@Libya_UnitedLibya_Awake_United
This is ugly || NYT: Looting and Arson by rebels in Qawalish goo.gl/AaRgV #Libya #Feb17 by @cjchivers
The village of Qawalish sits on the rolling high ground of the mountains of western Libya, a small collection of houses, shops and a mosque astride a single two-lane asphalt road. By the time the fighters opposed to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had chased away pro-Qaddafi forces last week, the battle for this tiny place, all but unknown by outsiders until that day, had provided several scenes that offered insights into how the rebel campaign is being conducted here.
Like those elsewhere in Libya, the fighters here share a sense of common purpose: the belief that their uprising represents a long-awaited chance to topple an ossified, brutal and corrupt regime. But also like that of rebels in the east, their performance on the battlefield is uneven, often unnerving, and at times at odds with the interests of their cause.
Minutes after Qawalish fell last Wednesday, none of the village’s residents remained. They had bolted. There were signs, however, that until the rebels had arrived, at least some villagers had been present. The bazaar was still stocked with fresh vegetables, as if it had been working while the pro-Qaddafi forces held the town. The bakery had loaves of fresh bread. And little in the town appeared to have been disturbed as the town changed hands. Then the storm hit.
The rebels began helping themselves to the fuel in Qawalish’s only gas station. Then an armed rebel wheeled about the road on a children’s bicycle he had apparently just taken from a home. A short while later rebels were shooting padlocks off the metal doors to shops, and beginning to sweep through them. At the time, rebels said they were carefully searching and securing the town. But their behavior soon raised questions, including: Was something besides military necessity taking hold?
The next day the questions became more pressing. Houses that had not been burning the previous day were afire, and shops were being aggressively looted by armed men in rebel attire. Every few minutes, a truck would pass by on the road, headed back toward Zintan loaded with what seemed to be stolen goods. Animal feed appeared to be a favorite item to carry off. Several trucks an hour carried away bales of hay and sacks of grain. The rebels at the checkpoints at the town’s edge did nothing to stop any of this. The town, in short, was being looted by the rebels, and vandalized, and worse. The destruction was not total — five of the town’s scores of houses were on fire. But what would their owners think? And what kind of message was being sent to the people of this town?
One eerie aspect of life now in western Libya is the number of villages near the front where no civilians are present, even weeks after falling to rebel hands. This is not exactly a novel sight for a continuing, fluid war. In some cases, the emptiness would seem to be related to infrastructure and scarce supply. Shortages of food and water, a lack of electricity — these are conditions that discourage the return of families who fled. In other cases, the risks of incoming high-explosive rockets from the Qaddafi forces can keep much of a population away.
But support for the rebels is not full-throated and uniform in several mountain towns — the village of El Harabah still flies the green flag of the Qaddafi government, for example. And there is a fair question here, after watching the rebels damage Qawalish and steal its residents’ possessions, about whether suspicions about villagers’ affiliations and tribes have given life to rebel crimes, which in turn have caused civilians to flee. Researchers from Human Rights Watch have been roaming the abandoned villages of the mountains, trying to answer these very questions; their findings could be released as soon as this week.
There are tantalizing clues that factional rivalries are in play — the sort of social kindling that could make the ground war uglier as it nears Tripoli, Libya’s capital, where more people who have enjoyed government patronage have their businesses and homes. One of the buildings being looted in Qawalish late last week bore a scratched-on label in Arabic. “Mashaashia,” it read. This was a tag indicating the presence of a tribe that has enjoyed the support of the Qaddafi government, and that rebels say is in turn the source of many pro-Qaddafi soldiers. Had the rebels helped themselves to shopkeepers’ goods because they believed they were wrongly aligned?
cjchivers C.J. Chivers
Scenes from Qawalish, Libya. - The destroyed gas pumps, which were intact and functional when the Forces of...http://tumblr.com/x1q3fla3fq
Retweeted 22 times
Libya_United Libya_Awake_United
This is ugly || NYT: Looting and Arson by rebels in Qawalishgoo.gl/AaRgV #Libya #Feb17 by @cjchivers
DTNChina DTN China
DTN China: At War: Reporter's Notebook: Reading the Rebels in Western Libya, Pt. I: Rebel fighters in Qawalish ...http://nyti.ms/ohFYWk
EndTyranny101 Ahmed Sanalla
Looting and Arson by rebels in Qawalish, Libya by via NY Times @cjchivers http://nyti.ms/nWcnWg #Libya #Feb17 #FF #freedom
PoshBirdGabi PoshBirdGabi
#UK #People: You worry about #yobs who thrive on terrorizing you. You're helping Libyan yobs to tear their country apartcjchivers.com/post/747308259…
PoshBirdGabi PoshBirdGabi
The #Yobs of the #Libyan #Insurgency destroyed this town on arrival. Have a look: cjchivers.com/post/747308259… #imperialism #warofaggression #Afrcia
sharon_lynch sharon lynch
important coverage by @cjchivers re #qwalish looting.tinyurl.com/62dk3pc wish he was in #libya when #yefren was w/o food & water for weeks.
septimius_sever septimius severus
FF are sacrificing their lives daily & we r in awe of their bravery, but this unacceptable & need to be looked atcjchivers.com/post/747308259… #libya
Libya_United Libya_Awake_United
Is this because of Food & gas shortage or does it reflect something more serious? goo.gl/9fTrZ Thank u for @cjchivers for reporting.
