RT @Dima_Khatib: Gaddafi forces seized by rebels express doubts latimes.com/news/nationwor… #Libya #feb17
Captured Kadafi soldiers tell rebels they have doubts
Some Libyan government troops say they have no choice but to fight. Many are certain they are battling foreign extremists seeking to take over Libya.
But some recently captured soldiers are haunted by doubts.
"We talk about whether the war is right," said a prisoner from a town near the coastal city of Zawiya who was wounded in the frontline town of Kikla in the western mountains of Libya. He spoke on condition that his name not be published for fear of endangering his family.
"We have been talking about whether what we do is right or wrong. But we don't have any choice."Recent battlefield victories by rebels in the Nafusa Mountains have yielded valuable clues about Kadafi's forces for those seeking to oust the Libyan leader. The finds include notebooks packed with soldiers' names and identification card numbers, sometimes left behind in hasty retreats.
Rebel soldiers in Nalut discovered kits filled with antidotes to chemical weapons, inspiring fear that Kadafi would be willing to use weapons of mass destruction against his own people to retain power.
"For first aid and self aid to persons injured by nerve and paralyzing war poisons," says the label on one package.
Military experts say Kadafi retains stockpiles of deadly mustard gas but lacks rockets to deliver it.
Rebels who recently scoured houses in Kikla found abandoned assault rifles that were new and well-maintained, a dismaying indicator of how well-supplied Kadafi forces are.
They also said they found identity papers of fighters from other countries, including Niger, evidence of Kadafi's recruitment of foreign mercenaries to fightLibyan rebels.
In the town of Rayana, they also discovered bottles of liquor, which strictly observant Muslim rebels consider a sign of moral depravity among Kadafi's fighters.
But the greatest intelligence finds are the captured soldiers, who often are more than willing to talk once they realize that their captors are Libyans, rather than invading Algerians, Islamic radicals or others.
