World News - bani-walid

20
Oct
2012
9:12pm, EDT
Gadhafi's youngest son reported killed amid Libya clashes
Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters, file
Khamis Gaddafi is shown in a photograph found at Fatih University in June 2011.
By NBC News
Khamis Gadhafi, youngest son of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, was reported dead Saturday, exactly a year after his father died.
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There were conflicting reports about whether Khamis Gadhafi was captured alive but gravely wounded after a gunbattle in Bani Walid, a pro-Gadhafi stronghold where fighting has raged for three days. And Khamis Gadhafi has been reported killed several times, including in an August 2011 NATO airstrike.

Al Arabiya news agency reported that sources told it Khamis Gadhafi was severely wounded and arrested but that he later died. However, Al Arabiya also said, Mohamed al-Magarief, the head of Libya’s democratically elected General National Congress, told the agency the late dictator's son was killed during the clashes.
A Libyan journalist told NBC News that Khamis Gadhafi was captured while fleeing in a convoy. His right leg had been amputated, but it was not clear if that was a result of recent fighting or a previous injury.
Dr. Mustafa Abushagur, sacked as Libya’s prime minister last week, tweeted Saturday that Khamis Gadhafi’s body was taken to a Misrata hospital, the Russian Times reported.
The Guardian of London reported that a statement by the Libyan national congress spokesman, Omar Hamdan, said the 28-year-old was killed "in battle" but gave no further details.
The reports came after heavy fighting between the pro-Gadhafi garrison in Bani Walid and militias allied to the Libyan government.
The seventh son of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Khamis Gadhafi is known as one of the most hardline of Gadhafi's sons.
His reported death prompted wild celebrations in Misrata, Libya's third city, where fireworks and car horns filled the night, the Russian Times reported. He was reviled there for atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the 32nd Brigade, a special unit he formed after studying in a Russian military academy, the Russian Times said.
Slideshow: Conflict in Libya
Goran Tomasevic / REUTERS
An uprising in Libya ousts dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
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Related: US slaps sanctions on woman accused of helping Saadi Gadhafi
The reports came the same day of reports that Moammar Gadhafi's chief spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, had been captured.
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On Saturday, Magarief said not all areas of Libya had been liberated, Al Jazeera news agency reported.
"The campaign to liberate the country has not been fully completed," Magarief said on state television.
"Bani Walid's misfortune is that it has become a sanctuary for a large number of outlaws and anti-revolutionaries and mercenaries," Magarief said.
Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years
Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images
A look at the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader
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149 comments
Khamis probably suffered the same fate as his dictator father at the hands of his captors.
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26
Sep
2012
11:33am, EDT
Libyan who helped capture Gadhafi dies after alleged kidnapping, torture
Anis Mili / Reuters
Mourners pray near the coffin of Omran Shaaban on Tuesday in Misrata, Libya.
By NBC News wire services
One of the young Libyan rebels credited with capturing Moammar Gadhafi in a drainage ditch nearly a year ago died Tuesday of injuries he allegedly sustained after he was kidnapped by the late dictator's supporters.
The death of Omran Shaaban, who had been hospitalized in France, raised the prospect of even more violence and score-settling, with the newly elected National Congress authorizing police and the army to use force if necessary to apprehend those who abducted the 22-year-old and three companions near the town of Bani Walid in July.
His family claimed he was shot by gunmen, then captured and tortured by militiamen still loyal to Gadhafi.
Libya is battling lingering pockets of support for the old regime, and its government has been unable to rein in armed militias in a country rife with weapons. Earlier this month, a demonstration at the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi turned violent, killing four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
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Shaaban was praised as a "dutiful martyr" and a "brave hero" by the National Congress, which has ordered the defense and interior ministries to find those who abducted Shaaban.
No reward
However, his family says he never received a promised reward of 1 million Libyan dinars ($800,000) for capturing Gadhafi on Oct. 20, 2011, in the former leader's hometown of Sirte. The eccentric dictator was killed later that day by revolutionary fighters.
His body was greeted at the airport in his hometown of Misrata by more than 10,000 people for a procession to the soccer stadium for prayers Tuesday and he was buried early Wednesday.
Ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was shown no mercy and brutally killed by the same people he ruled over for more than 40 years. Graphic pictures and videos captured his final moments. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
His brother Hussein complained that the Libyan authorities did nothing to help Shaaban.
"Libya was declared liberated of Gadhafi's rule on October 23 last year. It isn't," he told Reuters.
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On Tuesday in the capital Tripoli, several hundred protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the National Congress to demand that the government avenge Shaaban's death.
Shaaban's family said that he and three friends had been en route home to the western city of Misrata from a vacation in July when they were attacked by gunmen in an area called el-Shimekh near Bani Walid.
Shaaban and his friends, who like many Libyans were armed, fired back, the family said.
Two bullets hit Shaaban, and he was paralyzed from the waist down, his relatives said, and the men were captured by Bani Walid militiamen.
A town of about 100,000 people, it remains a stronghold of Gadhafi loyalists and is isolated from the rest of Libya.
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President Mohammed el-Megarif visited Bani Walid this month and secured the release of Shaaban and two of his companions. A fourth is still being held.
'Sliced with razors'
When Shaaban was finally brought home, he was "skin and bones" — still paralyzed, frail and slipping in and out of consciousness, according to another brother, Abdullah.
"It was clear he was beaten a lot," Abdullah Shaaban said. "His entire chest was sliced with razors. His face had changed. It wasn't my brother that I knew."
Omran Shaaban was later flown to France for medical treatment.
Shaaban, the second youngest in a family of nine children, was a member of Libya Shield, a loose coalition of the country's largest militias relied on by the Defense Ministry.
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Khalifa al-Zawawi, the former head of Misrata's local council, said the government reneged on paying the reward to Shaaban.
Abdullah Shaaban said his brother did not mind, saying he considered capturing Gadhafi to be his national duty.
While Libya's president released a statement Tuesday vowing that those responsible for the violence against Omran Shaaban would be punished, apprehending and disarming the militants in Bani Walid are among the most daunting tasks facing the government.
The town is heavily armed with rocket-propelled grenades, automatic weapons and artillery left over from last year's civil war.
Residents there say that pictures of Gadhafi are displayed during weddings and youths play his speeches on their cars' stereos. Students refrain from singing Libya's new national anthem and teachers refuse to follow the revised curriculum.
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Bani Walid fighters were blamed for many of the sniper attacks, shelling, rapes and other violence against the city of Misrata during the civil war, and there were new calls Tuesday from residents of Misrata for vengeance against Bani Walid.
In July, fighters from Misrata threatened to attack Bani Walid after two journalists from their town were detained there. The journalists were eventually released after mediation by the authorities.
Shaaban's eldest brother, Walid, insisted there would be justice for the family, regardless of whether the government is the one to administer it.
"I plan to pursue his rights legally and join if there is a military incursion. We are going to death, God willing," Walid Shaaban said.
Family friend Abu-Shaala echoed that sentiment.
"If the government does not go in, we are going in," he said. "We are all patient. But our patience has limits."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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148 comments
He could as well have been kidnapped by al Qaeda fundamentalists who objected to the fact that he was a student radical and not properly Islamic enough. The press lies to us often enough we don't know what to believe. Gadhafi was a nutjob but he knew he was near the end of his life and wanted to com …
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Explore related topics: libya, moammar-gadhafi, featured, sirte, arab-spring, bani-walid, omran-shaaban
23
Jan
2012
1:30pm, EST
Gadhafi fighters seize control of Libyan town
By msnbc.com news services
TRIPOLI - Supporters of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi seized control of the town of Bani Walid on Monday after clashes with a militia loyal to the new government in which four people were killed, witnesses told Reuters.
The violence was bad enough that authorities in Tripoli felt forced to dispatch dozens of revolutionary fighters to Bani Walid, the Guardian reported, quoting brigade commander Saddam Abdel-Zein.

A resident of Bani Walid, about 120 miles south-east of Tripoli, said the sides fought using heavy weaponry, including 106 mm anti-tank weapons, and that 20 people were wounded.
Another witness told Reuters the fighting had now stopped but that Gadhafi loyalists were in control of the town center, where they were flying green flags, a symbol of allegiance to the ousted administration.

Libya could fall into 'bottomless pit', leader warns

"They control the town now. They are roaming the town," said the witness, a fighter with the 28th May militia which was fighting the Gadhafi loyalists.
Bani Walid, base of the powerful Warfallah tribe, was one of the last towns in Libya to surrender to the anti-Gadhafi rebellion last year. Many people there oppose the country's new leadership.
The uprising in Bani Walid could not come at a worse time for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC). It is already reeling from violent protests in the eastern city of Benghazi and the resignation of its second most senior official.

Militias may drag Libya into civil war

An air force official told Reuters that jets were being mobilized to fly to Bani Walid. In Tripoli, there were signs of security being tightened, Reuters reporters in the city said.
Fighters "massacred"
The violence in Bani Walid was sparked when members of the May 28 militia arrested some Gadhafi loyalists.
That prompted other supporters of the former leader, who was captured and killed in October, to attack the militia's garrison in the town, said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They massacred men at the doors of the militia headquarters," said the resident.
Libya's interim leaders declare independence from 42 years of rule by Moammar Gadhafi, whose cause of death remains under investigation. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.
During Libya's nine-month civil war, anti-Gadhafi rebels fought for months to take Bani Walid.
Local tribal elders eventually agreed to let NTC fighters enter the town, but relations have been uneasy since and there have been occasional flare-ups of violence.
In November last year, several people were killed in Bani Walid when a militia group from Tripoli's Souq al-Juma district arrived in the town to try to arrest some local men.
Taking back control of the town will be challenging because it has natural defenses. Anyone approaching from the north has to descend into a deep valley and then climb up the other side, giving defenders an advantage.
It was this landscape, in part, that prevented anti-Gadhafi militias from taking the town during the civil war, despite the fact they were heavily armed and had superior numbers.
Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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52 comments
So what are the US Troops doing in Brega, Libya today? ... and why is MSNBC not reporting on this?
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Slideshow: Conflict in Libya

Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years