This is a late addition I found on the blog Decline of the Empire
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s world was shrinking yesterday as a close adviser abandoned him, opponents consolidated their control of the country’s oil-rich east, and Switzerland froze some of his assets.
The leader responded by reinforcing his defenses in and around the capital, Tripoli, with tanks and mercenaries. “It’s a massacre in there,” Egyptian Mohamed Yehia said, describing recent violence after fleeing his home in the eastern coastal city of al-Bayda. Forces still loyal to the Libyan dictator moved against cities near Tripoli, and more than 100 people were killed in Az-Zawiyah, a town west of the capital, Al Jazeera reported.
Qaddafi, speaking by telephone on state television yesterday, blamed the uprising against his 41-year rule on “drugged kids” and al-Qaeda. The evidence that he was losing ground included the defection to Egypt of a confidante, his cousin Ahmed Qaddaf al-Dam, which follows resignations in recent days by government ministers and diplomats. Army units, particularly in the eastern part of the country, have defected to the opposition, which may presage a civil war, a prospect raised by Qaddafi when last seen on state television Feb. 22.
“The possibility of civil war only exists if Qaddafi stays,” Mohammed Ali Abdallah, deputy head of the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, the main exiled opposition group, said yesterday.
Oil Markets Ease
Crude in New York retreated from the highest level in 29 months on assurances from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and theInternational Energy Agency that they can compensate for any disruption of Libyan shipments. Crude oil for April delivery declined 82 cents, or 0.8 percent, to settle at $97.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract touched $103.41, the highest intraday price since Sept. 29, 2008. Futures are up 22 percent from a year ago.
Oil slipped after President Barack Obama said the U.S. will be able to “ride out” a cut resulting from turmoil in Libya. The crisis has trimmed supply by 500,000 to 750,000 barrels a day, the IEA said. The markets also reacted to rumors that Qaddafi was dead.
Switzerland froze the assets of Qaddafi and his entourage for three years. The sale or disposal of assets linked to Qaddafi is prohibited to avoid the possible “misappropriation” of the funds, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an e- mailed statement from Bern yesterday.
Rough Seas
Evacuations of foreign nationals continued. Rough seas prevented the departure of a U.S-chartered ferry to take 285 people, the majority of them Americans, from Tripoli to Malta. The U.K. reported evacuating 350 British nationals and citizens of 25 other countries yesterday aboard flight and a British frigate.
Obama spoke yesterday with U.K Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to coordinate actions against Libya, according to a White House statement. Jay Carney, Obama’s spokesman, said sanctions and other measures “to affect the behavior of the Libyan government” in the near term are being discussed.
Obama is sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Feb. 28 to meet with other foreign ministers to work on a coordinated response, including a proposal to expel Libya from the UN human rights group. The Obama administration, which has received messages from Qaddafi, hasn’t had direct contact with the Libyan leader and isn’t seeking to deal with him, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told reporters at a briefing yesterday.
Blaming Foreigners
Thousands of Egyptians working in Libya fled after Qaddafi’s second-oldest son, Saif al-Islam, this week accused foreigners, including Tunisians and Egyptians, of inciting the revolt. Popular uprisings are spreading across the Arab world after mass protests in Tunisia and Egypt ousted their two long- serving presidents.
Many of those arriving from Libya said they had seen mercenaries from Africa and elsewhere, some speaking French.
“My brother and cousins have been trying to leave Tripoli for four days, but they’re not able to,” said Nabil Abdel Raouf, 35, an Egyptian construction worker who made it to safety in Egypt. “The mercenaries are in the streets and they’re killing anyone who leaves his house.”
Yehia, 23, said he saw 26 corpses at a hospital near his home in al-Bayda on the eastern coast. Several of the people who participated in protests, which started as peaceful, were killed by bullets, he said.
Police Defections
“First the police attacked the protesters, but after they saw many of their people being killed, they sympathized and joined them. The army too,” said Yehia.
Mercenaries were brought in the following day but were repelled by the protesters, he said.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told parliament Feb. 23 there are “credible” reports that 1,000 people have been killed. The violence in Libya quickly surpassed unrest in other Arab countries engulfed by demonstrations.
Anti-government protesters appeared to be in control of the entire eastern coastline, Al Jazeera reported yesterday, as clashes between pro- and anti-government forces broke out in other cities, including Sabha in the southwest, and Sabhatha and Az-Zawiyah, both west of Tripoli.
Eastern Cities
In the east, Qaddafi’s opponents organized committees of civilians to run and defend their cities with the help of troops who deserted his forces. Major General Suleiman Mahmoud, commander of the Libyan army in Tobruk, told Al Jazeera that his forces are siding with local residents. “We are supporting the Libyan people,” he said in a phone interview with the channel.
Qaddafi has led Libya since coming to power in a military coup in 1969, making him the world’s longest-serving non-royal leader.
He “has always been an ‘unusual’ person: erratic, unpredictable and unconventional,” George Lane, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen who had headed the U.S. Embassy’s office in Benghazi, said yesterday by e-mail. Lane said he met Qaddafi during the 1969 coup. “In some ways he was ‘crazy like a fox.’ Now he sounds like he may be out of control,” Lane said.
In his speech this week, the Libyan leader called the protesters “rats” and “cockroaches,” warning them to stay off the streets and reading a litany of offenses that would justify the death penalty.
Outside the capital, and in Libyan diplomatic missions around the world, cracks in the regime were widening. More than a dozen Libyan envoys have resigned since the uprising began on Feb. 17, including its chief diplomats to the United Nations and to the U.S.
Conflicting Stories
Saif al-Islam denied on state television yesterday reports that warplanes had been used in attacks. One of his brothers, Saadi, in an interview in the London-based Financial Times, contradicted him, saying ships and aircraft had been used to bombard ammunition depots in Benghazi.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kayem said on state television late Feb. 23 that al-Qaeda was behind killings in Benghazi. He said the group had established an “emirate” in the city of Derna and would attack Europe if not stopped.
The SITE Monitoring Group, which checks the websites of Islamic militant groups, said Feb. 23 that al-Qaeda’s North African arm, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, expressed solidarity with anti-government forces in Libya and urged Muslims everywhere to support the uprising. “We will do whatever we can to help,” SITE quoted the group as saying.
Slow Evacuations
Evacuations have been complicated by the closing of all airports in Libya except Tripoli’s and by Libyan authorities, who have denied requests for extra flights and prevented evacuees from boarding ships.
The U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office has assisted 350 British nationals and the nationals of 25 other countries to leave Libya, it said in an e-mailed statement. Five flights departed or were about to depart from Tripoli, the FCO said in the statement issued about 9 p.m. U.K. time, and the HMS Cumberland left Benghazi with 207 passengers on board, 68 of them U.K. nationals.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Libya denied requests for extra flights to evacuate Turks from the country, prompting Turkey to begin the biggest sea evacuation in its history. Turkey has repatriated 5,516 of its estimated 25,000 citizens from Libya so far, his ministry said yesterday.
China chartered four passenger ships from Greece and Malta and 100 buses from Egypt to move 4,600 of its estimated 30,000 nationals away from the violence, its Foreign Ministry said.
Oil Output
Libya, with a population of about 6.3 million, normally pumps 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, selling most of it to Europe, according to Bloomberg estimates. That’s about 1.8 percent of world supply. It’s the third-biggest producer in Africa after Nigeria and Angola, while Libyan reserves of 44.3 billion barrels are the continent’s largest, according to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
Libya is the latest regime in the region to experience a popular uprising following the toppling of governments in Tunisia and Egypt. Demonstrations have also occurred in Yemen and Bahrain, prompting Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, to introduce moves intended to increase living standards. King Abdullah on Feb. 23 announced at least $11 billion in spending increases on social security and housing.