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Libya: Gaddafi loyalists ‘using prisoners as human shields to protect Sirte’ is.gd/XynBBg #Libya
Libya: Gaddafi loyalists ‘using prisoners as human shields to protect Sirte’
September 11, 2011
Libya’s transitional leaders battling to take Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte fear regime loyalists have taken more than 300 people prisoner to use as human shields.
A deadline for the city’s peaceful surrender passed on Saturday but anti-Gaddafi fighters have struggled to make any progress in moving on the last bastion of resistance along Libya’s Mediterranean coast.
They now believe opposition figures inside Sirte have been rounded up and taken to the village of Qaar bu Hadi, about 10 miles to the east of the city, blocking the advancing forces.
Fathi Baja, head of political affairs for the National Transitional Council (NTC), told McClatchy Newspapers that on Thursday as many as 300 hostages had been moved to the village – a stronghold of Gaddafi’s Gaddafa tribe – to be used as “human shields” to prevent any advance on the city.
They include several prominent supporters of the NTC, he said.
The claims cannot be confirmed but match allegations made by commanders of forces on the western side of the city.
Negotiations for Sirte have so far failed because residents insisted the former rebels could only enter if they came without weapons and they wanted an amnesty for anyone guilty of crimes committed under Gaddafi’s regime.
Many there fear a wave of revenge and looting on a city that is closely associated with Gaddafi and his inner circle.
On Saturday, the head of the transitional government, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, tried to convince them, along with residents of Bani Walid, that they had nothing to fear.
“We try to extend our hands to show peace to our brothers there to let our troops enter these cities peacefully without fighting,” he said.
At the same, however, he added that the deadline for surrender had expired and an attack was imminent.
“Now the situation is in the hands of our revolutionary fighters,” he said.
Nato said it bombed targets around Sirte on Saturday, destroying a set of surface to air missile canisters, two tanks and two armed vehicles.
However, fighters positioned about 60 miles from the city know they face a tough fight. Their advance was halted at the Red Valley on Friday when they came under sustained tank and rocket attack.
Ambulances ferried the dead and wounded to a field hospital.
Since then they have moved forward about two miles.
On Sunday, fighters from Misurata – including about 200 vehicles, many with machine guns and light artillery – gathered ready to reinforce the fighters gathered outside Sirte.
Their civilian leaders admit it will take more than a week to take the city.
Abdul Hafiz Gogha, spokesman for the NTC, said forces were closing on Sirte all the time.
“Our revolutionaries are on the attack now,” he said. “They are fighting over Harawa, so it will still be some days before they can attack Sirte.”
