then rub and wash it thoroughly with Saharan sand and some nasty looking green paste of Sarahan vegetation and insect fluids.

...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/29/in-which-franklin-lamb-shields-a-nigerian-from-rebel-racists-and-dreams-of-chadian-ladies/

[Schema Thing]

3. Franklin Lamb is not a reporter nor a journalist.

He's a propaganda writer.


"The director of Americans for Middle East Peace, Dr Franklin Lamb, who is in Tripoli right now, informed RT that reports of the rebels having entered Tripoli are nonsense, though sporadic gunfire is indeed being heard from time to time."



From a story dated August 21, 2011.

[jakeXT]

7. He wrote what he saw, not what he hoped would magically happen

You can claim that you captured somebody every day, if in fact you do capture this person or achieve a goal one day, doesn't make the statement right.

1:05am:ICC spokeswomen just confirms that Saif Al Islam Gaddafi has been captured.
http://feb17.info/news/live-libyan-unrest-august-21-2011/

August 24, 2011
Qaddafi's Missing Legions
The Siege of Tripoli
...
This observer’s tentative appraisal of Tuesday’s events along the north Tripoli port area as of late afternoon 8/23/11 is that the “65,000 well trained and well-armed troops” hyped Sunday by the Gaddafi government don’t in fact exist and that the pockets of government troops here in Tripoli and across Libya that do, will continue to resist ...

I am told that some Gaddafi loyalists are headed to the colonel’s home town of Serte to prepare to defend it. Some of my reasons for these tentative conclusions include the no show government troops...



On Monday night August 22, 2011 I met with Saif al Islam. He was not captured and he is not dead. At least not as of 11 p.m. 8/22/11 or roughly 24 hours after the NTC and the ICC claim he was captured and was being prepared for transport to The Hague. Saif was defiant and he gave assurances that his family was safe and that NATO would be defeated politically for its crimes against Libyan civilians.

Saif took a western camera man and reporter on a short tour of Tripoli showing them that NATO was not in control—not 95% in control of Tripoli as the NTC rep in London has been claiming since Sunday night and not 80% in control of Tripoli as the White House & NATO’s “Operation protect the Libyan civilians” CEO, Rasmussen, has claimed.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/24/the-siege-of-tripoli/

[tabatha]

5. "Reporting is a dying profession"

Yes, certainly there were many (well-respected) reporters who died when reporting in Libya;


Chris Hondros, Getty Images
April 20, 2011, in Misurata, Libya

Tim Hetherington, Freelance
April 20, 2011, in Misurata, Libya

Anton Hammerl, Freelance
April 5, 2011, in an area near Brega, Libya

Mohammed al-Nabbous, Libya Al-Hurra TV
March 19, 2011, in Benghazi, Libya

Ali Hassan al-Jaber, Al-Jazeera
March 13, 2011, in an area near Benghazi, Libya

Daif al-Gahzal al-Shuhaibi, freelance
June 2, 2005, in outside Benghazi, Libya

[jakeXT]

8. They thought it was a normal revolution

MC Brown: When I arrived in Libya on February 26 we were all expecting to cover a revolution, but we quickly found ourselves in the middle of a war. I had only planned to come for a few weeks because we thought it would all be over fairly quickly. I don’t even consider myself a war photographer. Had I known what it would turn into, I probably would have left. But by then I had become more involved and I felt this need to go with it. So I stayed.

...

That’s the same building where Chris Hondros shot his last pictures. That was insane, covering a battle inside a house.

MC Brown: Yeah, it was pretty nuts. It was a three-story building on Tripoli Street where at one point maybe 30 to 40 rebel fighters went in. Gaddafi soldiers were shooting into the stairwell; they were throwing grenades; rebel soldiers were throwing grenades back at them. Outside they were using RPGs and anti-aircraft guns. It was really intense.

...

MC Brown: I was hit in early March. I had a bullet come through my calf but it was all muscle. So I knew it was stupid, and that I could get killed, but I wanted to have that experience of riding in the rebel trucks around the front line, where the closest fighting was. But after that day in Misrata, I realized what it was and that I didn’t want to do that anymore. It’s important to show the effects of war, but a photo is not worth my life and war photography is not everything.

...
http://blog.emphas.is/?p=1001

[Schema Thing]

9. A normal revolution IS war.

[tabatha]

12. Lord, that guy must have been asleep.

There was every indication that grads were hitting Misrata - one had only to look at the buildings.

[bemildred]

4. Well, I didn't really think that the Libya fandango was by any means over.

However I will wait and see whether this particular manifestation proves to be significant.

[tabatha]

6. The Libyans are said to have started flight patrols over the borders.

[bemildred]

10. Libya has a lot of border to watch, but I would hope so.

The first business for any government is secure control of its own territory.

[jakeXT]

11. They have problems guarding munition depots, because of money and trust issues

Massive munitions stockpiles unguarded in eastern Libya

...

With at least dozens of bunkers left completely unguarded, the resolve of Libya's rulers may now come into question at the very moment the faction-plagued NTC tries to build a new system of government, largely from scratch.

"It is a danger," NTC spokesman Jalal El-Galal said on Saturday. "But we are stretched and don't want to put people who are outside of our control in charge of securing sites. We are concerned, but not panicked."

http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFL6E7M50G720111105?sp=true