Inside Libya everything is jammed, making communication with those on the ground nigh on impossible. Yet a few individuals – like Ali Tweel, a computer programmer from Tripoli with access to a demoniacally slow 1kbVPN, and an anonymous individual known as ‘Libya Dude’ sat 20km outside the capital on a satellite phone – have been relaying their horrific experiences via Twitter.
Libya Dude has been serving his people by relaying attack tactics – how to make Molotov cocktails, petrol bombs and caltrops to launch at the military, and how to take down fighter jets with a laser pen. He has also shared many of the (sometimes horrific) images of the slaughter Gaddafi is unleashing on his own people. He continued communications with the outside world late yesterday evening after learning his cousin had been killed. He shared this graphic video of charred human remains, allegedly of Gaddafi’s soldiers burned alive in their barracks for refusing to turn their guns on the people, and relayed the quote attributed to Gaddafi that is currently being circulated around Tripoli, “It is me who created Libya and it is me who will exterminate it.”
Below is a formatted summary of Ali Tweel’s communications throughout yesterday’s alleged genocide, interspersed with the photos both individuals have managed to asneak out of the country, and want the world to see.
A friend of mine has been shot around 100 meters away from Almokhtar clinic. Nobody can take him to the clinic and no ambulance can reach him. Mercenaries keep firing at the people who tried to help him, shot in the stomach, bleeding in a house nearby. Is this how Libyan life ends now?
Panic in a hospital in Benghazi
Up on the roof of the City Hall and the schools there are snipers shooting at people randomly. Cars are going by using their horns, waving green flags & showing photos of Gaddafi, chanting by his name. If you are not with them, they will shoot you. It has happened to a friend. Now I can really feel how it must be to live in Gaza.
Gaddafi's snipers
Libyan TV are denying EVERYTHING, they say those noises you hear on the streets are fireworks! Excuse me but WHAT THE FUCK? I guess the TV studios must be sound proofed for real!
Social networks and internet are blocked, cellular is useless, mercenaries are roaming the roads to terrorise the people and shatter any gatherings with heavy machine gun fire. People are so scared for their lives – even if they are against the regime they put photos of Gaddafi in their car out of fear of attack.
People are seeing smoke rise around Tripoli. I believe these are car tires burning in the roads to close them off to mercenaries. I’ve seen reports of foreign mercenaries being deployed in Tripoli, it’s not confirmed yet but I just saw two big cars going towards West Tripoli with heavy machine guns. They are not Libyans, they looked like Africans. I’m trying to call witnesses but all calls fail.
Terror, that’s what i feel now. Good thing my 2 year son doesn’t understand any of this. I wish that he is able to live in a free country. I don’t deny that i’m afraid that one of the regime agents might look for me, and this could lead to dark places, but.. i will use my IT experience and fight virtually with my brothers and spread the word for as long as I am in existence.
Good luck, Ali. We hope that if you stop communicating it’s just because the wires have been cut.
ALEX HOBAN
news of my death is greatly exaggerated.
"Gaddafi is dead".
Yes, but the corpse sure is twitching.
Perhaps it's like a dead sheep, where we mistake activity and movement, but not from the sheep so much as its new blowfly lodgers.
UN approves airstrikes to stop Gaddafi
As Gaddafi closes the noose around the rebels, the UN has authorised air-strikes at the last minute.
Will the Arab nations who called for military action now use their weapons and money to bring Gaddafi down?
This is essentially an Arab problem. It would be a good chance for the Arab League to show the world that is has the ability to clean up an Arabian nightmare.
Peace in our time
Richard, in the period of time since you proffered us the above confident announcement, Gaddafi has become anything but dead. His people are fighting off the rebels in the west and it looks like violence will continue for some time.
Yep, sad.
same issue, different aspects
I'm largely in agreement with what you write, Justin. Its true that the conditions were ripe, but there had to be a spark that set the thing off and Wilkileaks was definitely the spark that set off the barrel of gunpowder.
The sad thing was the American response. When put in a position where the the Americans had to choose betwen decency and self-contradiction; efficiency versus some thing more workable for all, not just by Egyptians but westerners like us, they did a Rudd and slithered off like yellow dogs.
Coq sportif
Right from one end of the Mediterraenean to the other, unrest erupts as long suppressed frustrations well to the surface.
In Europe, Spain, Greece and Portugal falter as the great neoliberal dream unravels, whilst from Algeria to Punjab, the Muslim world seeks to rid itself of satraps imposed from without. Another posturing Kleptocrat faces the ouster, like Caeucescue in Romania, or Mubarak.
I think QANDA host Tony Jones had it right a couple of weeks ago when he refused to allow a panelist to discount the role of Wikileaks in providing a catalyst. Wikileaks, plus changing communication technology has allowed the truth to out as events unfold in a given locale, enabling an orchestrated public mobilisation. It looks as though we see a game changer, similar to the printing press that undermined the medieval papacy.
Two things to hope for, against hope.
That the USA and Israel stop hindering pro democracy movements in the middle east and elsewhere. That kleptocratic graft is recovered from the Swiss etc banks and tens of billions of dollars are freed up for social infrastructure in these often poor countries.
When you got nuffin you got nuffin to lose.
Paul, I feel Tony Jones gave far too much importance to Wikileaks' role in Middle East unrest. The people at large know what they are dealing with, without Wiki leaks having to confirm it.
Another possible catalyst for the unrest could be one Ben Bernanke, chairman of US Federal Reserve Bank.
As far as I have read the ME unrest was ignited due to rising food prices, unemployment and a general lack of economic opportunity for the punters at large. No?
And who do you blame when things go wrong - leadership, especially if that leadership is also very corrupt and brutal.
If one has been watching commodity prices lately then it starts to become obvious what is happening in the ME and elsewhere.
Ben's quantitative easing (money printing) is flooding the financial industrial complex with heaps of cash (and with it price/commodity inflation) as a crude (and desperate) attempt to fend of asset deflation.
People get pissed when the 50% of their income that is spent on food, becomes 90%, and that is what is happening.
When the punters get hungry they get dangerous - any self respecting dictator will agree.
We can expect more social unrest - this is the beginning, and it won't stop until the corrupt global financial matrix is demolished and replaced with something that works for everybody - not just Ben and his bludger mates.