Thread: 20000 Shoulder Launched Surface-to-Air Missiles Looted Libya

U.S. launches campaign to track down Libyan missiles


After taking Tripoli, rebel fighters target Moammar Gaddafi's last bastions of support.

By Mary Beth Sheridan, Published: October 13 2011
188 Comments

TRIPOLI - The United States is planning to dispatch dozens of former military personnel to Libya to help track down and destroy surface-to-air missiles from Moammar Gaddafi’s stockpiles that U.S. officials worry could be used by terrorists to take down passenger jets.

The weapons experts are part of a rapidly expanding $30 million program to secure Libya’s conventional weapons in the wake of the most violent conflict to occur in the Arab Spring, according to State Department officials who provided new details of the effort.

Fourteen contractors with military backgrounds have been sent to help Libyan officials, and the U.S. government is looking at sending dozens more. Thousands of pamphlets in Arabic, English and French will be delivered to neighboring countries so border guards can recognize the heat-seeking missiles, the officials said. It could grow to become one of the three biggest U.S. weapons-retrieval program in the world, along with those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have not seen any . . . attacks with loose missiles coming out of Libya yet,” said Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. But, he added, “We’re working as assiduously as we can to address the threat. It only takes one to make a real difference.”

Gaddafi was one of the world’s top purchasers of the shoulder-fired missiles, buying about 20,000 in the 1970s and 1980s, according to U.S. estimates.

While the weapons are of limited effectiveness against modern military aircraft, the still pose a threat to commercial passenger planes.

Thousands of the missiles were destroyed in NATO bomb attacks on arms depots during the war and hundreds have been recovered by the new government. But an unknown number were carted off by Libyan rebel groups and civilians who swarmed into unguarded storage areas after Gaddafi’s forces were defeated.

Already, several missiles have been intercepted on the desert road from Libya to Egypt, according to Egyptian officials. Tunisia’s prime minister, Beji Caid Essebsi, said in a recent interview he was so worried about smuggled Libyan weapons that he planned to ask Washington to provide helicopters for border surveillance.

Unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has no troops in Libya who can secure the weapons. President Obama has refused to deploy U.S. military forces to Libya to avoid raising hackles both in the Middle East and in the U.S. Congress. Some lawmakers — notably House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) — have called for using U.S. soldiers to secure the shoulder-fired missiles and Libya’s chemical weapons stocks.

But that task is in the hands of an overstretched Libyan transitional government, which has shown willingness but limited capacity.

“We need help,” Atia al-Mansouri, a military consultant to the governing Transitional National Council, said Thursday. Various rebel groups had hauled away the weapons, he said, “and they are a little more powerful than the army.”

Shoulder-fired missiles have emerged as a global threat, with more than 40 civilian aircraft hit by the weapons since the 1970s. After al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists tried to shoot down an airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002, the U.S. government stepped up its efforts to track and dismantle the missiles, known technically as MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems).

Weapons proliferation experts say Western and Libyan officials didn’t focus enough on ensuring Tripoli’s weapons depots were safeguarded as soon as the capital fell.

“It wasn’t taken that seriously until the looting began full-on,” said Rachel Stohl, an expert on the international arms trade at the Stimson Center think tank. She said U.S. officials should have learned their lesson after thousands of shoulder-fired missiles were taken from Saddam Hussein’s depots in Iraq.

U.S. officials say they’ve done as much as they could, given that much of Libya was under Gaddafi’s control until recently. U.S. officials from President Obama on down raised the issue with the rebel council that declared itself Libya’s interim government in March. Washington gave $3 million in May to two nongovernmental groups trying to secure weapons sites in eastern Libya.

And this summer, U.S. interagency teams visited eight countries in Libya’s neighborhood, offering assistance on improving border controls and airport security and distributing pamphlets depicting various kinds of missiles.

The contractors being sent to Libya, part of a “quick reaction force” overseen by the State Department, will be attached to about 20 teams of security personnel run by its interim government, U.S. officials say. So far, the Americans have surveyed 20 of the former regime’s three dozen known ammunition storage sites, trying to determine what’s missing, officials say. Each of the sites contains hundreds of bunkers.

U.S. officials declined to comment on whether they were contemplating rewards for the return of weapons, as was done in an U.S. program in Afghanistan.

Compared to Afghanistan and Iraq, “it’s just been a very different beast in Libya, given that we haven’t put boots on the ground . . . nor has the host government wanted us to. It has to be a cooperative effort, with the agreement of the TNC,” said one State Department official, who was not authorized to comment on the record.

U.S. officials are also appealing for help from their European allies. Britain has sent a small military team to help find and dismantle the missiles. “This is a matter of urgency,” Defense Secretary Liam Fox told the British parliament this week.

So far, the Libyan-led teams have recovered hundreds of the missiles. “We are committed to destroying such weapons,” Brig. Mohamed Hedayah, head of the armament department in the national army, told Reuters.

But rebels in Libya say hundreds or thousands are now outside the interim government’s reach. Essam Abu Bakr, 33, who fought with rebels trying to oust Gaddafi, now guards a dusty weapons site in Tripoli littered with boxes from Kalashnikov rifles and 7.62mm bullets looted after Gaddafi forces were routed. He recalled watching groups of rebels at a nearby military base toss crates of grenades and missiles into trucks “as though they were sacks of sugar.”

“I’m worried,” he said. Loose weapons, he said, “are everywhere.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...ZiL_story.html

Gadhafi weapons of mass destruction threaten Libya, world, Baird says in Tripoli

Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011 09:30 pm
Mike Blanchfield, The Canadian Press

TRIPOLI, Libya - Moammar Gadhafi's unsecured arsenal of weapons of mass destruction poses a threat to Libya and the world at large, Canada's foreign affairs minister said Tuesday.

John Baird offered his assessment after touring Gadhafi's notorious Tripoli compound of Bab al-Azizia, now transformed by NATO bombs and rebel forces into a riotous wasteland that celebrates newfound liberty while defiling the deposed dictator's memory.
"This country is armed to the hilt. We want to see a demilitarization to support the new government," Baird said on his second, secretive trip to Libya, this time to the country's capital.
Baird announced a further Canadian commitment of $10 million to help Libya clean up weapons and make the transition to democracy. That's on top of $10.6 million in Canadian humanitarian aid since the anti-Gadhafi uprising began in February.
Just as he did in June on a trip to Benghazi, Baird travelled to Libya via Italy under heavy security and a strict news blackout — a testament to the continuing volatility in this North African country.
"We know there are seven warehouses of weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, that Gadhafi showed the world," said the minister. "So we want to ensure that the people of Libya are kept safe and the people of the world are kept safe so they don't fall into the wrong hands."
Government officials say the funds will also help Libya clean up the 23,000 shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missile launchers still in circulation, and deal with the reality of guns everywhere.
Canada's share is part of a larger international contribution to that effort, said officials.
Gadhafi normalized Libya's relations with the rest of the world in 2003 after swearing off the use of weapons of mass destruction. That pledge rehabilitated the dictator's image and, among other things, allowed him to meet regularly with world leaders, including former prime minister Paul Martin.
At the time, Libya gave the United States many components of its nuclear weapons program, including centrifuges and stockpiled uranium. But questions remain about whether Gadhafi's entire arsenal is accounted for — doubts that have been fanned further in the weeks following his ouster by rebel forces and the subsequent widespread looting.
Gadhafi also had chemical weapons programs that included corrosive mustard gas.
Baird held talks with Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the Libya's new provisional government, at the National Transitional Council's Tripoli headquarters.
Baird offered "congratulations on the transformative events that have been taking place in Libya, the fall of Tripoli. The establishment of a new government is exciting. We're excited by the roadmap towards (electing) a national congress. We're excited about the future role of women in Libya."
Canada is co-ordinating its future rebuilding efforts in Libya with its international partners, who are all working under a United Nations umbrella. Assessment teams are on the ground in Libya to meet the NTC to plan the next moves.
Baird then moved on to a series of meetings at a Tripoli hotel, travelling in a heavily armed convoy for what was a whirlwind, five-and-half-hour visit.
But the centrepiece of his trip was his stop at Gadhafi's once-opulent compound, a scene that left the 42-year-old minister slack-jawed.
"It's just unbelievable," Baird said upon arrival at Bab al-Azizia, a scene of celebration since Gadhafi was driven from power.
Baird saw no trace of the over-the-top decadence of Libya's deposed iron man. Instead he witnessed a macabre carnival of jubilant rebel supporters occupying a decimated landscape under a forbidding blanket of grey sky.
The compound is smashed and gutted. A former Gadhafi house is a battered shell, riddled with bullets, covered with graffiti, strewn with garbage.
Shops and stalls have set up in what was the old entrance. A few families with children milled about, but most of the several dozen people Baird met were enthusiastic youth, who clamoured around the stalls or victoriously scaled the upper floors.
Almost all the items for sale — ball caps, necklaces, earrings, flags, pins, wristbands — bore the red, green and black tricolour of the country's freedom fighters.
A dormant popcorn machine sat next to a table bearing dozens of photos that depicted Gadhafi dressed as a baby, pushing a wheelbarrow and crawling from a sewer.
Baird handed out Canadian flag pins and posed for photos with youths. None spoke English beyond a random word, but that proved to be no barrier between the minister and the members of Libya's next generation.
The minister witnessed the massive destructive power of the NATO bombardment in Gadhafi's compound, but otherwise there was little evidence of damage along his winding route through this windswept, seaside city. Ubiquitous Arabic graffiti covered every surface of its white-walled building.
"Get out;" "We are strong;" "Freedom forever;" and "We win or die," were among the few simple English messages scrawled amongst the mix — an elegant shorthand for the country's recent struggle.
Baird later presided at the reopening of the Canadian embassy in Tripoli, on the seventh floor of an office building overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
Canadian ambassador Sandra McCardell, who closed the mission on Feb. 26, introduced Baird to local employees who had spent the last six and a half months hunkered down in their war-torn country. NATO warplanes — including six Canadian CF-18s — enforced a no-fly zone that helped rebel fighters eventually claim the capital.
Baird held a roundtable with Libyan women's activists and also met Ali Tarhouni, the NTC's minister of finance and oil.
A key priority of the newly functioning embassy, McCardell said, will be to help Canadian companies that were forced to leave resume operations. They include Alberta oil-producer Suncor and Montreal engineering firm SNC Lavalin.
Calgary-based Suncor had been working with the state-owned National Oil Corp., and was producing about 50,000 barrels of oil a day before the violence began. SNC Lavalin was involved in several Libyan ventures, including building a prison.
Representatives of those two firms and Pure Technologies accompanied Baird on his trip to Tripoli and held separate meetings, but none of the companies had specific plans to restart operations in Libya just yet.
Tarhouni told Baird the NTC is reviewing old contracts to see if they are legitimate. He told Baird that Libya has also reached a production milestone of 400,000 barrels of oil per day, about one-quarter of the pre-civil war output.
"They're getting their industry back on track, which obviously provides a huge source of revenue to the Libyan government and to help the Libyan people," Baird said.
"Obviously we're fighting for Canadian companies to be able to begin their operations as soon as possible. That'll be good for the Canadian economy and good for the future of Libya."
It was Baird's second trip to Libya in less than four months, coming after his quick, late June tour of the eastern city of Benghazi, the former rebel stronghold.
Baird had no serious international credentials before being shuffled to Canada's top diplomatic post, but has worked hard to place his stamp on the portfolio with these two Libyan forays.
Baird and his entourage arrived as revolutionary forces continued to wage a deadly, street-to-street battle for control of Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, about 400 kilometresoutheast of Tripoli.
"We look forward to the day of liberation, which we hope is soon upon us," Baird said.
The rebel forces took Tripoli in August but have yet to gain full control of the country, while Gadhafi's whereabouts are not known.
Libya's new leaders are anxious to hold elections and start building their new democracy. They say they will declare Libya fully liberated after Sirte falls.
http://www.stalbertgazette.com/artic...template=cpArt

UN Envoy Warns of Missing Libya Arms

Sunday, 06 Nov 2011 10:31 AM

TRIPOLI, Libya - Some weapons depots in Libya have still not been secured properly, and "much has already gone missing" from unguarded sites, the top U.N. envoy in Libya said in an interview Sunday.

Preventing more weapons from being smuggled out of country will be difficult, considering the nature of the vast desert nation's borders, the envoy, Ian Martin, told The Associated Press.

"That has to be a priority now, to secure what still remains in Libya," he said. "Over time, the international community can assist Libya and its neighbors with that, but I am afraid there is not a quick and easy solution to that problem."

During the chaos of Libya's 8-month civil war, human rights groups and reporters came across a number of weapons depots that were left unguarded and were looted after Moammar Gadhafi's fighters fled.

Martin said the unsecured weapons remain a "very, very serious cause for concern." He said they include shoulder-held missiles, mines and ammunition.

Martin noted progress concerning chemical weapons and nuclear material. Last week, Libyan officials said they discovered two new sites with chemical weapons that had not been declared by the Gadhafi regime when it vowed several years ago to stop pursuing non-conventional weapons. Officials also said they found about 7,000 drums of raw uranium.

"That, too, has been secured," Martin said of the latest discoveries, noting that the main issue is now how to dispose of them.

The Gadhafi regime fell with the capture and killing of the dictator on Oct. 20, followed by a declaration of liberation by Libya's new leadership three days later.

The U.N. mission headed by Martin is designed to help Libya's interim leaders with the transition to democracy.

By late June, Libyans are scheduled to elect a national assembly that would oversee the drafting of a constitution, followed by parliamentary and presidential elections.

The National Transitional Council last week appointed a new prime minister, who is to form a government by mid-month for the transition period. Some Libyan officials have called for a faster transition, warning of a dangerous power vacuum.

Martin said accelerating the elections timetable "is going to be quite difficult, but depends first and foremost on the speed with which they (Libya's interim leaders) can reach the political decisions, and we can't determine that."

Fundamental decisions, including on the preferred electoral system, have not yet been made, he said.

The NTC has acknowledged that it has not established full control over the country. Suspected Gadhafi loyalists are being held in detention centers controlled by semiautonomous armed militias, instead of the NTC. Human rights groups have reported mistreatment of detainees in such lockups.

Martin said the interim authorities have tried to tackle the problem, "but they need to do more, faster, even before a new government is in place."

Jamal Bennour, a prominent Libyan jurist involved in setting up a new judicial system, said that at the moment, the NTC controls only one prison in Tripoli, and courts and prosecutors are functioning at a minimal level.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/US-Lib ... /id/417016

Gadhafi regime missiles missing

By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Inspectors searching for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles amassed by Moammar Gadhafi and prized by terrorists can't account for potentially thousands of them.

"The frank answer is we don't know and probably never will," said Andrew Shapiro, an assistant secretary of State.

Inspectors have accounted for about 5,000 of the portable missiles and components. Gadhafi's regime stockpiled about 20,000 portable missiles during his four decades in power.

It is not clear how many remained at the time Tripoli fell to anti-Gadhafi rebels.

Many were probably destroyed by NATO airstrikes, and others remain in the hands of militias who fought Gadhafi's regime.

That makes it difficult to estimate how many remain at large. "I think it's potentially thousands," said Rachel Stohl, an analyst at the Stimson Center, a think tank. "Nobody knows."

The missiles, called man-portable air defense systems, are ideal for terrorists because they are easily concealed and can hit commercial airliners.

The portable missiles have been used in attacks on 40 aircraft, causing 28 crashes and more than 800 deaths since 1975, according to the State Department.

In Libya, many of the missiles remain in the possession of militias, which raided munition storage facilities during the rebellion and have yet to come under the control of the new government there.

The Libyan government is trying to negotiate with the militias in an effort to get them to disarm. The government does not have an army capable of forcing the militias to disband, said Ronald Bruce St John, who has written a number of books about Libya.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said she is concerned that the Obama administration was late in trying to get an accounting of the missiles.

Shapiro said the United States took "immediate steps" to secure weapons. The United States launched an effort to try to account for the missiles in April, before the collapse of Gadhafi's regime, and has committed $40 million in an effort to secure weapon stockpiles.

Early in the effort, the U.S. government worked through aid groups operating in Libya. Since then it has placed U.S. contractors there who are working closely with the Libyan government.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-02-07/gadhafi-missiles-unaccounted-for/53002584/1?loc=interstitialskip

Military rocket launcher left out for trash pickup in Texas

6 hrs ago


"Honey, please take out the trash. Don't forget the rocket launcher." It seems an unlikely phrase, but somehow a U.S. military rocket launcher made it to the curb this week for casual trash pickup, causing alarm for Kingwood, Texas, garbage collectors. After they refused to take it, a neighbor called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which sent officials to confiscate the 3-foot-long device. A bomb squad was called in and the FBI was notified. Although the weapon had been "demilled" (meaning it was no longer a military item), the once-used launcher carried a military serial number. However, it was filled only with cobwebs and spider eggs, not explosives.

Military rocket launcher left out for trash pickup in Texas

Olympics security: army left missiles unguarded at block of flats used for missile base, claims resident

A resident in a block of flats earmarked as a launch site for high–velocity missiles to protect the Olympics claims the Army left weapons on the site unguarded.

2 Videos at the page link:
1:16PM BST 03 May 2012
56 Comments

Posted online by Mr Whelan, the video appears to show crates of rockets and other military equipment piled up at the foot of a tower the Army plans to use as a surface-to-air missile base.

He claims the equipment was left unattended and that there was “not a person in sight” at the private gated Bow Quarter complex in east London.

The Ministry of Defence insisted that the items in the video were "dummy missiles" and posed no threat and that three military personnel were nearby.

The MoD sent leaflets to residents of the development last week warning that soldiers and police will be stationed there for the duration of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

However, some living there, including Mr Whelan, are uneasy about the measure – to guard against potential airborne terrorist attacks – and are trying to prevent the plans going ahead.

Related Articles

• Olympic missiles 'designed to reassure'
  03 May 2012
• Olympic defence missiles 'don't work in bad weather'
  01 May 2012
• MOD: Olympics missiles could be deployed at six sites
  30 Apr 2012
• Missiles on your roof for Olympics, MOD warns
  29 Apr 2012
• 'I can't imagine you can safely use a missile over Tower Hamlets'
  29 Apr 2012

In the video, Mr Whelan says: “I’m standing in the Bow Quarter at the bottom of the Lexington Tower beside the unguarded military rockets.
“There’s nobody around and there’s military equipment here, crates clearly full of missiles and not a person in sight."

Three soldiers arrive at the end of the clip, which lasts less than a minute and was posted on the 28-year-old journalist’s website.

Twitter: Brian Whelan - Video: Unguarded missiles brianwhelan.net - Unguarded missiles

An MoD spokesman said: "These were dummy missiles which are used to practice with, not live ammunition. Had they been live missiles, they would have been protected by armed personnel and in any case, as the video shows, there were three personnel there at the time."

Mr Whelan said earlier this week that residents had contacted lawyers to see if they could block the missile plans.

He is seeking details behind the deal in which the management company of the development agreed to the MoD’s requests.

Mr Whelan, whose home is one of six possible London sites that could be used to help guard against potential airborne terror attacks, said: "Ideally I would like them to reverse the decision.

"We have instructed solicitors to find out from the management company on what grounds they have allowed the MoD to have access to our building."
He added that army personnel arrived on site on Tuesday to test the suitability of the site but claims there was little or no consultation on the issue, a charge the MoD denies.

Mr Whelan said: "On a day-to-day level I will have to walk past armed police to get to my home

"I will have to know there is a missile on the roof. I will have to do that for the whole summer. It is just not normal and I do not think it is acceptable.
"I appreciate they have to protect the Olympics but I am not convinced that it is acceptable.”

An MoD spokesman said: "The safety of the Games is paramount and working alongside the police the MoD has conducted a broad range of community engagement in those areas where ground-based air defence may be sited.

"This work has included extensive talks with local authorities and landowners alongside briefing local MPs, talking with community representatives and, most recently, delivering leaflets to the homes of residents in those areas in question.

"We want to cause as little disruption to people going about their everyday business as possible - but at the same time the public expects that we take all those steps necessary to protect them at what will be a time of national pride and celebration."

Olympics security: army left missiles unguarded at block of flats used for missile base, claims resident - Telegraph

Syrian opposition gets shoulder-fired missiles

Gadhafi's lost supplies also turning up in hands of terrorists

Published: 9 hours ago

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

WASHINGTON – There remains frustration in trying to track down up to 20,000 missing shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles taken out of the bunkers during the waning days of the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.


Now that they have disappeared, and despite a U.S. program worth tens of millions of dollars to try and relocate them, only 5,000 have been turned in.

Concern is that many of them were acquired by al-Qaida elements in Libya and surrounding countries. Increasingly, intelligence sources also are seeing these weapons wind up in the hands of African jihadists such as the al-Qaida affiliated Boko Haram in Nigeria or the Tuareg tribesmen in Niger and Chad.

Those could be used against commercial airlines. Because civilian airlines would be a likely target, there also is concern that Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb may have acquired many of them and could potentially be smuggling them into Europe. That could be a potential threat to civilian airlines flying there.

That results in the possibility of catastrophic costs should those who have the missiles unleash them on civilian aircraft at any point.

Now, informed sources tell G2Bulletin that al-Qaida elements said to be infiltrating into Syria from Lebanon to join the opposition at the urging of central al-Qaida leader Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri also may have acquired many of the missing shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

Al-Qaida elements also appear to be infiltrating from the Western-most provinces of Iraq – which are predominantly Sunni – and going directly into Syria from there, possibly with some of these shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

In addition, the Palestinian camp, Ein el-Hilweh near Saida, or Sidon, south of Beirut, also is known to have a concentration of al-Qaida elements, something which even the Iranian-backed Shi’ite Hezbollah also is concerned about.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

Syrian opposition gets shoulder-fired missiles


You can point the finger directly at Clinton and Cracky the Crack Head on this one

these two need to be behind BARS

Is this Gadhafi's revenge?

You got to the airport on time ... you made it past the TSA gropers ... you've settled into your seat for the long cross-country flight ... none of the other passengers arouse any suspicions or concerns ... smooth takeoff and the pilot has turned off the seatbelt sign. Finally ... some time to close your eyes ... and wonder whatever happen to the missing 15,000+ shoulder-fired missiles that disappeared in the collapse of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's regime ... and how many have found their way into al-Qaida's hands ... and will this be the day international civilian aviation sees its worst disaster ... without a single terrorist having to board a plane. http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/syrian-op...ired-missiles/

Back to bloody anarchy: Andrew Malone revisits Libya and finds a country riven by torture, mass murder and savage vengeance


By Andrew Malone
PUBLISHED: 19:26 EST, 6 July 2012 | UPDATED: 19:27 EST, 6 July 2012
Comments (41)

On a baking hot day this week, the people of Libya’s most prosperous city flocked to the beach and splashed in the cooling waters of the Mediterranean. Such happy scenes were unthinkable in Misrata a year ago, when the world watched in horror as Muammar Gaddafi’s forces encircled and besieged this port city, unleashing what he called the ‘forces of Hell’.

Firing thousands of tank shells, mortars and missiles into residential areas, the Libyan dictator was determined to smash the uprising in Misrata, only three hours from his underground stronghold in Tripoli, the capital.

To add to the terror, he sent thousands of troops into battle, many of them African mercenaries who had been allowed into Libya in return for their undying loyalty to the despot. Gaddafi told them: ‘Misrata is yours.’ There was carnage. While local men were fighting back against Gaddafi’s troops, their homes were looted and their wives and children kidnapped. Rape was widespread, death everywhere.

Revenge: Rebels have destroyed the town of Tarwegha, which they believed to be loyal to Gaddhafi


Today, a year on from the horrors endured by ordinary Libyans, Misrata’s buildings remain riddled with holes from bullets and tank shells. But shops and cafes are open. There are funfairs for children. And there are those families enjoying the beach.

Yet there is one stretch of sand where no soul ever ventures. This is an area of scrub and dunes just back from the sandy coves.
Called Funduq Al-Jannah - Arabic for Heaven Hotel - it is an execution ground where up to 1,000 of Gaddafi’s fighters were taken by the victorious rebel army, then slaughtered in cold-blooded vengeance.

More...

• Hague tells world leaders that failing to impose sanctions against Assad allows Syria's brutal regime to carry on killing
• Pictured: The RAF warplane pilot killed and his two colleagues missing presumed dead after jets crashed in mid-air collision while 'flying through thick fog'

Everyone in Misrata knows of the events that unfolded at this desolate spot, but no outsiders had been here until I visited this week and heard the full harrowing details of what happened at Heaven Hotel - a bitterly ironic name, as I shall explain.

The killings highlight the bitter divisions and violence in Libya as its people vote today in their first election for a 200-member national assembly that will name a prime minister, enact legislation and appoint a committee to draft a constitution.

For the truth is that, since Gaddafi fell, Libya has been run by a National Transitional Council which has overseen a descent into anarchy.

A man walks past a destroyed building in Sirte yesterday, a day before Libyans will take to the polls


A report from Amnesty International this week warns the country is in the ‘stranglehold’ of hundreds of militias acting above the law. The organisation says widespread human rights violations - arbitrary arrests, detention, torture (sometimes to death), unlawful killings and forcible displacement of families - are rife in the country.
The levels of repression are reaching those that sparked the revolution against Gaddafi in the first place, and, according to the charity, methods of torture include ‘suspension in contorted positions and prolonged beatings with various objects, including metal bars and chains, electric cables, wooden sticks, plastic hoses, water pipes and rifle-butts’.

‘Some detainees were subject to electric shocks,’ it adds. ‘Without immediate action to stop abuses and lawlessness, there is a very real danger Libya could end up reproducing and entrenching the same patterns of violations we have seen in the past four decades.’

I was told of what happened at Heaven Hotel by a group of fighters I came to know at the height of Gaddafi’s siege of the town last year. They drove me to the spot up a bumpy dirt road past a beach crowded with families.

Here prisoners captured by the rebels were ordered to get out of the pick-up trucks into which they had been bundled after being tortured at rebel bases.

These Gaddafi fighters were the ‘worst of the worst’, I was informed - rapists and sadistic killers. Many had been mutilated and made to drink diesel - a form of torture common in Libya - and confessed to rape before being taken to the killing ground near the sea.

Misrata’s rebel fighters reassured them they would not be harmed, that they were simply being taken for questioning at the ‘hotel’. It was a lie. As soon as the captives arrived, the killing started.

‘I’d told one of these dogs that we were taking them to Funduq Al-Jannah near the beach - he was really pleased and said that was good because his aunt lived in the area,’ a Misratan revolutionary told me. ‘We cut his throat first.’

Destruction: A man holding a Free Libya green flag walks past the remains of a destroyed building in Sirte


The prisoners’ hands were bound with plastic ties. They were ordered to lie on their side, with their heads on piles of sand. All my guides were involved, saying they had held the legs of the prisoners while their throats were cut with bayonets. Every one of them denied killing any captives themselves.

‘We burned some of the bodies before burying them in the sand,’ I was told. ‘I don’t know how many were killed - as many as 1,000.’

Most died in the immediate aftermath of the end of the war last August. But sources say people were still being taken to Heaven Hotel earlier this year.

The bodies were buried in a gulley across the sand from where we stood, explained my guides. Here, bulldozer tracks criss-crossed the area. The machines had been used to make large piles of sand and rocks to cover the bodies.
In blinding white sunlight, I scraped at the one of the piles of rock and sand. I found shoes, flip-flops and empty machine-gun cartridges near the surface. The men with me said this was a mass grave.

Later, I spoke to dozens of militia fighters. All told the same story: that Gaddafi fighters suspected of rape or particularly brutal killings were slaughtered here for their crimes.

Senior military sources in the city also acknowledged the existence of Heaven Hotel. Indeed, older, wiser leaders in Misrata were horrified when they learned soon after the war that the prisoners were being killed in such a manner.
They ordered that, in future, all executions had to be carried out with a single bullet in the head - rather than by holding the victims down and cutting their throats.

‘After that, we always shot them,’ another militia fighter told me. ‘It was quicker and cleaner - better for everyone.’
Many of the victims were from Tawerga, a town 30 miles from here, where some 50,000 black Libyans once lived in happy co-existence with their neighbours in Misrata.

But since Gaddafi fell, the rebels have been targeting its black population in indiscriminate revenge attacks for the despot’s deployment of thousands of African mercenaries recruited from outside the country against them.

Some Tawergans undoubtedly took money to join Gaddafi’s forces. But vast numbers never joined in the fighting - and are being attacked simply because their skin colour is associated with Gaddafi’s mercenaries.

Today, Tawerga has been ethnically cleansed of its black Libyans, and largely destroyed. Militia fighters regularly drive out there from Misrata to make sure none of the population have sneaked back in.

Signs bearing the town’s name have been painted over. What remains of the shattered homes, shops and restaurants have been daubed with vile graffiti: ‘Black dogs! No blacks.’

Libyan election campaign posters hang in Misrata - but the city is still plagued by violence and chaos


A group of ‘freedom fighters’ told me how they had ransacked the town, setting fire to buildings and attacking anyone they found. These men told how they repeatedly kicked a heavily-pregnant Tawergan woman in the stomach. One said: ‘The woman was shouting as we kicked her: “I could be your mother.”

‘I told her my mother is not a black b***h,’ he added.

Some 25,000 Tawergans have now been placed in ‘refugee camps’, which are, in effect, little more than prisons.

The people in these camps do not dare leave: Misrata militias scour the country for anyone from Tawerga and regularly kidnap and torture black Libyans suspected of helping Gaddafi.

And even in the camps, fortified with barbed wire and watched by armed guards, the refugees are not safe from the marauding militias.

In a series of attacks, fighters from Misrata have opened fire on camp residents, killing both men and women. The latest happened at a camp for 1,700 Tawergans in Tripoli this week, when men from Misrata in four cars attacked with guns.

So bad has the situation been that some want the Nato-backed rebels to be tried for war crimes. The tragic irony is that Britain, France and the U.S. imposed a no-fly zone and helped overthrow Gaddafi to stop him committing war crimes.

Medical charities now refuse to work in Misrata. They pulled out after accusing rebels of bringing torture victims in for treatment - only to take them back for more torture once their wounds had recovered sufficiently for their bodies to cope.

A senior member of the city’s military council stressed that only rapists and the worst Gaddafi soldiers were executed at Heaven Hotel - and seemed baffled by any misgivings.
‘These people killed our families and raped our children,’ this influential figure told me. ‘If you rape, you must die - you have no rights.’

Nor, apparently, do critics of the killings. In recent days, one Libyan journalist was abducted by Misrata militias from the seafront in Tripoli, the capital, after saying these armed groups are out of control and need a ‘stick taken to them’.
Sulaiman Dougha, the country’s equivalent of David Dimbleby, was found in Misrata 72 hours after being snatched by men in balaclavas. He was tortured and sexually assaulted before being freed with a warning to leave the country - or be killed.

Not all are bent on vengeance. Mohammed Al-Koor, who runs one Misrata prison containing 700 Gaddafi supporters, had to move prisoners from cells visible from high buildings nearby, after Misrata snipers started killing inmates through the bars. In another disturbing development, these acts of revenge are now fuelling a new ‘rebel movement’ among Gaddafi supporters, financed by loyalists to the dictator who have escaped into neighbouring countries with billions.

For today’s election, thousands of police have been ordered on to the streets to show the world that Libya is safe. But the police are the only people in this country without guns: the militia fighters who overthrew Gaddafi with the help of British-backed Nato airstrikes say they cannot be trusted with weapons.

At the same time, fighting is raging in the south, where a brigade of Gaddafi loyalists, the Eagles of Muammar, has repeatedly tried to seize control of the airport in Sabha, a strategically vital city.

With a huge arsenal of artillery, mortars and missiles, followers of the dead dictator aim to push north towards the coast - and vow to avenge their leader, who was captured by rebels last October before being tortured and killed.
And in Sirte, where Gaddafi was found hiding in a sewage pipe, residents say they have had enough of the killing and kidnapping of suspected Gaddafi supporters - and are ready to fight back.

‘People still love Gaddafi, but they are scared,’ said one man. ‘Militias from other places come here every night and snatch men and boys from the streets. They say they come here to find guns, but they just want to kill people.’

With the country descending into a spiral of lawlessness and revenge, and with no national army to impose order, people all over this vast country are stock-piling weapons.

Zuba, an 18-year-old former rebel, showed me his personal arsenal of heat-seeking missiles, five Kalashnikovs, phosphorous grenades, ordinary green grenades and two rocket-propelled grenades.

Before leaving the country, I went back to Heaven Hotel alone early one morning to reflect on the degree of hatred that led to the slaughter there.

When I was reporting on the siege a year ago, I witnessed some of the atrocities inflicted by Gaddafi’s men - scenes of carnage and overwhelming grief I will never forget. This is Misrata’s bloody revenge.

Back to bloody anarchy: Andrew Malone revisits Libya and finds a country riven by torture, mass murder and savage vengeance | Mail Online

Related: Islamist Protests Spread to 20 Countries, US Embassies Targeted

yep... pretty much screwed up this country and a multitude more listed above