(incomplete, rough draft/outline)
last edit Dec. 26
Below are various comments compiled from other posts, by Felix and Petri Krohn, unattributed here, awaiting a re-assembly by myself. I invite more temporary clutter and further thoughts below. For a little more on Khoms and rebel tales of regime villainy there, see this post.
Col. Twair Shows the Find
Col. Salem Tweer, head of the al-Khoms military council - his Facebook fan page:
الشهيد البطل العميد مهندس سالم عبدالسلام الطوير
(The hero martyr Brigadier Engineer Salim Salam Twair)
On September 8, the captured soldier took Tweer and a team from al-Khoms to a remote site called Wadi Dufan between Orban and Bani Walid, about 60 kilometers south of al-Khoms, where they exhumed the 18 bodies. Around 11 p.m. they brought the bodies by truck to the morgue at the Tripoli Medical Center, where they were briefly inspected by Human Rights Watch. Tweer said the bodies were of the men who had died in the containers.Libya: 19 Suffocated in Gaddafi Detention
Bodies Revealed by Gaddafi Soldier
HRW, September 9, 2011
Survivors - at least five?
dated 11 September
In a photo set unearthed by Petri Krohn, Daniel Etter photographs someone with the caption:
Abdul Rahman Muftar Ali Ahmed Sharif, 23, shows where he was bound to be tortured in a factory in Khoms, Libya, Sept. 7, 2011. During the last days of the Gaddafi Regime he was held in a shipping container with nine others, who all died of suffocation or dehydration. Sharif was taking part in protests against Gaddafi and he thinks he was arrested because someone saw him spraying anti-government grafitti.No other reference in English shows this name, or this exact version.
The accompanying, traditionally blurred of course, video footage, somehow acquired by Reuters, was diligently reproduced by The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph
Mohammed Ahmed Ali, [a teacher of Arabic, 54, per the Telegraph] with voluminous white beard and cool shades on the top of his head.
The younger survivor is identified by a shorter name, Abdelrahman Ahmed Sherif
2 Sole survivors...(from 2 different containers..), it is a familiar pattern.
Take a look at the Sky Video , accompanying report Gaddafi Prisoners 'Left To Die In Desert' uploaded 10.41 hrs September 2 2011:
The Younger witness is now described as Abdel Rahman Moftah Ali, 24 and a third witness is appears in the text, but not in other reports, Faraj Omar al Ganin, 27
Diana Eltahawy, North Africa researcher at Amnesty on camera is "certain these crimes were committed by Gadaffi Forces". Based on "found mobile phone footage"?? We know about witnesses' reliability from the Tripoli Khamis Shed massacre... Has she been taken for a ride? However Eltahawy had only recently been reported by Simon Denyer of the Washington Post on 26 August where she
described a record of abuse, torture and the extrajudicial killing of captured pro-Gaddafi fighters that has followed the rebels from east to west as they have taken over the country.
Am I correct to assume, somewhat surprisingly, that Diana Eltahawy somehow completely missed the Khamis Shed / Warehouse massacre in Yarmouk??
To keep this together, more Container massacre stuff here, thanks to Petri Krohn, from The Blaze. The story needs to be compared with those above...2 survivors again now...
another search team found 18 bodies near a road construction site ....... Geography student Mohannad [sic] Berfat said he endured 10 days of beatings and electric shock in the shipping container-turned-prison in the coastal town of Khoms....Berfat, the former detainee whose cousin died in one of the containers, was called over to help with an ID. [At the Tripoli Medical Centre....]The Video
Gaddafi loyalists' 'torture chamber and mass grave' in Khoms - video
Amateur footage obtained by Reuters purports to show anti-Gaddafi fighters being tortured in what appears to be a shipping container, while residents of the Libyan town of Khoms, 60 miles east of Tripoli, have unearthed the bodies of 17 men in a mass grave is the Guardian's title. The video maker (Guardian site) is taken around a site by one ."“It was all part of a deliberate strategy,” said Nabil Al-Menshaz, an official in the rebel council which took over Khoms after Gaddafi’s rule there collapsed last month"
The whole scenario reminded me greatly of the Tripoli shed episode, without the burning...and of course a mass grave was dug up too.
Human Rights watch only got on the scene 3 days later,Libya: 19 Suffocated in Gaddafi Detention but with much more detail...
Local journalists in al-Khoms showed Human Rights Watch a video they said had been taken from the cell phone of a Gaddafi soldier...The video is not something I'd call an obvious fake, like those listed here, at all. It could be, with dedicated method actors, but it's at least as likely a genuine example of regime brutality against people who were, or were perhaps working with those who were, getting the nation sanctioned and bombed into utter destruction. Its exact relevance to the case in question isn't clear. It seems to show the regime uses cargo containers to hold prisoners sometimes. That could explain the story we hear in two ways:
Quote: The bodies of the men who were said to have suffocated to death on June 6, 2011 in al-Khoms, are seen at the Tripoli Medical Center morgue. © 2011 Fred Abrahams/Human Rights Watch
1) Loyalist forces let 19-ish people suffocate in one of these makeshift prisons
2) The rebels used this reasonable impression to illustrate their cover story for 19-ish people they themselves killed somehow, making sure the video and story surfaced together and remained linked.
A Few More Bits
Reuters, September 6
Toward the end of that day, the guards opened the doors of the two containers. They took out Ahmed Ali, and the one other survivor. They allowed them to wash, dressed them in military fatigues and soon after let them go free.Amnesty International report, Sept. 1
He said they took the bodies out of the containers, then poured petrol inside and set light to it to get rid of any evidence that people were held there.
Later, a man contacted the new authorities and confessed to having helped bury the bodies at a place called Rbane, south of Khoms. Local rebel fighters said on Monday they had found the burial site and were starting to recover the bodies.
Another survivor, Faraj Omar Al-Ganin, 27, said that detainees were getting increasingly desperate as the hours went by. Several started drinking their own urine and sweat.The blood was from his head? It's a story with enough detail it sounds plausible. But questions remain.
“For hours we were screaming for help; the detainees in the second container were doing the same,” Al-Ganin said.
“It then became eerily quiet. I realized that I was the only one still conscious. I screamed: ‘They have all died’. The guards finally opened the doors. They then made me drag the bodies out by their feet.”
Abdel Rahman Moftah Ali, 24, was the only survivor of the smaller container, and watched his fellow inmates die in front of him:
“None of us could stand up straight anymore. Foam was coming out of some people’s mouths… I saw my cellmates drop to the ground and become motionless one by one… I think I fell and hit my head…Eventually I regained consciousness, and was covered in blood…It was a day from hell.”
This incident which only came to light in September, nearly 3 months later, because Khoms was previously off-limits to independent reporting has been prominently highlighted in the recent human rights report.
ReplyDeleteAt 1.29 in the Eltahawy interview video...
"well this crime certainly was committed by Gaddafi forces, the detainees were mostly civilian in fact..."
@Adam
I think we need to return to this in light of the recent report.
In fact Eltahawy watched the footage of the Khamis brigade shed charred bodies on a lap-top while sitting next to a female correspondent - perhaps Susan Ormiston? It's available somewhere - and said almost the same thing to the effect that they crime was also committed by Gaddafi forces. No ifs, buts, no forensic examination. No site visit. Probably just relying also on videos of the "witnesses" and "escapees".
@Hurriya - can you locate the Eltahawy lap-top video?
If you didn't find it yet, it's on the CNN "it's a bad time to be black man in Libya" video.
DeleteAnd hey are these comments thick. Is there still doubt about the hilly terrain? What was the video link?
I'm way behind on this, but will look at it some.
This Chinese CCTV News video with Stephanie Fried proves part of the story a hoax. Thanks to hurria and felix for pointing out the video. It also has high quality material of the Second Ring Road roadblock victims and I suppose the graves in the Al Nasr Forest behind the Rixos hotel.
ReplyDeleteLibya Mass Executions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUC4hx5uhJ8
Uploaded by StefanellaStef on Sep 15, 2011
The amateur video of loyalist soldiers whipping captured rebels is filmed inside a white shipping container, most likely a refrigerated container. The two containers shown are normal shipping containers, red and rusty. I understood from the narrative that the video was claimed to show the very same prisoners in the very same container. This cannot be the case.
***
If the video is genuine, it would suggest an alternative use for the white MSC container at the Khamis Brigade shed complex: an airconditioned prison. Not a morgue, as I earlier suggested. I still don't think prisoners would be kept in total darkness for long periods.
Here is a link to the Reuters video on the Guardian site:
DeleteGaddafi loyalists' 'torture chamber and mass grave' in Khoms - video
Amateur footage obtained by Reuters purports to show anti-Gaddafi fighters being tortured in what appears to be a shipping container, while residents of the Libyan town of Khoms, 60 miles east of Tripoli, have unearthed the bodies of 17 men in a mass grave
The container in the video is Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) container, white in color and with a max gross weight of 30480 kg. The inside is covered by black smoke.
It is possible this is the same container as the one in the photo shown on the CCTV News video.
Here is another video from Al Jazeera with the same actors.
ReplyDeleteجرائم كتائب القذافي في محاولات إخماد الثورة الليبية
(Al-Gaddafi crimes in attempts to quell the Libyan Revolution)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acELYC8BY2w
Uploaded by aljazeerachannel on Sep 9, 2011
ITN Source has a video, from Reuters,l0 Sept 2011.
ReplyDeleteA morgue at a Tripoli central hospital on Thursday (September 8) evening received 18 bodies which had been found in a mass grave in Rbane, south of Khoms.
Libyans in the capital also searched for loved ones who have gone missing during the six-month bloody revolution that saw President Muammar Gaddafi toppled from power.
The mortuary attendant at Tripoli central hospital, Munir Baiyahia, said the decomposed bodies were having DNA samples taken to help with identification.
Libyans in the capital also searched for loved ones who have gone missing during the six-month bloody revolution that saw President Muammar Gaddafi toppled from power.
"18 bodies arrived from the prosecutor's office, they were in a mass grave in the Rbane area, and arrived completely decomposed. They were brought to this morgue to extract DNA samples," he said.
Baiyahia appealed to anti-Gaddafi forces to help bury the bodies.
"Help us bury them because the bodies are completely decomposed," he said.
It is believed the victims were kept in a shipping container on a construction site near Khoms and died of suffocation and heat exhaustion, where pro-Gaddafi forces removed their bodies and placed them in a mass grave near Rbane.
Libyans gathered to search for loved ones and posted photographs on a board outside Tripoli hospital.
"My brother went missing on May 29th, at 1pm. He phoned me at 10.30 and I called him back at 1pm but his phone was off. Since then he has been missing, for almost three months," said Khoms resident Abdul Salam.
Doctor Ali-Geld who works at the hospital said that people arrived everyday in search for loved ones, but in most cases found their relative is dead.
"We have many people who come everyday to search for their people, because they are missing from the war. Many of the people are civilian, many of the people are soldiers, but most of them are civilian. They are missing from February to August. But most of them died after the revolution in Tripoli," he said.
At the hospital morgue Nuradin Mohammed looked for news of two nephews he believed were killed by pro-Gaddafi forces.
"They went missing on the 22nd of August, they were on the highway towards Hadtba, and we've never heard from them since. Someone called us using their phones, they have no honour because if they did they would have told us where they were. They even called us late at night, they are Gaddafi loyalists and when we call them back they say we killed two rats," he said.
Witnesses told Reuters earlier this week that the Gaddafi government had been operating special squads in nearby Khoms which detained suspected opposition activists, tortured them, and locked them in shipping containers.
http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/2011/09/10/RTV2563911/?s=mass+grave+tripoli&st=0&pn=1
DeleteAkhbar Alaan TV also covered the story.أحد سجون القذافي في بلد الخمس
ReplyDeleteThe chief witness is now called Ahmed Mohamed Ali. Shades on head. Uploaded Sept 6 2011. Same "torture" footage. Nothing special.
More interesting is the short clip, uploaded the same day, of a mass grave, with perhaps bodies beneath sheeting. The caption includes the word Khoms. Video here: http://akhbar.alaan.tv/video/world-news/Libya-strike-protest-bombing-fields-Gaddafi-N4bR/
Delete@felix – The grave site is the same as in the Guardian video:
DeleteGaddafi loyalists' 'torture chamber and mass grave' in Khoms - video
Guardian shows a better view of the site: the bodies were not in a mass grave, but in individual graves. I must wonder how one solder could have dug all these 18 graves.
Thanks Petri - just different edits of the Reuters footage, with some extra interviewees from 0.30 onwards in the second video and a picture of a barrack block exterior and interior between 0.06-0.10 in the first.
DeleteThis fake story is important to cover because it is still simmering in the background with witnesses ready to spring into action again with their unlikely stories.
@Petri - by the say, the BBC Arabic service also put out the 18 grave footage, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-cHDSQQHw. However, there is a short extra clip at 1.55 of the entrance of Al-Khums hospital, before the shot of the room full of bodies under sheeting.
DeleteThe bodies of the 19 missing people have not been recovered, though remains have been found at a nearby date syrup factory, they have no means of knowing if these are new or old.
Deletehttp://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16061766
A day after the Galaa burial, another search team found 18 bodies near a road construction site dozens of miles away. The bodies are believed to be those of 18 men who died June 6 in a makeshift Gadhafi detention center in Khoms, said Col. Salem Tweer, head of the former rebels' local military council.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/09/10/libyans-find-mass-grave-bodies-slain-detainees.html
On September 8, the captured soldier took Tweer and a team from al-Khoms to a remote site called Wadi Dufan between Orban and Bani Walid, about 60 kilometers south of al-Khoms, where they exhumed the 18 bodies
http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/09/libya-19-suffocated-gaddafi-detention
As Petri noted : Guardian shows a better view of the site: the bodies were not in a mass grave, but in individual graves.
I must wonder how one solder could have dug all these 18 graves.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/sep/06/gaddafi-torture-mass-grave-video
@ 2.17 individual graves
The Sky story, with the same video and screenshots is found here:
ReplyDeleteGaddafi Prisoner Tells Sky Of Desert Torture,focussing on alleged witness Faraj Omar Eljanin ,uploaded 7:41pm UK, Friday September 02, 2011
We find Faraj Omar Eljanin sitting under a tree talking to friends in the coastal town of Al Khums, on the road between Tripoli and Misratah.
He has only been back 10 days and has much to discuss.
Faraj is, he says, another victim of Colonel Gaddafi's brutal crackdown on the revolution that began more than six months ago.
He takes us to a disused factory, commandeered by Gaddafi forces for interrogation.
Suspected rebels like Faraj were, they claim, brought here, blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs and subjected to electric shock treatment to their genitals, to make them confess to their revolutionary crimes.
Faraj had been caught carrying an AK47 but said he would confess to anything after the guards threatened to abuse his mother and sister.
The torture did not end there though. At the start of June, he tells us, he was one of 29 people thrown into two shipping containers, the walls peppered with bullets.
They were given a small amount of bread, and a few litres of water to share and used one corner as a toilet to limit the smell.
But after six days the doors were closed and locked and the detainees baked in the heat, dehydrating and suffocating, they begged for help.
"There was no water, no food. People started drinking their urine and squeezed their shirts and started drinking their sweat," he said.
"I saw many people dying in front of me. When the guards opened the container, they couldn't come inside because there was a very bad smell.
"So I had to carry the dead bodies outside - many bodies."
Amnesty International's Diana El Tahawy has investigated the crime and says 19 of the 29 suffocated to death.
"People were tortured at that detention facility. People were electrocuted, beaten with belts and wooden sticks," she said.
"It's an awful story. These individuals, these victims, deserve to see the perpetrators be brought to justice."
But justice will not come for Faraj and the others. The Gaddafi army soldiers have abandoned their uniforms and fled.
Amnesty International said 19 of the 29 prisoners suffocated to death. The bodies of the 19 missing people have not been recovered, though remains have been found at a nearby date syrup factory, they have no means of knowing if these are new or old.
When the container doors opened Faraj was shipped into Tripoli and detained for three months in the intelligence HQ.
He was freed a day after Green Square - now known as Martyrs Square - fell. His family had thought he was dead.
An earlier Sky report from that morning, Sept 2 has Eltahawy of Anmesty say that they visited Khoms "2 days ago", i.e. 31 August. [Their report is dated Sept 1 but the first comment on the article is dated September 1, 2011 10:28 PM] Anmesty once again beats the world's press to an alleged massacre. So, perhaps Amnesty visited Khoms on 30 August.
Some tweets:
ReplyDeletelibyanproud LP
#Khums : #Gaddafi security have a prison compound made of containers in khums, each container holds 30+ ! #Feb17 #Libya #GaddafiCrimes
12:00 PM Jul 23rd, 2011
LibyaUprisingAr LibyaUprisingArchive
@
@LibyaNewMedia Please follow us to DM, we'd like to archive Al Khoms container prison info or pls contact us @ libyauprisingarchive.com/contact-us.html thnx
LibyaNewMedia LibyaNewMedia
by DarkestAngeL31
Defected Gaddafi soldier says his group was responsible for putting 26 in a container in Al Khoms on 7-6-2011; most died from suffocation.
3:11 AM Aug 20th, 2011
LIBYA_BREAKNEWS أسامة ☾✰
BREAKING: Mass murder Crime in Khums: 2 containers found in Barkow area, full with burnt bodies after executed by gunshots
1:39 PM Aug 29th, 2011
Alkhums Alkhums City - Libya
by libyans_revolt
#Alkhums #Libya Gaddafi Militia burned Al khums youths alive in container !! fb.me/1eJLVzFS7
11:59 AM Aug 31st, 2011
Burned alive!!! Time of Anmesty visit. Had they not decided on the story then?
AJELive AJELive
List of victims names found suffocated in shipping containers in #Libya's al-Khoms aje.me/rlNhen
12:41 AM Sep 10th, 2011
feb17libya Feb17Libya
The sole survivor from the 2nd container found in al-Khoms, Abdelrahman Ahmed Sherif, a 23 talks about his horror story feb17.info/news/live-liby…
12:20 AM Sep 10th, 2011
freelibyanyouth Shabab Libya
Ali Bishti, who is responsible for the deaths of the men in the container in #Khums has been captured fleeing from #baniwalid to #tarhuna.
3:27 AM Oct 20th, 2011
I smell fakery even more.
The request for container material from Libya Uprising Archive went out at 2.48pm Aug 20th,2011.
Deletewhen the libiyan herald publish something , y can be sure there is a name inside of people they are hunting :
DeleteOn one occasion, Qaddafi’s men threw a burning tire into a truck filled with Khoms freedom fighters. Many died as a result. The incident, however, went unreported. Two of the dictator’s close security aides, Al-Bishti and Al-Daboub, were subsequently held responsible for the atrocities.
http://www.libyaherald.com/the-february-17-revolution-in-khoms/
@ felix : The request for container material from Libya Uprising Archive went out at 2.48pm Aug 20th,2011.
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQB6gUTDrzM
@ 1.43 saladin alhour told me that he and his brother were held in 1 of the containers at late aug
sorry y noted it already
DeleteSept. 8, 2011
DeleteA Libyan medic checks the remains of one of 18 prisoners who reportedly suffocated after being locked in a shipping container by members of the Gaddafi military in Qhoms, about 60 miles southeast of Tripoli. The remains were transferred to a hospital morgue in Tripoli late Thursday
late thursday : 8 sept ?
khums “free” 21 aug
{ A group from Galaa, aided by a team from the Red Cross, began exhuming the bodies Aug. 20.]
George Grant,@GeorgePBGrant
Deletehttps://si0.twimg.com/profile_images/2161923791/GG_Profile1-LowRes_reasonably_small.jpg
Assistant Editor @LibyaHerald, Libya Correspondent @TheTimes & Associate Fellow @HenryJacksonSoc
Tripoli and London · http://www.libyaherald.com
http://www.lbbc.org.uk/market_intelligence.php
DeleteAuthor/Source: George Grant Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society
George Grant is a Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, which he joined in October 2009. George has written
extensively for HJS on a wide range of issues relating to British foreign policy and international relations, with major recent publications including “Succeeding in Afghanistan” (September 2010) and “The Tipping Point: British National Strategy
and the UK’s Future World Role” (July 2011). Since February 2011, George has worked closely on the conflict in Libya
From the Al Jazeera link, list of names.. dated Sat, 10 Sep 2011, 08:09 GMT+3
ReplyDeleteIn one of the rooms in the Chinese company building, Human Rights Watch found metal bars attached to the window and walls, which Sherif said were used to tie up prisoners for beatings. In other rooms in the building, Human Rights Watch found discarded military pants and jackets, as well as the remains of plastic ties, which Ali and Sherif said were used to bind the detainees.
In one room were empty boxes of 7.62mm ammunition, standard rounds for AK-47 assault rifles, and empty munitions crates.
The Victims
Yousef Saleh Berfad, 24
Tarek Ben Haleem, 27
Beleed Hamadi, 50
Waleed al Rutbi, 27
Mohammed Ahmed Ehbees, 33
Ali al Taib Abu Sneena, 33
Ausman (Sudanese man, last name unknown), 38
Fathi Sultan, 23
Mohammed Ali Away, 28
Abdul Hameem Al Hbati, 29
Abdul Basit Al Barasi, 39
Mohammed Mohammed al Mabrouk, 40
Muhi Aldeen Mohammed Away, 25
Usama Ali al Marish, 27
Faisal Abdulali Amer, 32
Ali Ibrahim Sultan, 27
Unidentified man from Tarhuna, about 25
Unidentified man from Tarhuna, about 50
TRIPOLI:
Deletehttp://www.libyauprisingarchive.com/91---95-from-a-good-source.html
About 1000 of prisoners were found on a farm close to Ein Zara prison in a deplorable state,
including 6 Martyrs,
as well as about 9000 others being held under the petroleum engineering building.
RRowleyTucson Robert Rowley
#Tripoli: About 1000 prisoners have been found on a farm close to #EinZara prison. #Libya #Feb17
Guards eventually opened the containers late in the afternoon on 6 June, and the 11 survivors were transferred to other detention centres in Tripoli.
http://www.shabablibya.org/news/libya-detainees-left-to-suffocate-in-crowded-metal-containers
September 1, 2011/Posted in August 2011, News, Week Commencing August 29 2011 | 17:15
Guards eventually opened the containers late in the afternoon on 6 June, and the 11 survivors were transferred to other detention centres in Tripoli.
They were freed on 21 August, and one later died of kidney failure.
It is unknown what happened to the bodies of those who died in the containers.
At the start of June, he tells us, he was one of 29 people thrown into two shipping containers, the walls peppered with bullets.
DeleteBut after six days the doors were closed and locked and the detainees baked in the heat, dehydrating and suffocating, they begged for help.
When the container doors opened Faraj was shipped into Tripoli and detained for three months in the intelligence HQ.
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16061766
The bodies of the 19 missing people have not been recovered, though remains have been found at a nearby date syrup factory, they have no means of knowing if these are new or old.
He was freed a day after Green Square - now known as Martyrs Square - fell. His family had thought he was dead.
He has only been back 10 days and has much to discuss. [ 23 aug?]
http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/TR6/0/1/0/f/PAR404090.jpg
DeleteStuart Franklin
LIBYA. Tripoli. Digging for bodies in Ein Zara prison where political prisoners were held in the southern suburbs of Tripoli. 2011.
http://www.magnumphotos.com/image/PAR404086.html
http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/TR3/9/7/c/a/PAR404086.jpg
Stuart Franklin
LIBYA. Tripoli. Cell interior in Ein Zara prison where over 900 prisoners were trapped without food or water for 3 days after the anti-Gaddafi forces overran Tripoli.
Here we see the tunnel from where the prisoners finally escaped. 2011
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Stuart-Franklin/2011/LIBYA-ABU-SALIM-NN1108886.html
A CNN Video exists fronted by CNN Foreign Correspondent Jill Dougherty , تقرير سي ان ان عن معتقلي الحاويات وإختناقهم حتي الموت - CNN report on the detainees of the containers and asphyxiated to death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQB6gUTDrzM,which shows "18 decomposing bodies" being brought into Tripoli Medical Centre amid some camera-shy "medical" staff. Salem Tweer of Al-Khoms Military Council at 0.49.
ReplyDeleteAt 1.12, In Khoms we find the containers charred by fires set to destroy the evidence Abdul Hakim Amer arrives to say his brother who supported the rebels (aged 32 above) died there.
Salahaddin Alhour (sp?) says he and his brother were held in one of the containers in late August. (hey, that's after the fire!) and shows the death squad's barracks and their graffiti.(points to word Majmuat Al-Mut, death group or squad.مجموعةالموت (as if) Shows how to breathe through bullet holes in the container...."he and his brother were freed when rebels took over the city" No mention of any other captives by Alhour, but he's an "escapee" of sorts, as required.
from the Washington post photo archive, no 52:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/world/france-says-london-will-host-political-talks-next-week-on-libyas-future/2011/03/23/ABUKXew_gallery.html#photo=52
Sept. 8, 2011
A Libyan medic checks the remains of one of 18 prisoners who reportedly suffocated after being locked in a shipping container by members of the Gaddafi military in Qhoms, about 60 miles southeast of Tripoli. The remains were transferred to a hospital morgue in Tripoli late Thursday. The flight or surrender of Gaddafi loyalists has led to the discovery of more evidence of savage abuse and executions of people they detained.
Francois Mori / AP
It looks more like a scull fragment from the Neander valley in Germany. That's mighty fast decompostion!
Uploaded on Sept 7 2011. A video تحرير اسرى في مدينة الخمس مبنى البراعم - Liberation of prisoners in the city of Khoms. It's not clear where the main character has been liberated from or where. But the footage is spontaneous and genuine.
ReplyDeleteThere is also some very dark footage, uploaded by aimanlibyan on Sept 10, probably at Tripoli Medical Centre, purporting to show the bodies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bft0iR9JAco - فيديو لجثث شهداء حاويات الخمس التي وجدت بمنطقة العربان
Funeral footage of container martyrs here, incorporating some CNN video shots from freekhoms1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwOzBq_3eqo لن ننسى شهداء الحاوية ثأرهم دين في أعناقنا
Delete<
Some martyr stills, with the usual accompanying music here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzY4skNu4mk also uploaded December 2011. "شهداء الخمس."
Free Khoms has some other videos, including one of the witness with the shades, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKmUfyue35w: شهداء الخمس.mp4 ">شهداء الخمس.mp4 ...continued...(it's part of a series of 4...) Except he's now called Sheikh Mohammed Altarhuni not Ahmed Ali.
part 5 includes the dark hospital footage. As recently as 9 May 2012, a video was uploaded by freekhoms1 : هؤﻻء هم شهداء الحاوية.. فهل نسيناهم؟ - These are the container martys, do we forget them? which has some new footage right at the beginning, but covers familiar ground. From about 6.00 onwards , there is vivid footage showing an ancient skull being dug up followed by more decomposing bodies in green blankets. (which may be those parked in the hospitals) The martyrs list at the end mirrors the list above,e.g. no 4 at 12.04 is Yousef Saleh Berfad, 24.
DeleteHere's a fake Container torture video which has recently surfaced, from Misrata uploaded 30 March 2012
The same bullet holes in the same places indicate that the two containers are the same. There is also a window in the south-west facing back end of the container seen in both videos.
Deleteاسرى من مصراته لدى كتائب المقبور .mp4
(Prisoners from Misurata to the Brigades buried)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DEUvLRoYgo
Published on Mar 30, 2012 by libya2alsumud
جرائم كتائب القذافي في محاولات إخماد الثورة الليبية
Al-Gaddafi crimes in attempts to quell the Libyan Revolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acELYC8BY2w
Uploaded by aljazeerachannel on Sep 9, 2011
The container in the Misrata video has a serial number painted on the door. The first numbers are 092-67?. There are some trees growing right outside the container. This could be Misrata vegetation.
The two versions of the Misrata beating video have nothing to do with the two shipping containers in Khoms. I do undcerstand though that al Jazeera would use them to illustrate the story.
DeleteI remember reading that one of the alleged escapees claimed that he identified himself and his cell mates in the video. If we could find the source it would show that the man is a liar. Then again, there may be one more video around. I remember seeing one with more people inside and a little less violence – maybe.
@ felix : 9 May 2012, a video was uploaded by freekhoms1:
DeleteI just see victims with green army blankets coming from the grave. And been put in body bags, not in white sheets as they normally do with victims of their own
@Petri - the source for the identification is HRW itself:
Deletehttp://www.hrw.org/news/2011/09/09/libya-19-suffocated-gaddafi-detention
[Sept 9 2011]: Local journalists in al-Khoms showed Human Rights Watch a video they said had been taken from the cell phone of a Gaddafi soldier, which shows three men in green military uniforms kicking and whipping six bound and blindfolded men in a metal container. Mohanned Jamal Berfad watched the video and identified himself as one of the men being beaten. He identified one of the other detainees getting beaten in the video as his cousin Yousef Berfad, 23, who was arrested for having sent information to the Al Jazeera news network.
Ah, the convenient Gaddafi soldier's cell phone....
Also, the number of survivors has grown...
149. The [ONCHR] Commission met four survivors from the containers. HRW only mentioned three, including Mohannad Berfad who, for some inexplicable reason was released prior to the suffocation deaths Video footage also shows a lot more than two containers at the site.
ONHCR report pp60-64, paras 147-159. It seems like a load of hocum on initial reading.
Bodies dug up on 8 September 2011 from a mass grave at Al Orban, near Gharyan - 200km away, would you believe from ONHCR - they can't even read the HRW reference: Wadi Dufan between Orban and Bani Walid Still a ridiuculous distance to go.
@Petri - I have noticed that the container footage Mar 30 2012 dates from much earlier, viz August 4 at least. The white interior probably smoke blackened? It was also wheeled out on Sept 16 when container torture was topical.
DeleteI think that the mass grave used in the FreeKhoms footage is in the Nafusa Mountains - I can't see anywhere so hilly in the Khoms region. Perhaps this is the Hauslohner tweeted grave? There is some more video of this same exhumation, much clearer, also towards sunset with a large cast of observers, which I can't relocate.
There
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThanku4theAnger THANKU4THEANGER
ReplyDeleteManara: Khoms FFs attacked Alzawayed Checkpoint killing 2 G forces & burnt down the rest house of Omar BuJanah a big G goon #feb17 #libya
m_madi Mohamed Madi
DeleteI have seen houses set alight, these are usually the houses of well known gaddafi loyalists though
http://feb17.info/tag/war-crimes/page/3/
ReplyDeleteMany have suffered unspeakable trauma. Geography student Mohannad Berfat said he endured 10 days of beatings and electric shock in the shipping container-turned-prison in the coastal town of Khoms.
Mohammed Ajal, a volunteer, helped dig up the mass grave in the Nafusa mountain village of Galaa in western Libya, only to find his father and brother among the dead.
Gadhafi and his loyalists are “monsters,” said Ajal, 36, standing next to the grave site on the outskirts of Galaa, the stench of decaying bodies still heavy in the air.
Berfat, 22, said he is counting on divine retribution.
“God will punish them,” he said of his tormentors, as he helped unload the remains of 18 fellow detainees from Khoms,
http://www.danieletter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/de_110907_3983_web.jpg
ReplyDeleteAbdul Rahman Muftar Ali Ahmed Sharif, 23, shows where he was bound to be tortured in a factory in Khoms, Libya, Sept. 7, 2011.
During the last days of the Gaddafi Regime he was held in a shipping container with nine others, who all died of suffocation or dehydration. Sharif was taking part in protests against Gaddafi and he thinks he was arrested because someone saw him spraying anti-government grafitti.
http://www.danieletter.com/beyond-gaddafi/
another ? shipping container story that came in the media in september :
ReplyDeletehttp://feb17.info/news/mass-graves-found-in-and-around-tripoli/
An anti-Gaddafi fighter buries one of the 35 bodies found in a shipping container, in the town of Al-Qalaa, about 120 km (75 miles) southwest of Tripoli September 7, 2011.
The bodies were found in a shipping container where, according to locals, the victims had been detained and tortured by security forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. Picture taken September 7, 2011. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra (LIBYA - Tags: POLITICS CONFLICT)
http://srnnews.townhall.com/photos/view/safety__security/1004/an_anti-gaddafi_fighter_buries_one_of_the_35_bodies_found_in_a_shipping_container,_in_the_town_of_al-qalaa/a23b7a72-0e3b-4191-8a44-1b43560a7832/
Anti-Gadhafi fighters attend the funeral of 35 people found in a shipping container in the town of Al-Qalaa, about 120 kilometers southwest of Tripoli. According to local sources, the bodies belonged to victims of security forces loyal to Gadhafi, who had detained and tortured them in the container.
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-72774.html
https://twitter.com/#!/ahauslohner/status/119128051882795008
DeleteAnother mass grave found in #nafusa mts a few days ago- 9 bodies. ID-ed in #Qala.
152. The soldiers beat the doctor regularly and called him the “doctor of rats”. He described his arrival in the container. He was told to stand on one leg in the corner. He was told that if he let his foot touch the ground he would be beaten. One night he feared he would be raped as they pulled his trousers down. He began screaming and tried to hold his trousers up. He is aware that others were threatened with surprise sex. A father and son were detained there and the guard had threatened to surprise sex the son in front of the father if the father did not confess. The doctor also reported severe torture. During four interrogation sessions, he said was beaten frequently and hit with an electric baton on his nose, fingertips, elbows and lips. He described it as “like being bitten by a dog”.
ReplyDelete153. He named the men responsible for his interrogation and torture as [005] and [072]. He said on one occasion, he was interrogated by someone who seemed from his voice to be a “cultured man”. While the man did not give his name, he was subsequently led to believe this had been the deputy commander of the camp, [002]. He identified [039] as the man who whipped him with an electric cable of the type used in electric heaters. One of the men who beat him was [035].
154. The two survivors both related how they were not allowed out of the containers to defecate and so they ate sparingly to prevent themselves from defecating. The survivors both also related similar experiences with interrogations. They were made to sit on the floor with their knees up and their tied wrists held in front of the knees. An iron bar was then passed between the knees and arms, before they were lifted and the end of the bars were suspended with the bar being passed through the broken window of a door. One described it as being "like a chicken roasting".
155. The day of 6 June 2011 was particularly hot. As the sun heated the metal walls of the container, the temperature inside rose gradually. The survivors related how they rationed the single bottle of water they had between them. They put their noses at the small bullet holes in the walls of the container to get some air. The detainees banged on the walls of container and called out for help. One survivor described how, when the water ran out, he drank his own urine. The guards ignored their cries for help. One by one, detainees appear to have lost consciousness. Finally, the guards opened the door. One survivor regained consciousness as the door opened, enough to recall the reaction of the guards who covered their faces to avoid the smell and seemed “shocked” by the condition of the detainees. Mohamed Abobakr Daboub, the commander, was fully aware of what had occurred as he was present at the time the doors to the containers were opened. Both survivors recounted how he had insulted them and used a Kalashnikov to fire further bullets into the sides and roofs of the containers to create more holes. The guards took one of the survivors interviewed by the Commission, who was a doctor, to the second red container. He related how he had found the inmates lying on the floor. ‘They looked like dead chickens’. Some had already turned blue and through his medical training he could tell they had clearly suffered respiratory failure. Others were showing early signs of rigor mortis. Only two of the nine people there were still alive. The guards brought oxygen from the medical clinic in the company compound and he was able to treat those who were still breathing.
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/A_HRC_19_68_en.doc
https://twitter.com/Mc_Debashi/status/76714848045633536
DeleteMohammed Debashi @Mc_Debashi
Colonel Bashing Al-bishti was an assassin for #ghaddafi b4 Feb17. Now forced his comrades n officers to fight after dropping their weapons
now I stumbled upon Araya Human Rights Organisation :
DeleteSheikh Albishti been killed over 20 years ago by Gaddafi men قتل الشيخ البشتى منذ اكثر من عشرين سنة مضت
http://arayahro.blogspot.com/2008/08/sheikh-albishti-been-killed-over-20.html
In newer blogs 8000 women are raped and dr Dr Ahmed Sewehli,Head, Misrata Psychiatry Team,Misrata, Libya, urge :
Do please ensure that you coordinate all mental health work in Misratah with Dr Ahmed.
About us : forget_faithfulness, John Molyneux, IZY, News Circular, Administration الادارة
mohamed abouzaenin al, AL, Bill Owen, mohamed
http://arayahro.blogspot.com/
http://feb17.info/news/live-libya-unrest-september-1-2011/
ReplyDeletePosted on September 1, 2011 by KLN1
http://www.amnesty.org/sites/impact.amnesty.org/files/imagecache/story/libya-container-deaths%2001.09.11_0.JPG
A day after the Galaa burial, another search team found 18 bodies near a road construction site dozens of miles away. The bodies are believed to be those of 18 men who died June 6 in a makeshift Gadhafi detention center in Khoms, said Col. Salem Tweer, head of the former rebels' local military council.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/09/10/libyans-find-mass-grave-bodies-slain-detainees.html
In a grove of pine trees near this mountain village, residents have dug up the remains of 35 bound and blindfolded men who they say were shot at close range by Moammar Gadhafi's military.
In mid-August, Abdel Gassem Kreir, a photographer in Galaa, said he saw cellphone video on YouTube showing a group of bodies, most of them bound and face-down, in a familiar-looking wooded area. Huzar, the released detainee, said he recognized some of the men in the video as fellow prisoners.
A group from Galaa, aided by a team from the Red Cross, began exhuming the bodies Aug. 20.
After 10 days of digging, the bodies were laid to rest Wednesday in a special cemetery in Galaa, each grave marked by a gray cement block. Large photos marked the graves of those who were identified, while the other graves remained bare.
On Thursday, the guard led Tweer to the burial site.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=13&articleid=20110910_13_A6_CUTLIN271607
residents have dug up the remains of 35 bound and blindfolded men
Too many trees, not enough sand, not enough slope. I agree with the hippy - I don't think this is the Qala'a area. Why are we sure it's supposed to be again?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm1_8JhyFkw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
6-7-2011 | Touareg Mercenary from Mali fighting for Gaddafi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0rwvktbh6k&feature=player_embedded
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110713
Reading the Rebels in Western Libya – Looting and Arson in Qawalish
A day after the Galaa burial, another search team found 18 bodies near a road construction site dozens of miles away. The bodies are believed to be those of 18 men who died June 6 in a makeshift Gadhafi detention center in Khoms, said Col. Salem Tweer, head of the former rebels' local military council.
On that scorching day, 29 detainees were being held in two shipping containers at the Khoms camp, said Abrahams, citing testimony from two survivors.
The February 17 Revolution in Khoms
ReplyDeleteAs a result, the youth of the city began to join the freedom fighters of Misrata, Jabal Nafusa and the other fronts.
In Benghazi, exiles from the city formed the Khoms Liberation Brigade and also established military and civilian councils.
During the following months, the youth of Khoms made attempts to recruit more volunteers by writing slogans on walls. As a result, Qaddafi sent two of his strongest supporters to stop the riots and arrest anyone else suspected of opposing his regime. It resulted in the now notorious incident called by some “the Black Hole of Khoms”.
A number of freedom fighters who had been arrested together with some others who had had no known involvement in the uprising were locked into container trucks in the scorching summer sun. They were severely tortured and kept for long periods without food or water. They were effectively left to bake to death — and a number did.
The regime’s henchmen beat anyone who sought any kind of opening in the truck which could give them some fresh air.
On one occasion, Qaddafi’s men threw a burning tire into a truck filled with Khoms freedom fighters. Many died as a result. The incident, however, went unreported. Two of the dictator’s close security aides, Al-Bishti and Al-Daboub, were subsequently held responsible for the atrocities.
With the arrival of the holy month of Ramadan, the freedom fighters from inside and outside the city began bigger and more coordinated operations. They were able to smuggle in weapons by sea in close cooperation with the fighters in Misrata and those of the eastern front.
ReplyDeleteThe Khoms Liberation Brigade entered the city from the sea.
On 21August, Khoms witnessed its biggest uprising so far. Freedom fighters fought fierce gun battles with Qaddafi’s forces both in the Wadi Kaam valley and around the city’s date factory. The fighters fought until they liberated their city. Then, together with their colleagues from Misrata and Zliten, they moved off in the direction of Tripoli.
http://www.libyaherald.com/the-february-17-revolution-in-khoms/
Following the liberation of Tripoli, many of the Khoms freedom fighters joined the battles for Bani Walid and Sirte.
A number of unmarked graves have been discovered in Khoms since liberation. Many families found their missing loved ones in those graves.
TORTURE VIDEO
ReplyDeleteOutside the local radio station in the center of Khoms, a local man shows an amateur video on his mobile telephone that backs up Ahmed Ali's account of torture.
The man said the footage was found on the cellphone of a pro-Gaddafi soldier arrested in the area after the rebels took over control of the town on August 21.
It showed the inside of a shipping container, at a different site from the one where Ali Ahmed was held. Six men in civilian clothes sat or lay on the floor. They were blindfolded and their hands and feet bound with plastic ties.
The bodies were brought to the hospital on Sunday night after they were dug up on the edge of the Sidi Muftah cemetery, just outside Khoms.
At the makeshift mortuary, a Bulgarian woman who works at the hospital looked on as a group of men, masks over their faces, filed into the room to see if they could find their missing relatives among the bodies. They walked out again shaking their heads, saying the bodies were too decayed to identify them.
No one yet knows how the people in the mortuary ended up in their unmarked grave. They were not from the group who were kept in the shipping containers at the construction site because they were still clothed - Ahmed Ali said everyone who was with him stripped off because of the heat.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-libya-torture-idUSTRE7854MR20110906
This source says Sidi Muftah, with a latitude of 32.58 (32° 34' 60 N) and a longitude of 14.37 (14° 22' 0 E), is a spot feature (shrine) located in the area / state of Al Khums in Libya that is a part of Africa.
DeleteShould be around here:
http://g.co/maps/4nsz5
There is also another Sidi Muftah in the desert south of Tobruk. See: Battle of Gazala
Toward the end of that day, the guards opened the doors of the two containers.
ReplyDeleteThey took out Ahmed Ali, and the one other survivor. They allowed them to wash, dressed them in military fatigues and soon after let them go free.
He said they took the bodies out of the containers, then poured petrol inside and set light to it to get rid of any evidence that people were held there.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/06/us-libya-torture-idUSTRE7854MR20110906
Later, a man contacted the new authorities and confessed to having helped bury the bodies at a place called Rbane, south of Khoms.
Local rebel fighters said on Monday they had found the burial site and were starting to recover the bodies.
See @ 5.00 /Uploaded by mohamed2011Libyan on Sep 22, 2011
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alsV26PDcT0&feature=relmfu
القبض على قاتل الدكتور احمد الذى رفض تمجيد القذافى فى عز طغيان الكتائب
Arrest of the murderer of Dr. Ahmed, who refused to glorify Gaddafi
Ahmed Ramadan Al-Gheryani, a 27-year-old volunteer nurse from Al-Mare, was arrested alongside Ahmed Al-Warfali.
The killer of Ahmed Ghariani ?
Deleteلقاء مع سفاح عطية مجاهد قاتل احمد الغرياني
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeTwPBK3mYk&feature=related
Uploaded by sa2011lem on Nov 11, 2011
"I think they let him confess about disapeared drs and containers , must translate !!
anyway : he blames& names all his comrades , qadaf al dam, and fault of mansour, I think
@ 14.00 , mountains ,same voice as in the ahmed story in benghazi : quatchi canada said, when she appeled on all you tubers for information : we get you about yr voice
btw : ppl not killed there in mountains , about ahmed I doubt too, c in 1 of this mountain vids june,july y see ahmed wounded but live [ must check it, posted this vids before here somewhere]
@ 32.52 many tears and forgiveness is asked to "shabab liby,special to the youth of misrata"
He did haram: libiya hur
Guards eventually opened the containers late in the afternoon on 6 June, and the 11 survivors were transferred to other detention centres in Tripoli.
Deletehttp://www.shabablibya.org/news/libya-detainees-left-to-suffocate-in-crowded-metal-containers
TRIPOLI:
http://www.libyauprisingarchive.com/91---95-from-a-good-source.html
About 1000 of prisoners were found on a farm close to Ein Zara
prison in a deplorable state, including 6 Martyrs,
as well as about 9000 others being held under the petroleum engineering building.
RRowleyTucson Robert Rowley
#Tripoli: About 1000 prisoners have been found on a farm close to #EinZara prison. #Libya #Feb17
Amnesty International: #Libya-detainees left to SUFFOCATE in crowded metal containers goo.gl/K8xdF #feb17 #gaddaficrimes
LIBYA. Tripoli. Cell interior in Ein Zara prison where over 900 prisoners were trapped without food or water for 3 days after the anti-Gaddafi forces overran Tripoli.
DeleteHere we see the tunnel from where the prisoners finally escaped. 2011
http://www.magnumphotos.com/image/C.aspx?VP3=TranslateURL&OriginalURLForRewriting=image/PAR404086.html
LIBYA. Tripoli. Digging for bodies in Ein Zara prison where political prisoners were held in the southern suburbs of Tripoli. 2011.
http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/TR6/0/1/0/f/PAR404090.jpg
Stuart Franklin
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Stuart-Franklin/2011/LIBYA-ABU-SALIM-NN1108886.html
Stuart Franklin - LIBYA. ABU SALIM.
This might help explain something:
ReplyDeleteHis response [Mohammed Dabub, head of Military Intelligence in Khoms] was to hide the evidence. The 18 bodies were taken and dumped in a hole by the side of the road that had been dug to lay electricity cables in Al-Orban, near Gharian. It meant a 100-kilometer journey to Tripoli and another 80 kilometres to Gharian. “They wanted to hide the bodies and get them as far away from Khoms as possible,” said Hani Benali, Ben Halim’s brother-in-law.
The Black Hole of Khoms: a bitter anniversary
Libya Herald, Tripoli, 6 June
It still seems far fetched. In fact, not even slightly credible. So what were all those "bodies" in Khoms Hospital then at the same time??
Deletejune 12, 2012
DeleteA year ago to the day, there took place in Khoms one of the more revolting demonstrations of the utter inhumanity to which the Qaddafi regime had sunk.
Non-Libyans have probably never heard of the Khoms container killings. Most Libyans have. They have gone down in the annals of the revolution as being an horrific demonstration of the depravity of Qaddafi’s minions.
Twenty-one people in Tripoli, Zawia and Khoms had been arrested by the regime last May, suspected of supporting the revolution. Those from Tripoli and Zawia were taken to Khoms for interrogation by the head of the Military Intelligence there, Mohammed Dabub, who was directly under the authority of Abdullah Senussi. It has been reported they were tortured there.
They were kept prisoner in a 40-foot metal container. The doors were opened from time to time to let in fresh air and food and water was provided occasionally.
On 4 June, Dabub was called to Tripoli. He gave orders to the guards that the container was not to be opened. It appears he then forgot about it. But his minions did as they were told despite the fact that it was full summer and the heat was beating down. The outside temperature was in the upper 30s. The only ventilation inside came from a few bullet holes. For three days the prisoners inside slowly suffocated. They banged on the sides. But no one dared open it.
Eighteen of the prisoners baked to death. Among them was Tripoli businessman Tariq Bin Halim, a relative of Mustafa Ben Halim, a former prime minister under the monarchy. He died at 1.30pm on 6 June, according to one of the three survivors, Khoms resident Mohammed Tarhouni. An asthma sufferer, he was the first to die.
http://www.shabablibya.org/news/the-black-hole-of-khoms-a-bitter-anniversary
*
"On 4 June, Dabub was called to Tripoli."
Twitter 3 jun 2011 :
Mohammed Debashi Mohammed Debashi @Mc_Debashi
Colonel Bashing Al-bishti was an assassin for #ghaddafi b4 Feb17. Now forced his comrades n officers to fight after dropping their weapons
9:20 PM - 3 Jun 11 via Twitter for Android · Embed this Tweet
The shipping container incident has a precedent in Afghanistan in 2001.
ReplyDeleteWhite House Closes Inquiry Into Afghan Massacre – and Will Release No Details
The long saga began in November 2001, when Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to Northern Alliance commander Abdul Rashid Dostum were transported in shipping containers without food or water. According to eyewitness accounts and forensic work by human rights investigators, hundreds of men died of suffocation while others were shot, and their bodies buried at the desert site of Dasht-i-Leili.