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Warning: This site contains images and graphic descriptions of extreme violence and/or its effects. It's not as bad as it could be, but is meant to be shocking. Readers should be 18+ or a mature 17 or so. There is also some foul language occasionally, and potential for general upsetting of comforting conventional wisdom. Please view with discretion.

Monday, January 2, 2012

The Sirte Massacres: Executions in the Capture of the Gaddafis

November 30, 2011
Last update Jan. 6, 2012

<< The Sirte Massacres

"We only want the head of Muammar Gaddafi. We don't want any death, any blood.We are fighting our brothers. But they are defending him. I don't know what's happened. We want him and they said no. So what's our choice? Kill them."
- young rebel fighter Rajab al Babor, Global Post video,Oct.21, 1:50 mark

This post will examine the fate of many people accompanying Muammar Gaddafion his last voyage, some hundred or so of whom wound up dead on the battlefield, with some of those clearly executed. How many, where, under what circumstances? How many were taken alive at that time and killed later anyways (aside from Col. Gaddafi himself, his son Mutassim, and defense minister Jabr)?

These are some of the people young Mr. Babor spoke of, their fellow Libyans who couldn't be reasoned with, who were actually defending the nation's leader against a foreign-created insurgency, who would only fight to the death. Their hands were forced into this fratricide. But here we see that in many cases, the despised loyalists were taken alive, rendered harmless, perhaps preached to a bit, and then killed without mercy.

A 21 October tweet from James W. Foley:
@jfoleyjourno: 95 bodies on field from Gaddafi's last battle #sirte, most killed by nato or in battle, 6 or so clearly executed
The NATO presumption is from the bodies being burnt, but there are some questions about that. Others say the number of clear executions is a bit higher. As passed on by Human Rights Investigations:
Human Rights Watch visited the site where Muammar Gaddafi was captured, and found the remains of at least 95 people who had apparently died that day. The vast majority had apparently died in the fighting and NATO strikes prior to Gaddafi’s capture, but between six and ten of the dead appear to have been executed at the site with gunshot wounds to the head and body.
Dan Rivers for CNN said HRW had found "at least ten" captives, three of them shown, "shot at point blank range."

As Reuters reported:
Fallen electricity cables partially covered the entrance to the drainage pipes and the bodies of three men, apparently Gaddafi bodyguards lay at the entrance to one end, one in shorts probably due to a bandaged wound on his leg.

Four more bodies lay at the other end of the pipes. All black men, one had his brains blown out, another man had been decapitated, his dreadlocked head lying beside his torso.
[...]
Joyous government fighters fired their weapons in the air, shouted "Allahu Akbar" and posed for pictures.
Update December 5:
In the comments below, details start to emerge about more captives, taken alive on the 20th (that is, NOT part of the few initial executions) who were later killed and then dumped, along with hundreds of other "unidentified" dead in the Sirte mass grave. Libya S.O.S. passed on a posting on Facebook of many of the decaying faces photographed before burial. Among the early internees, number 113 has been identified as Haj Faraj al Husona, seen alive in this video. That's an undeniable match, if I can't vouch for the ID (top image below). In a rare update at Libya S.O.S., another captive from the video was linked, by an e-mail, to victim #81 and given as Abdullah Hasnawi, born 1993 (lower image).
One other idea worth exploring here, perhaps, is the possibility that the strike that burnt this convoy was something other than a NATO missile attack. That will kill many people in cruel ways, but it's not really avoidable once the firing starts. But the possibility has been mentioned that they were massacred by hand, then the scene simply burned to make it seem an air strike happened. Until I examine the scene closer, I have no solid opinion, but it is odd that these cars struck as they tried to drive away seem to have all been parked in a field when they were burned. Maybe I just missed the explanation for that.

Updates Dec. 8/9
Captor: The English-Speaker
Some fascinating developments in comments. Thanks to readers Tawergha and Felix, another video shows these same captives being ordered onto a flatbed truck prior to the execution of some (or all?) of them. A possible American tells them in English to "go, go, go," "move, move," and "come on, get back." 

Another (or the same) person, light-skinned and bearded, is trying to smoke a Greek-made "American Legend" cigarette. It's not clear what these clues mean, but there's some speculation below, perhaps linking back to the Gaddafi convoy and an odd figure with a unique story of his involvement in the doomed ("betrayed") extraction operation. 

One important question raised by contributor Petri Krohn - were the captives even really part of the convoy, or just random locals misattributed? Either way, they were apparently slaughtered after their capture.

Captive: The Guy in the Cast
And reader Tawergha brings an original video (youtube link) for another execution proven by video, which I hadn't mentioned in the post body yet. This the man with the "bandaged wound,"actually a full cast, and he was alive, harmless, little flight risk, then dead in the same spot:

Notes, by myself and others, for now in comments. It's getting to be an amazing discussion,far better than this post is now.

Update Dec 28: New Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpdnf8ah9JY

Showing the purported first moments after the NATO strike on this parked arrangement of vehicles, as rebels first walked in and assessed the scene. This video will offer new details, though I'm not versed enough in those available to say what's new here. There are a lot of horrible types of dead on display here, but one pattern strikes me. We hear that the vehicles were hit, but many of the charred and sometimes limbless, headless, etc. bodies are laying several feet away from the vehicles we're to presume they were killed in. Burning people will sometimes get out and run, further away than these. Theones who couldn't have gotten out... The semi-random piling of many of the bodies could be the effect of rebels having pulled them out for processing. It does also resemble how they arrange people they've executed on site.

And a while back Russia Today ran a great piece largely based on these photo-video match-ups, showing some I hadn't seen before. On Youtube.

To the extent I can read the numbers, which is total, they offer guesses I haven't verified  for victims #85, 87 (in the video still frame above), 99 (an old-ish man), and 81 (mentioned above, 19-year-old Abdullah Hasnawi). The faces are blurred in the video, but that's why I have my own copies. I'll make graphics to compare and let others do the same. The numerical lumping is a good clue - captured together, killed together, numbered and buried together. That's the zone to look for more matches in.

66 comments:

  1. Here is a video of the aftermath of the NATO airstrike on the Gaddafi convoy.

    http://dai.ly/syD2vA

    Many of the victims have been burnt by the bombing and strafing. (DU?) Some may have been executed. 95 victims seems plausible.

    This may not be massacre stuff by the standards of this site, but it shows the devastating power of NATO's bootless war and occupation (also known as the No-fly zone).

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  2. Another video showing the aftermath of the bombing of the Gaddafi convoy here. It shows about eight handcuffed survivors at the beginning. I supposed some of these captives were executed but at least three of them indeed survived as Gaddafis driver Huneish Nasr and probably the sons of defense minister Abu Bakr Jabr shown in this video. As far as I know, also the defense minister was one of those killed under "unclear" circumstances.

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  3. Was just tipped off to a different view of the same scene:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcIWSdXvEWc

    That's a start. I'm still too obsessed with other slices to add much here.

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  4. Peet - that second video has been pulled. Sky seems to show the bodies covered up in the ruined convoy outside the electricity sub-station here
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXrfmXDWDMc&NR=1

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  5. Damn, and I didn't get around to saving it. Darn accounts that mix good evidence videos with outright swiped ones!

    And another video!

    There was a minister mentioned - was the defense guy who wound up killed?

    I also wanted to comment on the first comment. It's not a rebel atrocity, or anyone's, by normal reckoning. But what a bomb can do to a person is often more cruel than what any human would do, and there's not even the option of surrendering to a bomber or drone. All they can do is kill.

    So it's still a bad thing I want to talk about, and the bombing provides gthe background of death against which the summary executions are highlighted.

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  6. Google search saves the day!

    Missing video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EoIiL2nRMI

    This video was uploaded by YouTube user modabella. The account has been terminated "due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants" including: DigiSay Limited, FA Premier League, Digital Sound - Mazzika.

    The title of the video is still available: "موقع القبض على القذافي لحظة..."

    A Google search on the id "5EoIiL2nRMI" shows that it was included in the favorites list of user administrator1610, as can be seen through Google cache. Copy-paste reveals this text:

    2:18
    موقع القبض على القذافي لحظة القبض على حراسه و وزير دفاعه و مسح الموقعGaddafi capture location guards and minister of defense capture
    modabella... - 97,745 views

    A search on the Arabic language part of the title leads to this mirrored copy:

    Gaddafi capture location sweep جديد القبض على القذافي .flv
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNyEWZjtT98
    Uploaded by Ahmedhyran on Oct 25, 2011

    The length is the same, 2:18, so most likely this is the same video.

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  7. Great work, Petri. The burnt out convoy doesn't look much like a NATO bombing site.

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  8. Great, Petri. It is definitly the same video, I'm a bungler with such things.

    The "defense guy" in the video has the sonorous name Abu Baker Junis Jaber and was the quite popular leader of the libyan army. Here he is during a visit at the Brega frontlines in June.

    I think he can be recognized at 0:55 in the video which Petri recovered now. Another video shows that he later on was exhibited in Misrata together with Muammar and Mutassim (after 1:54). A better foto from the same place is here.

    Anyway, I can't see signs of execution yet.

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  9. Shot from right side on stretcher here in QuatchiCanada video.

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  10. A third time-great work, Petri. I have both saved now.

    I'll start a separate post for Defense Minister Jaber. Like Muammar and Mutassim, he deserves separate treatment. This will be for the anonymous guars and attendants who were slaughtered.

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  11. About 2.17 here العثور على اموال طائلة في سرت من قبل ثوار الشرق , a dead African surrounded by gold, money, uploaded by BTV TelevisionBenghazi. The rebels are named at the start. Probably also someone at 1.51. Report here. This was reported on 11 November on Al-Libya transmitted from Doha,allegedly showing a suburb of Sirte, Zanaki Kamish (which sounds a bit like Khamis). The dead person looks pretty fresh.

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  12. Back to the burnt convoy scene - more footage here from AP (and duplicated elsewhere) - just a couple of bodies visible, not burnt...good shot of the sub-station at 0.47. Why are cars normally burnt after a crime? To hide evidence. Like, perhaps graffiti?

    See also Dan Rivers reporting for CNN Check the bodies dumped in the central reservation of the highway at 1.43. Rivers says there are 95 bodies in the immediate area, of which 10 have been shot at point blank range.(c.f tweet by Foley)

    Other footage on AFPTV, (Agence France) Yahya Hassouna reporting.

    The official story seems highly unlikely.

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  13. I think we have a first clear evidence for an execution in front of the concrete pipe. In the first Gaddafi capturing video a young man with gypsum-leg is sitting in front of the pipe at 0:06. He's clearly not serious injured.
    At 0:41 and later in this video we see the same young man lying dead at the same place.

    Also other dead bodies (as that of Junis Jabr) have apparently been added in the mean time.

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  14. Good catch, Mr.73. That kid isn't clearly executed afterwards (not likely among the ten), but he seems to be among the executed (a biggernumber probably). Barring a sudden militant attack from the raving madman in a leg cast, anyway, that made it self-defense.

    As for the burnt scene, I'll have to have another look. Could this all be a rebel job full of atrocity, burned and called a NATO strike?

    On the Sirte money find, sickening people quoted in the article, and the video link is wrong, brings one right back here. This should do it however.

    Didn'tal-Libya used to be Seif's channel, based in Libya? When did the Qataris take it over?

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  15. Here is a version of the video linked above in the December 5, update that identifies many of the victims:

    مجموعة من الثوار يقتلون شباب سرت المدنيين بعد اعطائهم الامان
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ltE0h1o9Y
    Uploaded by Alepefree on Dec 4, 2011

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  16. the Alepefree (from Malaysia....) video is the same as that uploaded a few days earlier, but with a few facebook death photos at the end relating to content.

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  17. This video by Alepefree uploaded on Oct 30, 2011 shows a photograph (0:25) of executed captives in front of a wall, in a scene very similar to the one in the video. (The wall is not the same, it is unplastered.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XblOGoOsNQQ

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  18. I already posted this site, but I did not explain the video. This video also shows before and after shoots of the men found in Sirte. Check it out. And the second site has better close up shots of the victims in Sirte too. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=202195866529771


    http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=318601544817874&set=a.318601344817894.83619.241252109219485&type

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  19. EWO: I'll need to update my Flash player before I can see the video. :( Will see about that - I might not be able to install it (old OS). The close up is only of #67, different view than shown by Libya S.O.S. of the same unnamed corpse. Some of the victims, I'm afraid to look at the full-res image.

    PK: That wall of victims may seem similar, but it's an older incident, from about October 12, mentioned here (the photo in question isn't shown but mentioned - search for the word "frogs" and you can see it in better resolution from The Atlantic).

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  20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9WithzfTZ8

    In the video above the same captives are shown via a different camera. At 2:51 someone is commanding in what seems to be American-accented English "go, go, go go" as a result of which the captives get up and climb onto a flatbed truck.

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  21. Tawergha! (ALmost want to say "Mr. T"), good to have a comment from you, and another video.

    This does seem to be a new view, and that does sound like "go, go, go" as the next batch of men stands and follows the first towards the big flatbed. Many of them - all? Were then trucked to the execution site. Extremely sad, but as the bumper stickers here say "freedom isn't free." You wanna help NATO economies become free to tap your oil and reward you with kickbacks and less demonization? The rebels know you gotta make someone pay.

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  22. @Tawergha. Indeed. It is Go Go Go Move Move. Although it doesn't seem to me to be a western accent. However, at 3.23 the accent Come on, get back is definitely North American to me. The bearded military guy (man with wedding ring on hand is on his right) and smoking AMERICAN LEGEND (3.31) US cigarettes seems in charge. US Boots on Ground? "push push...".

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  23. @Caustic Logic. Glad to be able to contribute.

    @felix. I overlooked the "come on, get back". It's definitely there. Thanks.

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  24. Do we have any reason to believe that these men the video claims as "mercenaries who attempted to escape from neighborhood No. 2 of Sirte with Gaddafi" were in fact traveling with the Gaddafi convoy? To me they seem more like a random group of civilians (and suspected fighters) abducted from Sirte?

    I would really like to know the location of the power distribution substation where Gaddafi pickups were bombed. The location of the storm drain is well known, but the substation does not seem to be anyway nearby. I very much doubt the scenery on the video can be matched to any spot near the substation.

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  25. @Petri

    You're right, there is no reason to belive that these guys realy belonged to the convoy. The outer appearance don't let them look like trained fighters.

    The spot where the convoy was bombed was given by BBC and is marked in wikimapia at the same place. According to the latter source the power substation is the walled area in the south. Information in Wikimapia may be false but it should be worth to have a look there. There are indeed three almost transparent electricity pylons directly in front of the eastern wall.

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  26. NATO attack my foot....look at that wall. Immaculate. In the Crimenes de la OTAN Video at 1.19, you can see the much larger power mast, NE of those on the eastern wall of the substation,as pointed out by Peet, also visible on the aerial view, half way to the sewage plant.

    Strangely it was the Daily Telegraph's Afghanistan correspondent, Ben Farmer (what, nothing doing in Kabul?) who was on the scene, the last journo in town. His official narrative is here, including the references to SAS and Qatari special forces. Actually , it reads like a fairy story to me. A CNN video is here, with Farmer on the blower to the studio. Why was the convoy taking the pretty route?

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  27. For the record, transcript of Ben Farmer's piece to CNN ...
    It seems that a column of vehicles tried to break out of Sirte in the morning at about 8 o'clock and there were about 15 or 20 vehicles which tried to break out of the western side. They parked up after they had got about two miles outside Sirte and they it seems at that point were hit by a NATO bomb. This was virtually all destroyed. He was in ....those vehicles... He survived and he fled with a handful of survivors to a drain which was going under a road and it was there that the rebels found him and captured him.
    (anchor asks about drain...)
    It was a very sort of nondescript drain, it was concrete tubing about 70 feet long passing under a dual carriageway ,and the pipe was about 3 feet wide. Inside it was full of rubbish and trash and rocks and sand and so it was really quite a nondescript piece of drain.
    Farmer next reports from having seen rebel mobile phone videos...
    "He was confused he was saying what's going on what are you doing ,what's happening" (who wrote this script???)

    "certainly there is a suggestion he was executed....there have been suggestions he was just executed and the British Foreign Secretary has raised that possibility "

    What do we really know about all this? Nothing at all. There is nothing to be believed in all the reporting. It is not a credible narrative.

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  28. I've been thinking about the English speaker who authoritatively said "Go, go, go,go, move, move" and "Come on, get back". Let's not forget that most of the captives had earlier been spoken to in Arabic and responded. It would make sense then that the commands would have been issued in Arabic as well. They were not. We know of at least two Americans combatants who were present in Sirte. Kevin Dawes, who I think should be discounted, and Mathew VanDyke, who I think should not be discounted. Question: Does anyone here know how to isolate the English speaker's voice and run it through some kind of voice recognition software and compare it to VanDyke's voice? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skNcmU3BCx0 If we can pin-point the English-speaker we could possibly develop evidence of who engineered the massacre. It was obviously a war crime and should not go unnoticed or unpunished.

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  29. A powerful image of the long-haired defender dead before the pipes.

    Okay, onto the English-speaker in the video. Seems to remain near the cameraman, at least at the points he's audible.

    American accent, possibly, but the "ah" sound of back in "get back" sounds European to me, or maybe east coast. The "go, go, go" sounds Arab tinged, but that could be picked up. I dunno - complex, vague stuff. Also, English might serve as a "close-enough" universal language for many others who don't know any Arabic. They don'tknow (Greek/French/etc) but they might get the English I learned in college)

    The cigarettes are a great placement. Is this the English speaker? Or is that the cameraman? Or someone else? The brand is unfamiliar, and doesn't sound American. All I can find suggests they're made in Greece, actually.

    So, hmmm....

    @Tawergha on software: That sounds like high end stuff to me ($$), and would require speech samples, etc. If enough is available, it might work to some degree, but... well, I for one weary just thinking about trying to follow that up. Not sure we have enough here to recognize a voice by, but if you or anyone can compare and hear a similarity, that's free if not scientific, and worth explaining for others.

    Nothing to add on the possibly made-up bomb strike. Sorry,I'm a downer tonight. :( Less time again, until a week from Sunday...

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  30. Thanks to Peet73's comment I went an put the following video together. http://youtu.be/OUxQREnSjkk Hopefully it may be helpful.

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  31. Excellent, Tawergha. Notice how much extra graffiti has occurred around the long haired defender, compared with the picture linked above by C.L. Yes, American Legend are Greek fags. Need to listen to the dialogue again.

    Notice the Daily Telegraph correspondent wrote "He survived and he fled with a handful of survivors to a drain".
    Is that a handful of bodies there? Or more?

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  32. There is a photo of the drain in the process of having more spray graffiti added for the benefit of journalists,with the body of the long haired defender lying there as an exhibit here in the Daily Mirror, The area where Gaddafi was captured

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  33. Checking out the video. Great work on it, by the way. You make sure people catch it. (I might give people too much credit in my own videos and leave things too subtle)

    The burst of gunfire could be an execution,made to look like fighting death (no single point-blank shot and no binding is all it takes). It could also be just celebratory. The shouting Allahu Akbar with it could support either version, I suppose. They might be smart enough to wait until no cameras are filming right there to do the dirty work.

    I'll look at the shadows later to see roughly how much time elapsed - later video shadows aren't clear (due to smoke?), but short it seems, and long in the earlier one. So I suspect some longer time has passed, like a couple of hours.

    Either way, this video helps exercise useful mental muscles about what's happening off frame. That's clearly the same kid, clearly not too much of a threat or escape risk, killed in just about the same spot they had him sitting in harmlessly.

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  34. Also, one thought on the NATO strike. I acknowledge I'm totally vague on the sequence of events, but just saw this on the Wikipedia entry:
    A Royal Air Force reconnaissance aircraft spotted the convoy moving at high speed, after NATO forces intercepted a satellite phone call made by Gaddafi.
    Seriously? That's the best they could think of? A seasoned paranoid (with reason!) leader of a "rogue nation," under the tightest siege yet, with the capitol lost, armed thugs all around and computerized drones, hellfire missiles, etc...

    Hey, let's place a cell phone call. Maybe a tweet too, check the Facebook page, order a pizza with the credit card. Possible of course, but I'm not buying it.

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  35. I just added a comment or two on your Gaddafi glee page re versions of events. It's all a bit OBL Abbotabad-ish.

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  36. The two Ghaddafi capture videos are yielding a treasure trove of information. I had noticed some of this previously, but wanted to deal with it one by one. So here's another video dealing with the multiple killings during Ghaddafi's capture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TdUNck0rGE&feature=youtu.be

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  37. If one looks at the two videos closely, one will also notice the displacement of bodies at the location. It suggests that some of these people were alive, though unconscious and then killed after having woken up and moved.

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  38. @Tawergha – Thank's for the video. Here is a functioning link:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TdUNck0rGE
    (I used some HTML coding in my comment to get the link working, "a href=" etc...)

    I have also subscribed to your channel on YouTube:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/tawergha

    ***

    As I am discussing technology this is the place to make a request to Adam: could you please add a "Recent Comments Widget" to the page to get a "feed" of comments on the front page. There is so much material here now that it is totally impossible to follow any discussion, if any, outside the five latest posts.

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  39. I totally overlooked the "frogs" photograph you had linked to in the The Sirte Massacres: 42 Bodies by Muttassim's House post. Now I think it is dynamite evidence.

    Alone it proves nothing, but with the new videos and photos of the Sirte massacre victims we are finally starting to see the pattern in the way rebels treat captives.

    The first step is lining up the captives against a wall for video interrogation. We first see this in the Grand Mosque in Shahet (Cyrene) on February 20th. see: Video Study: Mercenaries Surrender in Shahet. The Alepefree videos show a similar situation with the "Gaddafi" captives in Sirte.

    The "frogs" photo shows the dead bodies were not just dumped next to a wall, but were lined up for interrogation in the same manner.

    We now have proof that after interrogation rebel captives typically end up dead.

    In some cases the interrogation happens with the captives lined up sitting on Libyan-style wall-lined sofas, as was the case with the 22 soldiers killed in the original al-Baida massacre. (...or was it in Dernah after all?) Being interrogated inside does not seem to help, people are massacred anyway.

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  40. Great stuff, guys. Sadly, I have to run and work all day, so nothing much now. A recent comments widget is a great idea. I'd never heard of one, and it's not listed in the available items on Blogger(or I probably would have it here already). The site you linked seems to explain how to get one, but I didn't have the time yet to see if it works. Excited to try later.

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  41. Looks like I figured it out quickly. It's there, under a different tab. I was on "basics" and didn't know there were other tabs. Will see later what else might be useful. Thanks, Petri!
    :)

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  42. I do wish it'd just show apostrophes, and perhaps name the post where the comments appear...

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  43. Excellent video, that. The NGO worker in the latter segment gives me a rare glimmer of hope. I noticed a few apparent guesses at matching captives to faces of the dead. Blurred, but numbers readable, will have a look at verifying and updating...

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  44. I was about to links to the Russia Today video, but I see Peet has done it already. Russia Today makes clear what I said earlier: the executed civilians on the video have nothing to do with the Gaddafi convoy; most likely they are not even pro-Gaddafi fighters. They are just a random collection of Sirte civilians of fighting age suspected of "working for Gaddafi."

    The rest of the video is a Western whitewash; the HWR asshole Fred Abrahams in New York is there to downplay the ethnic cleansing: "violence is quote bad", "the town we looked at was called Tawergha", ... He knows all the facts, but is doing everything to present it as if nothing happened. What if the Tawergha people were "Gaddafi supporters" / working with the Libyan Army and Libyan law enforcement? It is not a crime, at least not from the "human rights" point of view.

    In the end we have Mohammad Miloud Benhammed, the vice president of the Mitiga missing persons group. Quote: "This is the only place in Libya were families of alleged Gaddafi supporters can turn for help." I thought Dr. Salem al-Farjani was there to help these people.

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  45. I've added the video to the post finally, some notes coming.

    @Petri: I'm not sure what the claim they ARE part of the convoy is based on, and they do look pretty random. But then, so do the people "found" actually with Gaddafi. But we can adduce a likely connection at least between the people processing them and the convoy. If we take Odendaal's claim he was in the convoy, and the Greek-made cigarettes in one of the rebels' hands.

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  46. This Huffington Post article from October 25th interviews Gaddafi's chief bodyguard Mansour Dao in captivity:

    In Sirte, loyalist fighters were led by Muatassim, who initially commanded about 350 men, Dao said. Many fled and toward the end, the fighting force diminished to about 150, said Dao, dressed in navy blue pajamas.

    1) Did anyone get out alive?

    2) We have a thousand bodies and only 350 fighters to begin with. Where did the other 650 come from? Sirte civilians? "African mercenaries?"

    The number of fighters on both sides is amazingly small. I have always wondered what happened to the Libyan Army. It is as if there never was any.

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  47. Makhluf el-Ferjani of the Sirte military council said:

    The revolutionaries are less than 1 kilometer from the central square. We control about 90 percent of Sirte,” Makhluf el-Ferjani of the Sirte military council said.
    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2011/10/12/2003515562

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  48. ABDUL RAUF, a doctor who sides with the revolutionary forces, said he examined some of the dead and thinks they were probably killed by Gadhafi loyalists last weekend, as NTC troops launched their all-out assault to finally capture Sirte.

    "I think that they were people which they held, and when our fighters reached there, like it's the last chance: Just kill them and run away. Just don't leave them to tell the story," Rauf said. "It's like that. You want to kill the story with them."

    ANIS FAREJ , who was detained for nearly a month in the Sirte jail, said he believes the bodies are his fellow prisoners, though he could only recognize and name a few of them. One was ABDULLAH FERJANI , Farel said, a sheik from Sirte who was arrested because of his anti-Gadhafi stance.

    Rauf said the bodies are hard to identify because they're now swollen. The ongoing hostilities have made it difficult for coroners or pathologists to attend to them.

    The apparent slaughter in Sirte comes after the discovery in August of up to 153 charred bodies in a small warehouse next to one of Gadhafi's military complexes in Tripoli, the capital. The building was said to be a makeshift jail for people who helped the opposition during the uprising against the deposed Libyan leader.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/10/16/libya-sirte-massacred-bodies.html

    ReplyDelete
  49. "I am perfectly aware of the quality of the regime in Libya, there was a lot of talk about it,” he said. “But for some reason, no one is showing and telling us what is happening today in Sirte and other cities that supported former Libyan leader [Muammar] Gaddafi.”

    "Horrible crimes are taking place in these cities but no one talks about this,” Putin noted. “They have been forgotten somehow, [and this shows] the terrible consequences of foreign – and primarily – armed intervention."

    http://rt.com/news/putin-speech-syria-libya-821/

    ReplyDelete
  50. @hurriya - Putin is quite right. What is happening to the (black) people of Tawergha is happening similarly to the (lightskinned) people of Sirte, and to (lightskinned) Palestinian exiles. That's why I suggested in one of my earlier posts that Tawergha should not be interpreted simplistically in terms of race and race alone. Yes, race comes into it, but the overall situation is more complex than just the ethnic dimension.

    ReplyDelete
  51. you are right afrikat , everybody can become a victim of their evil , but it's clear that the dark skinned people are the dupe at most.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1WkC0W_XA4&feature=youtu.be
    please watch the other side of libya
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUjB2Ltea44&feature=autoplay&list=ULAClJ9SNCJ_E&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=2

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z57FnQlQ4r4&feature=BFa&list=ULwKEcbKBO7Cw&lf=mfu_in_order
    اعدام بالجملة في سرت على يد مليشيات مصراتة



    http://i42.tinypic.com/a2aumg.jpg
    manchester guys bani walid
    http://i39.tinypic.com/2q19swo.jpg
    http://i44.tinypic.com/j9okyu.jpg
    http://i39.tinypic.com/27zhl5i.jpg
    http://i44.tinypic.com/23tr1ar.jpg

    http://i39.tinypic.com/ehx9y1.jpg
    http://i44.tinypic.com/245x0s8.jpg
    here in sirte

    ReplyDelete
  52. SIRTE
    There are no names in one graveyard, only numbers: 572 so far and counting. That's because the graves hold the bodies of alleged mercenaries. Most were killed in the fighting, but local officials freely admit that some were summarily executed.

    The governor of a prison in Misrata thinks that amounted to justice.
    "There was no mercy for foreign mercenaries," Sheikh Fathie Dariez said.

    Dao said Gadhafi had a force of about 350 when he arrived in Sirte but that dwindled to about 150 in the end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 12 oct
      http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/libya102011/s_l19_12053018.jpg



      october 29 2011/Twenty-six unmarked makeshift graves covered by breeze-blocks were discovered at a water treatment plant in Number Two district where pro-Kadhafi fighters put up a final stand after several weeks of heavy bombardment.


      “There are more than 50 civilians under the rubble, of women, of children. It’s horrible. We can’t get access. It would take bulldozers,” said a teary-eyed member of the charity, Mohammed Muftah.

      http://feb17.info/news/libyans-find-more-bodies-in-kadhafi-hometown/

      Delete
  53. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xly38e_sirte-bodies-buried-in-mass-grave-libya-vows-probe_news

    CITIZENS BURIED IN SIRTE

    ReplyDelete
  54. Have a look at the photo pages for the Sirte convoy massacre at reflextv the business of Paul Conroy

    ReplyDelete
  55. October 17, 2012

    The Libyan authorities have failed to carry out their pledge to investigate the death of Gaddafi, Libya’s former dictator, his son Mutassim, and dozens of others in rebel custody.

    The 50-page report, “Death of a Dictator: Bloody Vengeance in Sirte,”details the final hours of Muammar Gaddafi’s life and the circumstances under which he was killed.

    It presents evidence that Misrata-based militias captured and disarmed members of the Gaddafi convoy and, after bringing them under their total control, subjected them to brutal beatings. They then executed at least 66 captured members of the convoy at the nearby Mahari Hotel. The evidence indicates that opposition militias took Gaddafi’s wounded son Mutassim from Sirte to Misrata and killed him there.

    http://www.hrw.org/node/110790

    ReplyDelete
  56. Also killed, investigators believe, were at least 66 other members of the convoy, executed at the nearby Mahari Hotel.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/17/libya-gaddafi-summary-executions-sirte

    ReplyDelete
  57. Among those executed was Ahmed Ali Yusuf al-Ghariyani, 29, a navy recruit originally from Tawergha.

    In a phone video that is believed to show him in captivity after the battle, militia forces beat, kick and throw shoes at him, and taunt him about being from Tawergha, a town seen as being loyal to Gaddafi. Ghariyani's body was later found at the Mahari Hotel, and was photographed by hospital staff and buried as unidentified body number 86.

    He was later identified by family members from the photographs taken by the hospital staff.

    ReplyDelete
  58. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tBy98xKeXw&feature=youtu.be
    Libya: Bloody Vengeance in Sirte
    16 okt 2012 HumanRightsWatch
    *

    ‏@1D4TW
    Human Rights Watch, anxious to cash in on #Libya , produces an inconsequential and minimalist report that whitewashes the murder of Gaddafi

    *

    It took one year for Human Rights Watch to release the report. #gaddafi, his son Mutassim & 100s of loyalists were brutally executed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. From Libya to Syria. Mercenaries for sale?

      The German blogger (Source is below the text) is convinced that he has found a video from Syria on YouTube that shows a guy, even better said, probably an U.S. citizen from San Diego, California. This man is already known from the times of the so-called “no-fly zone” in Libya.


      In Libya, this putative person has boasted himself of having worked as a Counter-Sniper in Sirte. He was even disappointed (look up Twitter) that he was not a observer of the horrific assassination of Gaddafi. It is probably also to assume, that he would have liked the situation to be a part of the torturers.

      While Human Rights Watch (HRW) came finally up with the truth of the murder of the former Libyan leader Gaddafi, one should be aware of the recent history of Human Rights Watch (HRW) in terms of Libya. It is the common process by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

      First underline the accusations against an unpleasant leadership, dictator or whatever, by so-called human right reports; then, a year or two years later, publish something that is more in line with the truth of these “old events” in order to save your ass and to show the people that you care about human rights and the truth. Human Rights Watch (HRW) was and is a tool for Western aims.

      http://www.syrianews.cc/american-sniper-from-libya-to-aleppo-syria/

      The mentioned Counter-Sniper from Libya, who is presumptive a US citizen from San Diego, California, was in Libya and came to Syria some time ago.
      At least, the video(s) suggest that it is the same person who is now working for the religious radicals and terrorists.

      Delete
  59. 19 September 2011There are mounting reports of casualties due to the NATO bombing.

    NATO spokesmen said yesterday that on Saturday NATO forces bombed 11 targets in Sirte, 11 in the nearby Al-Jufra oasis, and 3 in the city of Sabha, far to the south.

    Moussa Ibrahim, an official of the Gaddafi regime, released a statement yesterday saying that 354 people had been killed and 700 injured when a NATO air strike in Sirte hit the city’s main hotel and a nearby apartment block.

    He said an additional 89 people were still missing.

    “In the past 17 days,” he added, “more than 2,000 residents of the city of Sirte were killed in NATO air strikes.”

    NATO spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie summarily dismissed reports of Libyan civilian casualties, saying, “Most often, they are revealed to be unfounded or inconclusive.”

    The NATO war’s enormous cost in blood is not even disputed by NTC forces. According to NTC estimates released on September 8, the war in Libya has left 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded. It has been widely reported that NATO’s massive use of air power against Libyan cities, which necessarily entails civilian casualties, has enabled the NTC to defeat loyalist forces despite NTC units’ lack of discipline and military training.

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/liby-s19.shtml

    ReplyDelete
  60. Of the 250 pple found in #GaddafI's convoy on Oct 20/2011 by #Libya's rebels, 66 were executed after being taunted for their skin color.

    In the report released yesterday HRW details some of the bodies found at the Mahari Hotel in Sirte on October 21, 2011

    *
    For the record, here is how @HRW reported the very same mass-killing of hand-cuffed dark-skinned prisoners in Tripoli http://bit.ly/T2C6Rs


    https://twitter.com/hrw/status/107858380298784768


    (As an interesting aside – the Huffington Post, which is now part of AOL, has censored our comment on the HRW article which criticised HRW’s disgraceful coverage of the LIbyan conflict in which it turned a blind eye to the racist atrocities being committed there.)

    HRW are still peddling the myth of a ‘peaceful revolution for human rights in Libya’ and purport to be shocked to discover the current “Libyan authorities” have made no attempt to investigate the murders of the loyalist prisoners in Sirte.

    According to their report HRW had a “team” in Sirte around this time, so perhaps they will produce a report, at some stage, about the NATO and rebel bombing of the town?

    http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2012/10/17/human-rights-watch-report-on-rebel-massacre-in-sirte/

    http://libyasos.blogspot.gr/2011/09/libya-sirte-1516-september-2011-war.html

    ReplyDelete
  61. HRW limited its report of "dozens" of victims rather than thousands as is the case,
    by highlighting some of the deaths in Sirte last year.

    The town was laid siege in a style reminiscent of the siege of Stalingrad.

    Its citizens were denied water, medicine and food for months while being bombed by U.S.-led NATO air forces.

    http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=631774

    The real figure is in the tens of thousands.

    ReplyDelete
  62. https://rt.com/files/news/libya-gaddafi-executions-sirte-608/i6c990c7032b9284e8ebb47927a20201c_k-4.jpg

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32768.htm


    http://i45.tinypic.com/30bd3x2.jpg
    khadafi capture area 2
    http://i47.tinypic.com/35jht0n.jpg

    *

    http://i49.tinypic.com/jq5co5.jpg
    vehicle strike area
    http://i47.tinypic.com/2449r4h.jpg

    *

    http://i47.tinypic.com/2h4mg6s.jpg
    mahari hotel
    http://i50.tinypic.com/2yk0tbl.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  63. Did you know that you can earn cash by locking special sections of your blog or site?
    Simply join AdWorkMedia and embed their content locking plugin.

    ReplyDelete

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