rebels claim Tripoli is surrounded, Qadhafi cut off
probably less than 100% true, I'm guessing
― Richard Nixon's Field of Warmth (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 15 August 2011 19:00 (twelve years ago) link
Wow, this story making the rounds now, after recent stories re rebel dissension and in-fighting
― curmudgeon, Monday, 15 August 2011 19:15 (twelve years ago) link
Helpful map:
http://www.twitpic.com/67nmsz
― polyphonic, Wednesday, 17 August 2011 22:34 (twelve years ago) link
increasingly looking like Q's days are numbered, imho
we'll see
― that mellow wash of meh (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 19 August 2011 20:45 (twelve years ago) link
http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/08/17/gaddafis-days-are-numbered/
― zvookster, Friday, 19 August 2011 21:08 (twelve years ago) link
Reuters are reporting unverified information that the Presidential Guard has surrendered to rebels in Tripoli.
― goldie hawn (ShariVari), Sunday, 21 August 2011 20:58 (twelve years ago) link
Everything seems to be happening all at once now...
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 21 August 2011 21:22 (twelve years ago) link
This war is finally starting to look like the rebels are forcing Qwudophy into his endgame, for which I am happy. Really, I am. The sooner hostilities can be over, the better off Libyans will be.
However, I do notice that NATO has given up any pretense whatsoever that it is only using force "to protect civilian lives", or whatever the formula was that Obama used to justify making war directly on Q's forces. They've been pretty skillful at allowing the rebel force not to look like a minor military appendage to NATO's air offensive, which was a political necessity, for western leaders as well as for the Libyan ones.
It will be interesting to see if the numbers of sorties and tonnage of bombs dropped ever make it into the news. I have a feeling they would be large numbers.
Final tidbit will be to see if Q gets to skip out with an Idi Amin deal, or comes to a Mussolini finish.
― Aimless, Sunday, 21 August 2011 21:22 (twelve years ago) link
Gaddaffi reported dead - https://twitter.com/#!/MalikAlAbdeh/status/105384291495723012
― James Mitchell, Sunday, 21 August 2011 21:42 (twelve years ago) link
killed by a follow friday. how sad.
― Gukbe, Sunday, 21 August 2011 21:46 (twelve years ago) link
also he's on the radio right now. assuming it's not recorded.
― Gukbe, Sunday, 21 August 2011 21:48 (twelve years ago) link
CORRECTION: Source in #Tripoli who has been v. reliable got his wires crossed. A lot of confusion out there. #Gaddafi is ALIVE. Just about.
― James Mitchell, Sunday, 21 August 2011 21:58 (twelve years ago) link
i mis-read the original tweet & thought it was 'and was shot by @FF', as if there's a guy out there with a twitter account being all, just shot gadaffi nbd.
meanwhile: Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim says 1,300 people have been killed in Tripoli since midday and 5,000 injured
i don't know whether in this regard 'government spokesman' totally disqualifies the subsequent text from being taken as fact but like i can't even imagine?
― sexual union prayerbook slam (schlump), Sunday, 21 August 2011 22:02 (twelve years ago) link
yeah the general opinion seems to be that ibrahim is full of shit and not to be taken seriously.
― sonderangerbot, Sunday, 21 August 2011 22:17 (twelve years ago) link
al jazeera has been showing the same short loop of excitable tripolites for 45 mins, which is now quite annoying -- except for the one guy in what looks like a deathmetal T-shirt, which i call on ILX to crowd-source identify
― LORD SUkRAT of that ilk (mark s), Sunday, 21 August 2011 22:29 (twelve years ago) link
@Reuters: ICC PROSECUTOR'S SPOKESWOMAN HAS CONFIRMATION GADDAFI HAS BEEN DETAINED
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Sunday, 21 August 2011 23:00 (twelve years ago) link
they already corrected that ed: it's his son not him
― LORD SUkRAT of that ilk (mark s), Sunday, 21 August 2011 23:03 (twelve years ago) link
curses, social media fails again.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Sunday, 21 August 2011 23:04 (twelve years ago) link
the correction was also on social media
― LORD SUkRAT of that ilk (mark s), Sunday, 21 August 2011 23:05 (twelve years ago) link
but not universally retweeted
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Sunday, 21 August 2011 23:05 (twelve years ago) link
all's well that ends well
― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Monday, 22 August 2011 02:31 (twelve years ago) link
The Libyan leader's son, Mohammed Gaddafi, spoke to Al Jazeera Arabic for a live interview a short while ago, in which he took a very apologetic tone and said it was a lack of wisdom that caused the revolution and crisis in Libya.
As he spoke though, his house was attacked and shot at and the interview ended with the sound of gunfire.
― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Monday, 22 August 2011 02:36 (twelve years ago) link
"I'm being attacked right now," he said. "This is gunfire inside my house, they're inside my house. There is no God but Allah - no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger."
― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Monday, 22 August 2011 02:37 (twelve years ago) link
from NY Times:
Through Saturday, NATO and its allies had flown 7,459 strike missions, or sorties, attacking thousands of targets, from individual rocket launchers to major military headquarters. The cumulative effect not only destroyed Libya’s military infrastructure but also greatly diminished the ability of Colonel Qaddafi’s commanders to control forces, leaving even committed fighting units unable to move, resupply or coordinate operations.
On Saturday, the last day NATO reported its strikes, the alliance flew only 39 sorties against 29 targets, 22 of them in Tripoli. In the weeks after the initial bombardments in March, by contrast, the allies routinely flew 60 or more sorties a day.
“NATO got smarter,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior policy analyst with the RAND Corporation who follows Libya closely. “The strikes were better controlled. There was better coordination in avoiding collateral damage.” The rebels, while ill-trained and poorly organized even now, made the most of NATO’s direct and indirect support, becoming more effective in selecting targets and transmitting their location, using technology provided by individual NATO allies, to NATO’s targeting team in Italy.
“The rebels certainly have our phone number,” the diplomat said. “We have a much better picture of what’s happening on the ground.”
Rebel leaders in the west credited NATO with thwarting an attempt on Sunday by Qaddafi loyalists to reclaim Zawiyah with a flank assault on the city.
Administration officials greeted the developments with guarded elation that the overthrow of a reviled dictator would vindicate the demands for democracy that have swept the Arab world.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 August 2011 02:44 (twelve years ago) link
― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Monday, August 22, 2011 2:37 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark
wow
― steens furiously (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 22 August 2011 02:50 (twelve years ago) link
yeah hoos i thought for sure he'd give Ra some love but whatever
― k3vin k., Monday, 22 August 2011 03:06 (twelve years ago) link
"there is no god but jah"
― steens furiously (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 22 August 2011 03:41 (twelve years ago) link
congrats on yr cynicism tho
― steens furiously (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 22 August 2011 03:42 (twelve years ago) link
dogg the "whatever" was a continuation of my ironic icredulity at Ra's snub
― k3vin k., Monday, 22 August 2011 03:43 (twelve years ago) link
lol
― steens furiously (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 22 August 2011 03:44 (twelve years ago) link
would pay dollars to see gaddhafi big up jah, no lie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_QurLCMpzA&feature=player_embedded
mea culpa
― mr peabody (moonship journey to baja), Monday, 22 August 2011 04:52 (twelve years ago) link
ay
― caek, Monday, 22 August 2011 09:02 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/29/gaddafi-libya-nato
^^ good read
― 8========3 to the end of time (history mayne), Monday, 22 August 2011 12:54 (twelve years ago) link
LOL
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Monday, 22 August 2011 12:56 (twelve years ago) link
ha. but if you check lenin's tomb today, he says: "Qadhafi is finished, as I rashly predicted he would be." so he's covered all the bases.
― joe, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:05 (twelve years ago) link
"It wasn't very long ago that most news articles highlighted the fractious, poorly armed, badly trained, indisciplined character of the opposition, and the territorial gains made by Qadhafi."
Yes, including articles by, er, this guy.
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Monday, 22 August 2011 13:13 (twelve years ago) link
"Reuters FLASH: Libyan state TV goes off air, rebel spokesman says state TV HQ is now under rebel control"
Actually only true when TV comes back on air again, but still. Interesting to see how quickly this is "professional" -- by local standards -- as that's a sign of how smoothly the state TV functionaries have switched sides.
― mark s, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:53 (twelve years ago) link
From the Washington Post:
As rebels in Libya continued to establish their control of Tripoli on Monday, senior NATO officials they were startled by the speed with which Moammar Gaddafi’s defenses have collapsed.
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:55 (twelve years ago) link
Washington Post grammar typo
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:56 (twelve years ago) link
my -- utterly uninformed guess -- is that the apparent stalement in fact allowed time for a LOT of undecideds to conclude that, while they wouldn't head any charges against any gun emplacements any time soon, they would, if push came to shove, quietly open doors for the rebels and fail to return gaddafiist phonecalls. So that people who -- when caught by surprise four months ago -- would have reluctantly defended the pre-rebel status quo, had now had plenty of time to grasp that the pre-rebel status quo was not at all a given.
― mark s, Monday, 22 August 2011 13:59 (twelve years ago) link
The BBC's Tripoli correspondent, Rana Jawad, who has been unable to report openly since March, says people in her neighbourhood in eastern Tripoli were woken by the imam at the local mosque singing the national anthem of the pre-Gaddafi monarchy.
― timellison, Monday, 22 August 2011 14:11 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.juancole.com/2011/08/top-ten-myths-about-the-libya-war.html
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 August 2011 14:32 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know anything about the pre-g monarchy but that is a kind of rad bit of reporting
― steens furiously (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 22 August 2011 14:38 (twelve years ago) link
report fails to mention that the pre-gaddafi anthem was sugar, sugar by the archies
― Once Were Moderators (DG), Monday, 22 August 2011 14:41 (twelve years ago) link
Related and depressing
― a 'catch-all', almost humorous, 'Jeez' quality (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 August 2011 14:49 (twelve years ago) link
I think Cole's been OTM throughout this. I can forgive him a little smugness today.
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Monday, 22 August 2011 16:15 (twelve years ago) link
"lead from behind" supporters also feeling smug:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_08/revisiting_leading_from_behind031709.php#
― curmudgeon, Monday, 22 August 2011 16:18 (twelve years ago) link
right now watching an AJA doc on metal in the islamic world -- still have hopes my tripoli fellow upthread will have his fandom identified
― mark s, Monday, 22 August 2011 17:49 (twelve years ago) link
i was trying to spot him but didn't see which one you were talking about! i saw a dude with a red shirt that i thought might have been the guy you meant, but then i thought "red? death metal??"
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 22 August 2011 20:16 (twelve years ago) link