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Monday, December 26, 2011

The Tripoli Massacres: 18 by the Dry Riverbed

December 4, 2011
last update Dec.26

<< The Tripoli Massacres

Among the grisly crimes discovered in Tripoli in late August, among those lesser mentioned are a string of executed bodies along the dry riverbed/canal just south of Gaddafi's central compound. The UK Guardian, for one, reported August 28:
Another 18 bodies were found rotting in a dry riverbed between Gargur and Gaddafi's shattered compound at Bab al-Aziziya – further evidence of apparent [Gaddafi] war crimes.
The BBC also mentioned these victims, and that some wore medical clothing, as they mapped out the murder scenes on August 31. It's not as precisely as I do (the massive shed massacre was down a different road, more due south, for one).

Human Rights Watch, report from August 27: "Libya: Gaddafi Forces Suspected Of Executing Detainees"
Separately, on August 26, Human Rights Watch found 18 bodies rotting in small groups near the Internal Security building in a dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya, Gaddafi’s former compound. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that Gaddafi forces had killed them at different times in the week prior to August 25, when Libyan rebels seized control of the area. It is unclear if any of those killed were armed at the time of their death, but Human Rights Watch observed two among the 18 bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and two were wearing the green scrubs of Libyan doctors and nurses. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that several others were unarmed.
First do note what the rebels had likely been doing in the days before they took control-fighting and killing in the area to establish control.

Eight of these 18 bodies - or six of them plus two others - I have already analyzed without knowing it, in the post Ghargour Black Trash. Two men were killed down an alley, and six executed and piled behind an ornage trash bin nearby, amidst scattered rubbish. These are just next to what I called a canal, but on closer inspection, it's a dry river (or wadi, flowing in the rainy season), lined with concrete in spots. (summary of that post and graphics forthcoming)

Human Rights Watch was cited in the above reports, and has a photograph of the six behind the bin that I hadn't seen before, accompanying their report (see at right). These are described as "in the dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya, Gaddafi's former compound." Another victim from the same area, it seems, is shown in another HRW photo. He at least was clearly a Black African man, shot in the head, on-site. As they put it,"The body of a dead man lies with his hands tied behind his back in the dry riverbed between Gargur and Bab al-Aziziya." More clear Gaddafi crimes?

Two Youtube videos I've seen lately (links later) show the site of four more executed bodies, along the same river, somewhat near another orange trash bin. Two of these wear what could be surgical scrubs of slightly differing shades of blue-green. The better view is at left. It shows these two victims,  unbound, but apparently shot in the head. They're both black males, laying on a concrete walkway with hand rails. Another apparent black man in light blue lays a ways off on the street's edge.

The fourth victim, in purple, is all but invisible there, while the first one is all but unseen from the following view, from France 24 (right). It's a colorful lot. This victim too seems darker-skinned, if not quite to the same degree. His head isn't visible.

Update Dec. 26: A photo from The Atlantic (below) shows the man in the blue shirt has an intact head and face. It could be his eyelids, but it could be his eyes themselves that look so wrong - possibly popped out. The weeds artfully obscure a clearer view. What looks possibly like his hand in the foreground is more likely the foot of the victim in blue who visibly lost so much blood there. A giant portrait of Gaddafi dominates a wall to the east. This might help confirm the location, but I don't think it's needed.

Update Aug 28 2012: A video Petri found a while back shows where some of the other bodies in the wadi are, and lets us see these bodies close up as they're all removed.  The guy in dark blue/purple has been loaded on a truck, shown face-up at 6:30. Again, he looks like a dead Black man with puffed-out eyes.

Location: easy. A ways southeast of the other site. The actual stairs leading down to the underpass walkway aren't totally clear in the satellite imagery, and the video shows the segment of walkway blasted at an angle by some prior violence. The highway crossing, the opposite buildings, tree and shrubbery patterns, even the black car across the street, next to but not under the car port, all prove the fit.

This is it, relative to the eight bodies mentioned above,and the piles of executed, largely black men closer yet to Gaddafi's compound. These would have earlier been called "Gaddafi's African mercenaries," but now they're left in the open and called ordinary  Libyans, their callous murder blamed on the crumbling regime. "Return to sender" seems to be the subliminal message beneath the transparent lie in all these cases.

That makes eight,plus the lone victim in his own photo, plus these four for a total 13 of the 18 we've apparently seen and can mostly place.

Update Dec. 26:
Human Rights Watch is clearly hearing about the same incident for their August 27 dispatch. Their bizarre information came from concerned locals who have Black Gaddafi mercenaries doing the killing of this race-indeterminate, rebel-supporting, out-of-town but non-violent, ambulance crew in the midst of the fight for Abu Salim.
Salah Saeed Kikli, 52, a medical laboratory engineer, told Human Rights Watch that he saw Gaddafi fighters in green military uniform kill two unarmed men, including one in medical scrubs, at a checkpoint by his home on August 24 around 11 a.m. after the fighters had previously approached him and threatened to kill him.




I was fixing my car. An African came to my corner [of the street] and asked if I was civilian or military. I said I live here. There was another [black man] behind who said, “if he is civilian, still kill him. No problem…” [After not being killed...] Five or ten minutes later… I saw them taking a doctor and another guy from an ambulance, and I saw them shoot [the two men]. The military guys stole the petrol from the ambulance… The ambulance said “February 17 Misrata” on it. [February 17 is a sign of support for the rebels.]…The men did not resist at all. They were medical people.
Another witness to the same incident, Juma’ Al-Murayd, 31, told Human Rights Watch that two people with dark skin and in civilian clothes were driving the ambulance when they dumped three [black] bodies next to his house on the dry riverbed between Bab al-Aziziya and Gargur. Human Rights Watch inspected the three bodies with Kikli, across from Al-Murayd’s house, two of whom were wearing the green medical scrubs that doctors and nurses wear in Libya. Kikli said that the third body, dressed in civilian clothes, was that of the driver.
The original driver, or the Afro-merc driving when the other black men were dumped? And when did the fourth body appear? This is confusing stuff. No wonder HRW gets so befuddled...

24 comments:

  1. Al Jazeera uploaded another video from 26 August - استمرار رحلة ملاحقة القذافي وفلوله (the continued prosecution of Gaddafi and remnants)Maryam Obayeesh reporting.
    At 0.41 it is perhaps the fence through which another video I have seen (and mislaid) shows bodies from behind the fence.
    Field hospital at 1.00, and then at 2.04, a dead body outside the fire station and another black man, dead, draped in green at 2.16, perhaps behind the fire station?

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  2. a few more from Paul Chapman of Reuters,uploaded 24 August, Libya - grim aftermath of conflict

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  3. The fringe dead of the roundabout area, it seems, and seen August 24. That whole scene is still vague to me. I hear two dozen or 29 or so killed there, including the ten or so famously seen across the middle island (hands=bound "African fighters"), maybe including the medical tent victims, these guys, and/or the ones a bit north between the walls, and I don't have it sorted out. I even found a rare video of one of the tent victims with a machete slash (?) in the top of his skull. Should find that again and start a post.

    The upside-down cars are crazy. I've noticed many were clearly rammed to a halt, road warrior style, bumpers torn off, crashed through windows, etc. Then emptied, disabled, and left, as black-skinned bodies with boxes of clothes and bedding started appearing nearby...

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  4. The photo from above of the bodies on the steps by the orange trash bin is found here at Allvoices no 11.

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  5. PHOTO'S BODIES ABU SALEEM/COMPOUND:
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109475
    Description:
    A dead body is seen after heavy fighting between rebels and loyalists at Bab al-Aziziya, the former compound of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Tripoli, Libya on Aug. 25, 2011.
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109476
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109477
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109478
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109482
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109488
    MOSQUE ABU SLIM
    http://viiphoto.wg.picturemaxx.com/id/preview.php?UURL=eca80f57065fc8dc4d58741fa3dc2d03&SECTION=SERIESRESULT&IMGID=00109487

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  6. @felix : this poor people I might have seen on an upload of 20 august, Abu Saleem area

    I'm not sure the vids are already saved , so not yet can be placed.

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  7. @Hurriya: The couple images I checked are from the Roundabout by Bab al Aziziyah. I'll be updating that with lots of new images, including these, some day.

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  8. @caustic : I did send you the uploads of 20 aug Abu Saleem area : the rebel victims [white pantalon] and many bodies in the streets. As my memory serves me , you can see there on the small bridge the same bodies as to which felix referred to in all voices.

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  9. @caustic : cant check the vids self now : because when have clicked a site , the next time click it the you tube is closed. So first you need to save them.There is something about dates : the MSM always refer to later dates . I saved some tweets of fighting inside tripoli compound area on 19, 20 august.So the date of rebels retreat from al furjan/yarmouk area I don't trust. Or maybe these rebels coming from outside retreated and the Tripoli rebels did the fighting :In Khalet el-Furjani, a neighborhood of about 4,000 people, the undisputed boss is now Hussein Furjani

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  10. They stay cry and blame about 53 bodies at the shed and in the meanwhile the night 19 20 august took 1300 lives by severe bombing acc to mousa ibrahim and thierry meyssan.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4viPcBmqV00&feature=player_embedded
    20 aug NATO debarked large numbers of jihadi forces with heavy weapons on Tripoli’s coast.
    The jihadi's arrived in Tripoli 20 aug

    The total of victims,civilians and innocents in Tripoli is estimated 3000 20-25 aug.
    Why MSM don't cry and blame about this?????

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  11. THis video shows an unknown pile of bodies at 0:41.

    Gadafi llama a purificar Trípoli mientras los rebeldes le buscan casa por casa
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9EyygGio_c
    Uploaded by jamacor4 on Aug 25, 2011

    This could be at the river bed. Could be somewhere else. The video also has some views of the roundabout.

    You had a post for unknown bodies in Tripoli but I have lost it again and ith is not linked in the Tripoli massacres masterlist.

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    Replies
    1. the bodies in this vid are bodies of the 20 aug murder or the 22 aug murder inside the compound. this is apart of the 25 aug murders at the fire station area in abu saleem area

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    2. Hurriya, those dates aren't established yet. The body at 0:37 is new to me, apparently from among the tents, somewhere in there. At 0:40 I may have images of, from behind one of the tents. Nice pan between.Saved that vid.

      The puffy foot body, and rest of that pile, apparently new also. By the dry river/canal, apparently. That's more of the 18 seen. Exact locale probably impossible to get just from that.

      Petri, search "un-placed" until I get on the updates.

      Delete
    3. http://i42.tinypic.com/2wpm44o.jpg
      http://i44.tinypic.com/jkyf01.jpg
      http://i44.tinypic.com/2ylnxbt.jpg
      http://i40.tinypic.com/t87rew.jpg
      http://i39.tinypic.com/35bh842.jpg
      http://i41.tinypic.com/29c1ic1.jpg
      http://i41.tinypic.com/ap9oas.jpg

      I agree some bodies are new

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    4. some dates of events may also be new :

      http://libya-revolution.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html
      In conjunction with these developments, planes and helicopters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pounded security headquarters and command centers of the battalions of the Gaddafi's in different parts of the capital.

      بالتزامن مع تلك التطورات قصفت طائرات ومروحيات حلف شمال الأطلسي (ناتو) مقار أمنية ومراكز قيادة للكتائب التابعة للقذافي في مناطق مختلفة من العاصمة.



      The Libyan television showed the sites that NATO planes had bombed and one of those sites is located in Abu Salim centers where there is a political and security prison known as Abu Salim.

      وكان التلفزيون الليبي قد أظهر مواقع قال إن طائرات الناتو قامت بقصفها وأحد تلك المواقع يقع في منطقة بوسليم حيث يوجد أحد المراكز الأمنية والسجن السياسي المشهور باسم بوسليم.


      [RT @Reuters: FLASH: Libyan state TV goes off air, rebel spokesman says state TV HQ is now under rebel control
      zerohedge 9:54 AM Aug 22nd]
      http://i43.tinypic.com/10fxtfs.jpg
      @NATO TWEET



      THE NEWS IS THAT REBELS WERE ABLE TO FREE PRISONERS DETAINED IN PRISON "ABU SALEEM"AFTER NATO TARGETTED SECURITY GATES IN THE VICINITY OF THE PRISON , and there were armed clashes recorded in some neighbourhoods
      [ note that this event has a press release on 25 aug]

      وذكرت أنباء أن الثوار تمكنوا من تحرير أسرى معتقلين في سجن "بوسليم" بعد قصف أطلسي استهدف بوابات أمنية في محيط السجن, وأن اشتباكات مسلحة ومظاهرات سجلت في بعض الأحياء


      The NATO aircraft bombed targets in Tripoli yesterday, including the home of the intelligence chief Abdullah Sanusi in-law of Gaddafi. NATO source, speaking last night the death of al-Sanusi, but the alliance fell later this advertiser.

      وكانت طائرات تابعة للناتو قد قصفت أمس أهدافا في طرابلس بينها منزل لرئيس المخابرات عبد الله السنوسي وهو صهر القذافي. وتحدث مصدر بالناتو الليلة الماضية عن مقتل السنوسي, لكن الحلف تراجع لاحقا عن هذا الإعلان.

      [NATO's aircraft destroyed Camp 27 which is commanded by Gaddafi's son Al-Mutasim and is believed to include the Libyan colonel's striking military force. The aircraft also destroyed the house of Al-Sanusi, his brother-in-law and one of his most prominent military and security aides.]

      21/08/2011
      http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=26306

      Delete
    5. http://forum.davidicke.com/archive/index.php/t-181336.html

      in the absence of media reports due to NATO's democratic blackout (freedom of expression, eh what?) what I can say categorically is that in Tripoli massacres are being perpetrated by the terrorist scourge NATO supports.

      This has been backed up by countless eye witnesses living inside the capital who have seen the most horrific violations of human rights - another feather in NATO's cap.

      Delete
    6. 2011.08.19
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfGRMX2G6tQ&feature=related
      with increasingly intensive air raids leading up to the ground invasion on August: 20th:

      On Saturday [ 20 AUG ] a small number of ‘sleeper cells’ of armed rebels took to the streets of Tripoli, attacking and terrorising Libyans to cause panic and distraction. Then, rebels coordinated by NATO special forces were dropped via highly mobile boats at numerous positions along the Tripoli coast and also moved in from the West, precipitating fighting and increased NATO bombardment that has reportedly killed over 1,500 people since Saturday night.
      http://empirestrikesblack.com/2011/08/nato-mounts-psychological-warfare-operation-to-conceal-bloody-assault-on-tripoli/

      http://theorbo1.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/the-jamahiriya-resistance/

      _Last month,  on 22 August 2011, NATO  shipped-in at least 5800 Foreign SF  and mercenaries and France sent in their Foreign Legion into TRIPOLI to take the Capital City . Germany sent in a “peace-keeping”  brigade of 1100. Who knows how many QATARI and ARAB EMERATE fighters!—So there are virtually thousands….America and Canada will not reveal  their numbers.

      Oh , btw : among the thousands abu saleem prisoners , who apparantly were freed on 21 or 22 aug  were about 579 al qaida members

      Delete
  12. See also Photo no. 7 here by Giulio Petrocco, AP, Aug 25 201.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, but already added (linked, avoiding excess re-posting complaint dangers), Dec. 26.

      Delete
    2. Oh, sorry - was looking for the photographer's name. BTW, I haven't seen this dead "Gadaffi soldier" body shot inside an ambulance "at Abu Slim (sic) area" before, No 6 there from Zohra Bensemra /Reuters.

      Delete
  13. New video, thanks to Hurriya

    ضحايا القذافي - صور مروعة -
    (Gaddafi victims - shocking images)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiUrqnHLH7E
    Uploaded by Emadfaiz on Sep 16, 2011

    Some of the victims have been dumped into the wadi from the opposite, northern side.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have it saved, and will watch it later. Must be interesting and worthy of addition.

      Delete
  14. I found the link to the France24 video - on their arabic site (Middle video): http://www.france24.com/ar/20110828-libya-cairo-conflict-rebels-arab-league-un-security-council-national-transitional-tripoli captioned أسرى موالون للقذافي - "prisoners loyal to Gaddafi, 27 Aug 2011" إعداد طارق عرار (preparation Tareq Arar) at 0.57 to 1.01, followed by a clip of a boxed body being removed from the ?roundabout?

    Another France24 video from 30 August (with an undubbed shed witness video)http://www.france24.com/ar/20110828-tahar-hani-reportage-lybia-tripoli-aid-ramadan has some interesting text from Taher Hani:
    Fragile security hangs on Tripoli and joy is not complete yet

    While we were filming the movements of anti-Gaddafi in this region and liberated following the overwhelming joy of discovery of several weapons caches of various species, we were asked young man belongs to the opposition to accompany him to a place near the headquarters of the battalion to portray some of the bodies, which he said it lying on the pavement.

    The surprise was sad and very difficult. 20 bodies, including 4 children, were killed in four days and the smell of foul smell of the place. He said the truck driver who was preparing to transport the bodies to a hospital in Tripoli: "The al-Gaddafi, Thurs is that carried out this cowardly and shameful act. Have tied their hands and feet and then threw a shot, he said, adding that the victims were all civilians."
    [google translate]

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  15. Update Dec. 26: A photo from The Atlantic (below) shows the man in the blue shirt has an intact head and face.:

    I think the same man is in the dry bed - photo 4 :


    https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.422094964558603.1073741827.332139386887495&type=1

    http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/libya082611/l07_82515673.jpg

    ReplyDelete

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