Khoms Containers Suffocations Timeline

Posted by Felix
See earlier posts Khoms Cargo Container Incident and Khoms Torture System and "Death Group" .

Photos:Perps at the containers
. The Guardian video seems to show a different container base. [details in following posts]

Timeline
May 20 Date when Anmesty International says some were held from and who may have been involved in anti-government protests [AIUK, Sept 2]
May 29 Khoms resident Abdul Salam says [10 sept] is date "My brother went missing on May 29th, at 1pm" [Reuters/ITN]
June 5 23.00 hrs - according to Ahmed Mohamed Ali the time when food was placed into his container of 19 people.
June 6 alleged date of suffocation in the containers.
June 7 vide infra, Aug 20
July 27 Date of TV video "Green Libya Khoms": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kFD8YoHQJc
Also date when @libyanproud tweets that Gaddafi forces are using a container compound in Khoms each one housing 30+ people.
Aug 19 Guardian reports They [Zliten and Misrata rebels] are now establishing control of the town.
Aug 20 Group of a "defected soldier" (defected from what? Prisoner perhaps?) according to @LibyaNewMedia is alleged to have put 26 into a container on June 7.. Libya Uprising Archive immediately calls for information.Or concocted stories.
Aug 21 Date when Reuters reports rebels took control of Khoms and allegedly found footage on a Gaddafi soldier's mobile phone. Also allged date when survivors from June 6 were released from detention centres in Tripoli, alleged by Anmesty International. vide infra
Aug 29 @LibyaBreakNews reports two containers full of burnt bodies found in Barkow area, after execution with gunshots.
Aug 30 Anmesty International visits site "two days ago" [interpolation of Sky news comments]i.e. article published Sept 1.
Aug 31 @AlKhums reports youth of AlKhums burned alive in container.
Sept 1 (?) Visit of Anna Botting of SkyNews, report uploaded Sept 2. Coincides with publication of Anmesty International Report.
Sept 4 (night) 15 bodies brought to Khoms hospital.(reuters) after they were dug up on the edge of the Sidi Muftah cemetery, just outside Khoms, where n a resident said he had seen lots of vehicles coming to the cemetery at night a few weeks earlier,

MASS GRAVE(S): -مقبرة جماعية مقابر جماعية
Sept 6 Reuters report on Khoms "torture centre" Guardian reports 17 bodies found in mass grave Footage of yard with many containers.
Sept 7 unverified tweet: 4libya Jeanie Abdullah
A mass grave was discovered in #Khums with 40 bodies. Captured #Gaddafi officer said over 200 ppl killed & burried in mass graves. #Libya 8:42 PM Sep 7th, 2011
Daniel Etter, whose photos were used by HRW visits and photographs witnesses.

Sept 8 Karin Laub, Huffington Post reports [9 9 11] that on Thursday [Sept 8] the day after the burial in Qalaa, 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.
Tweer is taken to a remote location, Wadi Dufan 60km South of Khoms by a captured soldier where they proceed to exhume 18 bodies.
Sept 8 - evening A 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 [Reuters/ITN]
Sept 9 HRW Report Libya: 19 Suffocated in Gaddafi Detention
Sept 10 Al Jazeera names victims.
Sept 18 Libyan Youth reports the names of the 18. Also adds للمعلومة : ان العقيد المسئول عن جريمة القتل وهو سعيد الدبوب سرت الجنسية قد اصيب بالجلطة مساء بعد الحادثة ونفس اليوم للجريمة ونقل لمستشفي الخمس ومات ليلا . Translate: For information: The Colonel in charge of the murder, Saeed Aldbob Sirte nationality was injured after the incident stroke and evening the same day of the crime and the transfer to hospital and died five at night.

Sept 27 Colonel Salem Tweer dies 27 Sept 2011 Bani Walid front, promoted posthumously to Brigadier General (Facebook memorial page
Oct 20 FreeLibyanYouth reports the alleged perpetrator, Ali Bishti has been caught between Bani Walid and Tarhouna.
March 2 2012 UN OHCHR report.

Videos

Jubilation Khoms. uploaded 22 August http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PlflMtkK98


Guardian video, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/sep/06/gaddafi-torture-mass-grave-video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcZq3XoQKnE تحرير اسرى في مدينة الخمس مبنى البراعم Liberation of prisoners in a building, Khoms. Uploaded alphasrv3 Sept 7 2011 (the same user also uploaded footage showing normal situation in Khoms by 28 August.
A Facebook page dates this as Aug 22

Al Jazeera footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acELYC8BY2w uploaded Sept 9 2011. Shows Imam Ali gettng a warm reception at the containers from residents.
CNN report from Sept 10.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQB6gUTDrzM. 18 Bodies unloaded at Tripoli Medical Centre. Reported says they "suffocated to death in June after being locked in two metal shipment containers for 14 hours by a death squad loyal to Moammar gaddafi"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkptUH-aIT8 Uploaded Sept 13: procession of wooden coffins in Khoms: "burial of the martyrs of the prison container :مدينة الخمس مراسم دفن شهداء سجن الحاوية

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bft0iR9JAco :فيديو لجثث شهداء حاويات الخمس التي وجدت بمنطقة العربان , showing body bags in Tripoli, uploaded Sept 10 by aimanlibyan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUC4hx5uhJ8 Libya Mass Graves uploaded by StefanellaStef Sept 15, with footage at 1.25 of hosptal trolleys purporting to show the bodies of 19 men dug up from a mass grave 120km outside Tripoli followed by the usual "Shipping containter torture video" [Report by Stephanie Fried of CCTV] The Sea Containers Hamilton Ltd box from Bermua which she shows is just an example, in case we haven't seen one before...
August 15: NATO Bombing footage from Khoms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ae-DOv70u0 : War Crimes Conducted by NATO in Homs [Al-Khums] Libya Aug 15, 2011 Uploaded 16 Aug by OnToDenver

ITN (Reuters) video: 10 September http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/2011/09/10/RTV2563911/?s=mass+grave+tripoli&st=0&pn=1

Finally a series of 5 videos uploaded by freekhoms1 in which Sheikh Mohamed Ali, aka Sheikh Mohamed Al-Tarhouni, expounds the story. Here,for example, is no 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKmUfyue35w : شهادة الشيخ محمد الترهوني عن الأسر وطرق التعذيب 2 uploaded December 8.

Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBCLTp-2PBA from May 9h 2012, the official narrative on video with exhumation footage : هؤﻻء هم شهداء الحاوية.. فهل نسيناهم؟
Tweer speaks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suH0Q3hhZgo&feature=relmfu كلمة الشهيد سالم الطوير في تأبين شهداء الحاوية undated, uploaded FreeKhoms1 Jan 3 2012.

http://staff.blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya?page=57

Akhbar Alaan video http://akhbar.alaan.tv/video/world-news/Libya-strike-protest-bombing-fields-Gaddafi-N4bR/ uploaded September 6.

BBC ArabicNews http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-cHDSQQHw September 6


A report, undated, in the Libyan Herald must be read with caution. Despite being, allegedly, in the thick of the revolution, where, in Khoms the first martyr was described as Yusuf Al-Jawadi,, the writer describes the container suffocation thus:
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.
No names, no witnesses. But trucks??

Another incident is recorded there:
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.

Why would it go unreported by a pro-rebel press anxious to push out any fake stories? A mystery. Perhaps it never happened.
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. Allegedly.

Telegraph article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8745164/Libya-Gaddafi-squads-tortured-people-in-shipping-containers.html

Photos by Francois Mori late Thursday Sept 8, Tripoli morgue.

http://newshopper.sulekha.com/mideast-libya_photo_1972192.htm
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/mideast-libya_photo_1972170.htm
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/mideast-libya_photo_1972167.htm
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/aptopix-mideast-libya_photo_1972164.htm
http://newshopper.sulekha.com/mideast-libya_photo_1972163.htm
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/latest_news.php?nid=32095 [Reuters Photo - A man who said he had been tortured by Gaddafi's forces shows his injuries in Khoms, some 120km (75 miles) east of Tripoli September 5.
The scar pattern is identical to Daniel Etter's photo the next day for HRW but with different clothing. It is intriguing that Mohamed Ahmed Ali's bushy beard is hidden in both photos...

Otherwise, there is an unusual absence of the usual mob of photojournalists eager to portray the sights shown to them by the rebels.

Report: Behind the Scenes of an Al Qaeda Massacre

May 28, 2012
small edit June 17


<< Behind the Scenes of An Al Qaeda Massacre {masterlist}

This post will host this second CIWCL report when it's completed and published. Until then I hope it can gather some final details with a little research

It should be a quick report, a simpler incident than the shed massacre, and already mostly of it we'll need is on file at the posts linked from the masterlist (top link).

I think the cover is done, at left, of course.

Previously called here "the Al Baida massacre," based on vague location understandings, the new name is stronger as well as rhyming. The report will emphasize the apparent Al-Hassadi - and thus Al Qaeda - link. It's a clear link, not even via an affiliated group - he used the training he got from Bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan to capture and execute these soldiers trying to defend their country.

What Needs Gathered
Nothing's really needed at this point, but there are surely some loose ends to be found about, and I will, but if others can help...

The location is one thing I personally gave up on. The Hassadi story has the massacre in or around Makhtoub, just southeast of Dernah (Al Qaeda central, and Hassadi's base). Google maps link, given asMatruba I looked in and around that town , couldn't find. Shouldn'tbe hard, it's barely a town at all. Below are some stitched images and notes I made months ago to convey the compound interior and exterior, for anyone else who wants to take a crack at it. Can anyone even get the sunlight direction here to narrow down if this road is east-west (my best guess) or whatever?

It's a small walled area (walls about six feet high, cinderblock and concrete), with its wall just ten feet off a two-lane paved road. There's little else around, suggesting its a ways outside of whatever town. A dirt trail parallels the road on the opposite side. Scrub prolferates. The hazy weather and weak mid-day light mess up my tricks to establish directions. A few angled trees grow to the right of the entry way, and from a distance we can see three more spindly ones to the left as well. The inside is partly dirt and/or grass, but mostly concrete. It looks like an overly-marked parking lot, a confusing montage of white and yellow lines at odd angles suggesting a lot and a highway or runway were fused together. Inner buildings are only faintly discernable to the right side and the rear. Little else can be told.

Qasr Ben Ghashir Alleged Victims

May 27, 2012
(incomplete, rough draft)
last edits May 29


<< Killings at Qasr Ben Ghashir


Two doctors and four officers
Qasr Ben Ghashir is the area right around Tripoli airport south of the Libyan capitol where an alleged mini-massacre by loyalist troops occurred, one tangled with the larger alleged Khamis Brigade shed massacre a few miles north at the Yarmouk base. Compared to some aspects of the bizarre alleged events at Qasr Ben Ghashir (QBG), the professions of the dead show a relative consistency. Doctors were among the dead, all witnesses seem to agree, but beyond that this too gets more confused. But that’s pretty good, really. Consider how totally consistent these reports are in agreeing on the death of these two doctors and four others.

The Washington Times, Aug. 26:

Early on Wednesday morning [Aug. 24], guards dragged six men, including two doctors, from solitary confinement and executed them with their Kalashnikovs, according to accounts. Mahmoud Okok, a 29-year-old engineer who had been detained at this site, told The Times that he and the other detainees panicked when they realized that the guards were planning to execute them all. They managed to break out of the prison. The five guards fled. Two of Mr. Okok’s friends, both engineers, were among the six men executed at Guser Bin Gashir.[AKS]

Two doctors, two young engineers, two others, per engineer Mahmoud Okok, killed on the 24th. Physicians for Human Rights found consistent reports:

Early on the morning of 21 August, a guard (name withheld) called out for two doctors and four other detainees from the group. They were blindfolded and led outside. Ali heard a round of gunfire and believed the guards killed the two doctors and four detainees.
Ali told PHR he “found five detainees shot and killed and one other gasping for breath.” Six fatalities were presumed PHR says the brigade “murdered six detainees.” [PHR p.34]

The UNHRC said doctors and someone referred to as “officers” were to be killed first, per the order from on high.

On 22 August 2011, in the morning, a detainee interviewed by the Commission heard Sergeant [030] talking on his mobile phone and saying that there were a large number of detainees. [...] [030] told them to execute the doctors and the “officers” and lock the others inside the warehouse.[UH]

The UNHRC found six detainees, “including three medical doctors,” were shot. Only three of the six died immediately, with three gravely wounded. The witnesses then scrambled for a vehicle to take them to hospital, with “another doctor” passing away before finally “the remaining two were evacuated to the Al-Afia Medical Centre in Qasr Ben Gushair.” [UH] The final confirmed death toll here is four. What happened at the hospital isn’t spelled out. The bodies were left behind to rot, for some reason.

Two or three doctors, two engineers, possibly “officers”: these are people of impressive professions. That Gaddafi’s thugs targeted people like these (as well as judges and lawyers, at Yarmouk) helps illustrate an important rebel propaganda point that Gaddafi hated Libya and wanted to destroy its institutions.

Robert Worth, in a recent New York Times Magazine article wrote of victims Dr. Omar Salhoba, one of the victims, and his alleged executioner, Marwan Gdoura. Dr. Omar's brother told Marwan's cousin, on a jail visit, "your cousin killed six very qualified people whom Libya will need, two doctors and four officers." [RW2] This same plan, including the doctors plus officers, is what we'll call the new accepted version. The UNHRC had come around to it, but with an extra doctor, and remaining unclear on officers being killed. But that's what the order said, per what the Rebels told them.

The precise formula Worth was handed - four officers plus the doctors - was first reported more obscurely alongside the Okok engineers version on Aug. 26. The Rebel-supporting Maktoob Blog had a report from early on August 26 from a "correspondent" in QBG This report lists six victims, four of them military officers and two doctors. Roughly translated from Arabic, it seems to say: "Six bodies of martyrs were recovered by the fifth column,"with no mention of the fellow prisoners who found them first. Both the escapees and the Tripoli fighters who ran across these bodiesof esteemed Libyan victims left them laying right there, due to the "presence of battalions," Makhtoub Blog relates.

They were named, as we've translated:
a) Brigadier M'Hamed Aldberza
b) Brigadier Mohammed Al-Massoud
c) Colonel Dr. Uh Mahmoud
d) Colonel Miftah Futaisi
e) Dr. Ali Alzerat (typo - should be "الدكتور على الضراط" - Al-Darrat).
f) Dr. Omar Salhouba (also translates Zleoppe - same name)

The Two Doctors and Some Brothers
On Dr. Ali Al-Darrat, Dr. Omar Salhoba, their interesting brothers and sometimes dead brothers, I have to thank contributors (Petri, Hurriya, Felix) for bringing me tidbits I wouldn't have found. Here I bring these together with a few others I did find.

Dr. Omar Salhouba/Salhoba
forthcoming...
reported killed at "Yarmouk" Aug. 24, but clearly QBG.
[SF] [RW2]

Nasser Salhoba
Dr. Omar's brother, enraged the photo of him killed, joined Jalal Al-Ragai's Tajoura fighters, becoming their chief interrogator for Gaddafi loyalist prisoners, always searching for the Human "why?" of his brother's senseless slaying by Gaddafi loyalists. [RW2] We're more concerned with the where, when, and how, and who questions...

Dr. Ali Al-Darrat
alt: Dr. Ali Ibrahim Aldurrat/Alzerat/Darrat
Dr. Darrat is a reasonably famous character in the Misrata rebel movement. His martyr's bio

Doctor Ali Darrat is a Libyan hero who left his life and job as a medical doctor in Germany to help his hometown of Misrata. He flew all the way to Malta, then sailed to Misrata putting his life on the line for his people. He was taken hostage by the brutal Gaddafi forces and African mercenaries in Tawurgha where he was doing his noble job of aiding injured civilians. His disappearance came in July and he was never heard from again.


According to Amnesty International, Dr. Darrat was one of the numerous detainees killed in cold blood at two military camps in Tripoli on 23 and 24 August. [DM1]

Amnesty International, Aug. 26:

Former detainees later told Amnesty International that they had heard guards opening five of the cells before gunshots were fired shortly afterwards.
Detainees panicked and broke out of their cells fearing they were about to be executed. By the time they got out, the five guards on duty had fled the scene, leaving behind the five victims’ bodies. 
They included three men from Zliten, a town between Tripoli and Misratah, and two doctors. One of the doctors is believed to be Ali al-Darrat, from Misratah, who was taken prisoner near the eastern frontline in July and had not been heard from since. [AI]

See the Al-Darrat videos:
- Doctor Shahid Ali Ibrahim Darrat, supporting the right and the homeland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV95R4C  (cited as [DV])- Dr. Ali Darrat was arrested on Atina Torghae 1
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEUrVHWkFXE  Uploaded by zawia17feb on Aug 13, 2011
- الدكتور على الضراط اتناء القبض عليه كتائب الطاغية 2 Dr. Ali Darrat Atina caught Brigades tyrant 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYtXWh-i9h4  Uploaded by 17022011libya on Aug 13, 2011
- Dr. Ali al Darrat on al Libya TV in June: Channel and the Libyan police investigation
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L91ENWZnsNw  Uploaded by Aml66lma on Jul 11, 2011
- Dr. Ali Aldarrat  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTu1rv3BuDw Uploaded by Majidakhalid on Jul 7, 2011
- dr. Ali Aldarat on Allibyah  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyl_S4STYU4  Uploaded by Majidakhalid on Jul 7, 2011
- Interview martyr, God willing d. Ali Darrat channel on the Libyan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJjbX3KZ_ec 
- The hero martyr d. Darrat on God's mercy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXBoqHM-PwM 

From what I gather (still hoping for clearer insights from our translator), Dr. Aldarrat was from Misrata, but working in Germnay, and returned for the rebellion. He apparently arrestedwas put on Al-Libya TV on or before July 7 before release, to be berated as a traitor, perhaps. He said on this appearance that if arrested again he'd be killed. He was apparently released and then arrested again in late July or prior to August 13, while just helping injured civilians in a hospital. This hospital was in the loyalist-held, black-skinned LIBYAN, Misrata-attacking town of Tawergha, which the Misratans were then preparing to wipe off the map - and they did, around Aug. 10-15. But first the local forces found out that sneaky doctor was at their hospital, helping injured civilians, nothing else, and they hate that - civilians die! So they had some Tawerghan troops ("African mercenaries") arrest him, and then he was taken to Tripoli, and was killed right as the Misrata Rebels rolled through about two weeks after Tawergha.

The Maktoob blog lists victim e) Dr. Ali Alzerat as (per Google translate), described as “my father,” adding “Parents were made mockery of by the battalions at the moment of arrest. ...the battalions slapped and humiliated in front of the people of Qasr bin Ghashir, may Allah have mercy on him.” The name is clearly a reference to a Dr. Ali Al-Darrat. His three shown children are shown [DM1] [DV] about 5, 3, and 0.5 years old and quite cute. Which of them was the correspondent here verifying the death of his/her own father? Older child from a previous marriage? How old was the guy? No sources say. His brother has a listed age - 46.

Probably unrelated, but one info-activist who has a father named Ali Al-Darrat (Addarrat - with a different middle name though) and a reasonably similar facial appearance is one Mohammed Ali Abdullah Addarat, Lexmark's and the NFSL's guy in Libya... aka Mohammed Addarrat 

Abdelhamid Al-Darrat
Abdelhamid Darrat, 46, was a Canadian citizen who shuttled freely between Gaddafi’s Libya and Ottawa, Canada, for 27 years, until the uprising of 2011. The electrical engineer and businessman ran a Tripoli-based telecommunications company, Baitaslxams, providing IP addresses for Internet users. “He was just helping people,” Ahmed Hussein said about his friend of more than 20 years. Darrat didn’t join the rebels, Hussein said. But his martyr's bio says “Just like his brother Dr. Ali Darrat, he was detained back in March, and killed this week in Tripoli.” [MD2]

Hussein said Abdelhmaid “was taken by Gadhafi’s people. […] The government came and picked him up from home,” he told the Ottawa Sun. [OS] His death was blamed by the Sun’swriter on “Libyan leader — and fugitive — Moammar Gadhafi [who] ordered a shutdown of Internet service months ago. And that meant trouble for Darrat, who went missing last March” but only died in Tripoli right as Rebel forces rolled into there in August. “Hussein received word of his friend’s death Thursday [the 25th] and hasn’t been able to reach Darrat’s widow or children.” [OS] (also, The Canadian “department of foreign affairs is “aware of reports of the death of a second Canadian citizen in Libya,” but couldn’t confirm or deny it was Darrat.” [OS])

Ottawa Citizen, August 26:

The body of a former Ottawa resident was found this week among over 150 others in a Tripoli warehouse, members of Canada’s Libyan community report. Abdulhamid Darrat […] was taken by government officers along with five co-workers and shoved into the back of a van, while at work in May. His daughter, Khadija, 16, said the last time she saw her father was at 3 a.m. on May 19 before he headed into the office for the day. 

Khadija said Libyan officials led the family to believe that Darrat was taken out of Tripoli in order to do some sort of Internet work for the government. She said relatives with contacts in the Gadhafi regime told them Darrat was well looked after and doing well. 

However, Khadija said Usama Okok, a family friend who worked with Darrat and was also taken captive in May, [somehow escaped and] told them a different story. Apparently Darrat was beaten and killed only a few days after he was taken captive. “They did stuff that no human being would do,” Khadija said. “Nobody would even have done that to an animal.” [DU]

Was he among 150 in a warehouse?  That means Yarmouk, and about half of those 106 (now accepted) were charred beyond recognition. The others, un-burnt mostly, we've seen about half of them. Most are black guys but, you know, victim #1 could be him by build and complexion (tentative call - could be wrong) and maybe hair, if it had grown out some. That person was tortured and had his face burnt, apparently by the rebels, between 8pm Aug. 26 and 10 am Aug. 27.

The cited re-post of a pulled article closes prematurely with the line “She [Khadija] said her father was a well-loved man who told his children they had the power to do whatever they wanted in life.” [DU] I had seen but didn’t save the original and knew it said more. A Google search still shows the next line. “…whatever they wanted in life. “He told me and my sisters you can study anywhere in the world you want,” she said.” That’s a perk of the Gaddafi system Abdulhamid had taken advantage of. So, he has kind words for what the Jamahiriya then offered, he did not join the rebellion like his brother Dr. Ali, and disappeared after ostensibly agreeing to leave Tripoli to do government work, albeit without proper forewarning or goodbyes. And Rebel fighters found him dead as they swarmed Tripoli, and left him to rot.

It should be noted there is no room left for an electrical engineer among two doctors and four officers, but is he even alleged to have died at QBG, or at Yarmouk, or somewhere between them? We'll try to sort that out right here:

News From the Okoks

Two men named Okok are our sources for the conflicting information we have on Mr. Darrat's detention and death.

"Mahmoud Okok, a 29-year-old engineer who had been detained at this (QBG) site ...Two of Mr. Okok’s friends, both engineers, were among the six men executed at Guser Bin Gashir." On August 24. [AKS]

Usama Okok: A "a family friend" and co-worker of engineer Abdelhamid Darrat who "was also taken captive in May," and told his friend's daughter how Darrat was killed within days of that arrest. [DU]

What's the relation between these Okoks with news of the one Darrat and someone who has the same job and similar-named friends and whose supposed brother was killed right there? If we take Okok's engineer as Okok's Darrat, we have four places/times he was killed: QBG Aug. 21/22/24, not QBG (he's not a doctor or an officer), Yarmouk Aug. 23 (among 150 in a warehouse - [DU]), and somewhere else back in May. That's all cleared up, right?

And Hussein, who heard Abdelhamid was taken from home in March (instead of work in May) but was unable to reach the family as well as Usama Okok - what's his last name? Probably not Okok, but the possibility hangs there. 

Alt: Al-Raed/Raid/

الرعيض

 [?] brothers, Misrata

The name given in a Gaddafi loyalist copy of the Al-Darrat arrest videos.
(forthcoming)

Death Photos: Al-Darrat and Salhouba 

[SF] [DM1] [DV] [FO3]


The Four Officers
There should be more about this...

Again their names:

a) Brigadier M'Hamed Aldberza

b) Brigadier Mohammed Al-Massoud

c) Colonel Dr. Uh Mahmoud

d) Colonel Miftah Futaisi

Sources (more forthcoming):
[AKS] Retreating Gadhafi forces slay detainees at two sites. By Ashish Kumar Sen. The Washington Times. Friday, August 26, 2011. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/26/gadhafi-forces-massacre-detainees-two-sites/#.TlfsTHc9SiM.twitter 
[DM1] Dr. Ali Darrat http://www.feb17martyrs.com/english/dr-ali-darrat/
[DM2] Abdelhamid Darrat http://www.feb17martyrs.com/english/abdel-hamid-darrat/
[DU] http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1823497 Citin now gone article http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Libya+zone+claims+second+Canadian+reports/5315283/story.html
[DV] "الطبيب الشهيد علي إبراهيم الضراط ، نُصرة حقّ ووطن" [Doctor Martyr Ali Ibrahim Darrat, supporting the right and the homeland] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV95R4Cspbs
[FO3] JOE00881LIB.jpg. Photo by Jeroen Oerlemans/Panos Pictures /Felix Features, August 27, 2011. Felix Features. Link
[MB] Makhtoub blog
[OS] 2nd Ottawan dies in Libya. By Kelly Roche, Ottawa Sun, August 26, 2011. http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/08/26/2nd-canadian-dies-in-libya 
[PHR] 32nd Brigade Massacre: Evidence of War Crimes and the Need to Ensure Justice and Accountability in Libya. Physicians for Human Rights. December 2011. http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/32nd-brigade-massacre.html - direct PDF download link: https://s3.amazonaws.com/PHR_Reports/Libya-32nd-Brigade-Massacre.pdf
[RW2]In Libya, the Captors Have Become the Captive. By Robert F. Worth, New York Times Magazine. May 9, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/in-libya-the-captors-have-become-the-captive.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1
[SF] Dr. Omar Salhouba - Facebook tribute page
[UH] UN Human Rights Commission Report on abuses in Libya, advance unedited version, March 2 2012. A/HRC/19/68. Rel. section, pp. 67-71. Document download link: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HR Bodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/A_HRC_19_68_en.doc

Massacre outside the Mosque, Souk al jouma. perhaps. 25 Feb 2011

Only two videos show this same incident. The martyr, whose chin and neck has been well and truly cleaved is described as Yousef Ali Albouni (or variants thereof), 47 or 48 years old, Goatee beard. arabic:يوسف علي البوني
Reference: http://www.ayamnal7lwa.net/forum/index.php?topic=4487.385;wap2 (either Feb 28 or March 1) and reported at Libya Almostakbal only on March 1. However, a blog comment on the latter takes me to a very fast indeed Feb 25 upload,well watched:
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR0B9bC0gDs
The video is ludicrously labelled The victim of the shooting This was the time of another video of cleaved, amputated bodies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WulgVSOUVYo."painful scenes from hospitals..>" Another shooting, anyone?

سيفتاب:
شبكة برق | B.R.Q شبكة برق:أسماء لبعض الشهداء (سوق الجمعة) في مواجهات يوم الجمعة 25.2.2011


1- علي محمد طلحة 50 سنة
2- يوسف علي البوني 47 سنة
3- احمد الصديق بن حامد 18 سنة
4- محمد عباد منبور 48 سنة
5- احمد ابراهيم الشبيلي 18 سنة
6- هشام مصباح طنيبة 25 سنة
7- عبد المولى بن عثمان 38 سنة
8- خالد الشارف ابودراع 45 سنة
9- عبد الرزاق بالحاج 25 سنة
10- الشيخ سالم حسين سلامة الرقيق (امام جامع)
هذا ويوجد عدد كبير من المفقودين

Lightning Network | B.R.Q Network Lightning: the names of some of the martyrs (Friday Market) in clashes on Friday, 25.2.2011
1 - Ali Mohammad Talha 50 years
2 - Yusuf Ali Al-Bouny 47 years old
3 - Ahmed bin Hamed friend 18 years old
4 - Mohammed Abbad Mnbur 48 years old
5 - Ahmed Ibrahim Shubaily 18 years old
6 - Hesham Mesbah Tunaibh 25 years old
7 - Abdul Mawla Bin Othman, 38 years old
8 - Khaled Sharef Abodraa 45 years old
9 - Abdul Razzaq al-Hajj 25 years old
10 - Sheikh Salem Al-Hussein, the safety of the slave (Imam of a mosque)
This is a large number of missing

A few of the names appear at Maktoobblog, some not. Curious that. And of course the list gets longer in the telling, with variants of the same name appearing as separate people.
Curious that none of the other 10 names ever got onto YouTube, if there really were a massacre. There is nothing indeed to connect these different images of the same person with Souk Al-Jouma. It could be anywhere, or any cause of death.
YouTube references:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O3GFUCgfj0 : يف قتل الشهيد البونى في ثورة 17 فبراير في سوق الجمعة uploaded March 1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czO27Ve8bWk Martyr Youssef El Bouni الشهيد يوسف علي البوني 47 سنة uploaded March 3.
So, why the delay with such golden footage for western consumption?
Warning bells from this video, showing actually nothing, purporting to be from 25 February:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6y5x3z0nu4 uploaded by SolidarityLibya on February 27. But what have we about 6.00? A fake trail of blood, a bloodstained jacket...
Certainly some damage to property is apparent , uploaded Feb 25: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS7W2FW0sgk
Another video purports to show martyr no.1 علي محمد طلحة ,Ali Mohamed Talha aged 50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJyPyO8idyI uploaded by, wait for it, QuatchieCanada, on Feb 27. It shows nothing.

One thing is certain. A man with goatee beard got badly chopped up sometime before 1 March. The footage is convincing, unlike that of the SolidariyLibya video, which QuatchieCanada uses, with the name added. (but there's no victim in sight...)
Are those fatal injuries? I guess so. But somehow I don't think he died in that position or even there from the blood distribution. Another and very early Tripoli "massacre" set-up?

Video: Lawless Land - Libya

May 19, 2012

 A great documentary by the admirable Journeyman Pictures - as good as it gets without crossing the line into "radical" views:
The kid, amazingly cute in a sad way, is in a Tawergha refugee camp. I'm not sure what's up with the costume and strutting. He seems to be having fun, sort of.

"Things they Don't Do Even In Israel": Another Tale from Free Libya

May 19, 2012

The following is from the account of a man from Sirte who was released from a Misrata jail following a large bribe.  He's missing his right leg and left arm now, from battle prior to capture. It's not so much what torture he was subjected to as what he witnessed and heard from others that's shocking even to those of us aware of some of what's (at least allegedly) going on in "Free Libya."

 The information comes via a green resistance interview via PAL-talk, which I had to look up. This is the same way the famous Nisrene, "Gaddafi's girl executioner," reportedly got her story out after allegedly escaping. She requested anonymity, but shared but too many details matching a well-known story. I'm not sure of her current status and haven't heard an update. This time again the former prisoner anonymous, and the chat was audio only.

Audio chat and English transcription that's not bad at Libyan Free Press:
 http://libyanfreepress.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/shocking-interview-with-a-man-who-has-been-tortured-for-months-in-misuratas-jails-3-video/
It might be useful to listen to the audio but I haven't yet. Run-on sentence transliteration, if not delivery, is repaired here in spots.

I should congratulate the free soldiers who martyred in the battlefields and I wished if I had died 10 thousands times than passing one moment in that jail.The things that they do in the MISURATA JAIL they don’t do even in Israel. Somethings that I will tell you only few of them and as for the names they are so many so I can not remember all of them because I want to give each one’s name and what they did to him. 

A few examples to start:

...there were two other officers their names are EL ZUBAIDY and EL GHASHIKA were HANGED NUDE FROM THEIR HANDS without any clothes on them and I can not tell you what they did to them (IMMORAL THINGS) and ask about them all this in addition to rape torture and cutting hands and legs...

and there was a man I can not say his name he belonged to El Gadadfa tribe and lived in Misurata. He had a PRIVATE problem with a local family BEFORE the events took place just ask people there about him because anyone there knows about him after he was jailed members of that MISURATI FAMILY PAID the MILITIA and TOOK him to THEIR house as if they TOOK a GOAT and they SLAUGHTERED him and CUT him to pieces so look what they did to that guy who had a Shahma because anyone who knows that family they also knows their argument with this poor guy and I know very well his brothers but I do not want to mention their names so they can not get hurt because they were my jail mates.

In fact, we've seen videos of these people doing things nearly that bad. This is not even much of a leap when a previous heated dispute plus the furor of recent fighting, the dark mood, the impunity, the insanity - it's all too plausible to suggest that the Rebels made Misrata a real Hell well before the government's thwarted counter-attack even began.

On the Fighting and His Capture:

Another one whose story was so strange, which made me so overwhelmed. Its true that every Mujahid has a sympathetic story but this man has a special and emotional story, his name is MUNIR and he is from Zlitan, ask about him anyone who fought in the district number 2. All members of his family were killed in Zlitan, after that he came to Sirte and started fighting with us in the district number 2 after telling us his sad story swearing to be faithful to his family, he remained fighting with a brave heart until he got caught and executed by these filthy thugs may ALLAH bless his soul his name is Munir from Zlitan but I do not remember the rest of his name so I address to the people of Zlitan to refresh their memory if they know him he came to us after Zlitan had fallen. 

In the "Mathaba district" of Sirte, which "was destroyed and empty of people" his group of fighters found "a free girl who was struggling there SHE was a GREAT HEROINE," he thinks of the Gaddafi-related Guhus tribe. "They found her alone with her weapon in the Mathaba and tried to send her home but She insisted on staying and fighting with them at the radio station building. "I swear by Allah Subhanah that she was fighting with us with a very brave heart," he said, but she was separated from the rest and injured by a rocket attack and taken to a filed clinic, where a man who said he was related was in charge of her now, and from there who knows.  "There are some brave families who remained in some struggling districts in Sirte and did not leave at all.," the man said. "I appreciate their courage."

The ex-Prisoner: Yes concerning our convoy after they capture us they started executing us and thanks to ALLAH once again I could not believe how I survived, things were like the coin toss and I remember a brave guy whom they shot, his name was HISHAM SAAIBA from SIRTE exactly in the district number 2 and he belonged in the Warfalla tribes may ALLAH Subhanah bless his soul. 

For me I was injured about three days or four before they captured me and during the fighting while I got injured, me and another colleague whose name is ALI EL MAARRAF whom I think he was martyred and the HERO HAMZA. So our group did not let us down, we told them to leave us because we will slow them down, at least they will live but they refused and took us with them in their pick up car because there were no medics and the only clinic that was in the district was number 2 which was destroyed.

After we got defeated and captured I didn’t know anything about my injured colleague and they told me that he was martyred...

Entering Hell

Then when they took me to Misurata I thought they did that because of my injury and they would have sympathy towards me. It is true that during the events we heard of some crimes about slaughtering and killing however I swear by the GREAT ALLAH that what I saw there its more than WHAT you are hearing and more than what its happening so when I got there and started telling these things to people some of them could not believe me and they told me that I’m exaggerating!

A simple example is that guy from Tawerga his name is ALI EL ATTI I swear by ALLAH SUBHANAH that they COOKED him in a big COOKER and if you do not believe me ask the people of Tawerga about that name and they will tell you his story. 

The guys there were recommending me to tell you about the RAPING that there doing to us. YES guys they are raping us and I do not want to tell you the names of the Heroes so not to get them embarrassed and those thugs they were treating us like cattle any moment someone comes and chooses any prisoner maybe randomly and takes him to an unknown place and after that moment we wouldn’t hear any news about him.

And I remember that there is a summer resort called Jannat (means Heaven) because any prisoner who was taken there was considered doomed.

The man being cooked alive sounds familiar-Nisrene said about the same, but that was in Tripoli, IIRC, not Misrata. Is this a widespread practice? In both cases, it's one guy cooked alive and others forced to watch. The "Janat hotel" sounds familiar - a story of horror I heard in passing and never looked into. Will link and mention here when I remember or someone helps re-locate it.

As soon as they knew that a Human Rights committee or any other International Org is to visit their jails, they would come and collect those handicapped prisoners like me and put to another area and force the others to wear a new sportive pajamas and give them new blankets so that everything could appear like a five star hotel prison to those committee or org. 

They were threatening us [against telling] the truth so we felt that we were not anymore men in fact what really was getting on my nerves is that bunch of thugs who were torturing us are not real men but what were we going to do? We were not afraid but we really HUMILIATED by these thugs we were not afraid of them but they exhausted us. 

And for me they did something that made me think that I would never leave but SUBHAN ALLAH life are in the hands of ALLAH SUBHANAH because my colleagues who were not handicapped were martyred whereas and thanks to ALLAH SUBHANAH I remained alive but only in name.

 Maadani: Could you please tell us the story of that poor HERO called MUAMMAR who was caught in Misurata. 

 The ex-Prisoner: Yes, this is the man I did not want to mention his name but….. anyway there is a person called Muammar whose jailed in Al Wahda (the Union) high school because OF HIS NAME, THEY CUT OFF SOME OF HIS ORGANS that I could mention  ... he is actually a prisoner in Al Wahda high school and since his name is MUAMMER he is getting the extra special Best Treatment(Misurata RACIST BRIGADE) can offer. With all my respect and dignity to you the man can not go to the bathroom by himself, only his healthy mates who carry him to and from his name is Muammer, I pray to ALLAH Subhanah to look after him, also in prison with him is his brother.

 Finally I do not want to speak longer, I want you to bear in your mind before the Resistance or any other thing the problems and the sufferings of our heroes in these monstrous jails and because there are some things that are beyond anyone’s imagination as Dr. Hamza said I will give the details and names through private chatting INSHALLAH.

Released from Hell

 Besides anyone no matter who he is: a drug addict, an alcoholic, a rapist, a thieve, a criminal, whatever his crime is after PAYING A BIG CHUNK OF MONEY HE WILL BE SET FREE!!!! 

Maadani: How much did you pay our Hero? 

The ex-Prisoner: In fact some people from Sirte put up the money may ALLAH Subhanah protect them they are you guys who paid 120 thousand Dinars and set me free. Truly speaking I could not believe it when they told me that I would leave because my Friends paid for me! 

His poem on the heroes of Sirte, particularly the revered and dedicated defense minister Jabr, are included at the post about him. (or will be soon)

The Truth?

 Again, I can't confirm his stories, something he wasn't able to make tapes of, only memories, and even those rescued along with his battered body, at a high price. The back-story and how he presents it all sound credible to me from the things I know. 

You don't exaggerate into existence an action like people being cooked. He's either telling something pretty damn close to the truth, or lying. A skeptic and denier of anything anti-Rebel, and there are many of those, might argue the latter. Maybe this is all fabricated, some desparate pro-Gaddafi propaganda to guilt-trip the world community into turning back the "progress" of the revolution. 

But the relevant elites will never play that game, even if it isn't a game. Green resistance should save it's breath for waterboarding if they're making things up. No one under the control structure is able to help them at all. A few do-gooders at the orgs who might care enough, kept well at arm-length by overwhelming militia force. In the space created, a medieval purge of body and mind is unfolding, as the West tacitly allows the rapid corrective surgery it knew would be required. The idea was always, with a few sanctions, some light bombing, etc., to bring reality in line with the fantasy of an "Arab Spring" groundswell there, to help "the Libyan people" realize their universal desire for change. It's those who chose to defy that tightly-scripted narrative that have been the problem, of whatever size, and the problem would have to be erased sooner or later.

And we just heard from an ostensible direct witness to that erasure. And through him, we might have the true flavor of this second and longer phase of "the people's" movement for "liberation."  

Video: Amnesty by Way of Fakery

May 13, 2012
Last edits May 18

<< The Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre

I've been slow at the site lately, in part, to finish this video, which I felt had to expand a bit to clarify why the little details in question matter. At 12:30 it could sound tedious, but I think the drama keeps it moving quite well and it covers a lot.

This is a powerful video for exposing the lies of the Libyan Rebel/NATO Contra takeover. I ask all readers to share and prmote this and help get it widely seen.

 Amnesty by Way of Fakery for Libyan Rebels
The centerpiece of this video is “meet the accusers,” a well-established fake survivor (here Bashir Al-Sadeq) who’s changed names and stories repeatedly, a second unharmed survivor (Hussein Al-Lafi) rendered suspect by agreeing with the fake memories of Al-Sadeq, and their on-site manager, Dr. Salem Al-Farjani, who... you just need to see the video.

Since I got it up in time for Mother's Day (US), might I direct the viewer to the especially powerful segment at 6:50.

For those watching only half the video, make it the middle half anyway, Check the Dr. Salem section [4:00-7:10] and the Bashir section too [7:15 - 10:15]. It gets a little boring in there but come on, this is edutainement. It's only half - no, only partly - about entertaining.

Brands of Amnesty Enjoyed by Rebel Forces
 Since the uprising began in February 2011, the blade-slinging Islamist militants had cover from Amnesty International, corroborating all their allegations against an ever-more insane-seeming regime that had to be stopped. Half or more of those crimes were rebel ones they simply re-branded in various crude ways.

The NTC has now extended them qualified blanket amnesty for the heinous war crimes the rebels inflicted on Libya once outside powers and NATO bombs made it possible. That will cover crimes the rebels cannot possibly weasel out of, like killing Gaddafi, the Mahari Hotel massacre, and the elimination of Tawergha and genocide against its people. These can now be excused by law if the actions or underlying intentions are deemed "necessary" for the "revolution," and/or the judges don't want to get rocket-attacked by the accused militia leaders. Look for a lot of silence, little specific absolution, and possibly a small token show of accountability for the Tawergha situation and maybe one other crime. Someone might go to jail for a week, after careful negotiations and a limited gun battle...

And, as this video shows, the rolling hordes of havoc had plenty of little helper elves giving them amnesty by fakery along the way, allowing them to weasel out of perhaps a large majority of their sprees of unhinged bloodletting. It's certainly so in this case, the "most clear-cut war crime" by the Gaddafi regime, the corporate-owned media has announced. Yes, this is about as good as it gets ...

Update of Major Relevance:
The centerpiece of this video is “meet the accusers,” but right after finishing it I realized it’s time to meet the accused, Ibrahim Tajouri, the young kid soldier who allegedly led the slaughter. Possibly drugged, possibly tortured, I said. Time to add possibly an actor. (I think there will be a smaller part two).

See: Shed Massacre Witnesses: "Executioner" Ibrahim Khalifa/Tajouri/Lousha BUSTED!

Summary: Same person, different names, different but similar stories of leading with guns and/or grenades and/or torture:

- Ibrahim Tajouri, aged 20 (name means from Tajoura, Tripoli neighborhood), threw the grenades and led the shooting, after first two grenades, killing all kinds. Drugged-out, ordered to kill by Mohammed Mansour.

- Ibrahim Sadeq Khaliufa, aged 20, lived in Tajoura, held in Misrata, threw in the grenades after dousing the people, burned alive 150 on Aug. 22 (wrong date).

- Ibrahim Lousha, aged 20, most notorious torturer at Yarmouk, held in Misrata, son of a (Tajoura?) Tripoli policeman, drugged out, ordered to kill by Mohammed Mansour. "I told them, Give the grenades to me.' He threw two into the hangar, one after the other, and the door blew open. He could hear the screams of the dying prisoners."

Ismail Kamoka & the LIFG

by Felix

May 14 2012

So, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, former leader of the LIFG, is going to sue former UK foreign Secretary Jack Straw as reported by the Telegraph, 24 April 2012,[ See also Guardian, April 18 2012:Belhaj and his wife (Fatima Bouchar)....are seeking damages from Straw for the trauma they suffered] This is the same Libyan Islamic Fighting Group which, was trying to murder national head of state Gaddafi [see below] possibly using either UK or US taxpayers' money, or both but naturally deniable and denied. Certainly it was linked to Al Qaeda and as such was a proscribed organisation. But then it might must be part of the closed circle of secrecy which keeps us all in a state of perpetual fear.

Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times, among whose readership is no doubt Dublin based (sometimes) Mahdi Al-Harati, puts us in the picture:

MaryFitzgerlT Mary Fitzgerald
#Libya's Islamist parties: MB-linked Justice & Construction; ex-LIFG have split between Hizb al-Watan (w/ Belhaj) + Hizb al-Umma (w/ Saadi)1:34 PM May 2nd 2012


[NB Saadi = Sami Al-Saadi]
[The Justice & Construction Party formed by Islamists and Independents elected its leader as reported in the Tripoli Post of March 3 2012, Mohammed Sawan ( Mohamed Sowan) from Misrata, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, formerly detained under Gaddafi but released in 2006 and who expected women to play "a prominent role". "We have created a new era in Libya by electing a party leader democratically," said Khalil Sawalim, a UK-based rights activist. The LIFG merged with Al-Qaeda in November 2007

A member of the LIFG broke cover in early March 2011 to speak to Press TV's Yvonne Ridley and Afshin Rattansi: Ismail Kamoka. He was briefly in the news after the fall of Tripoli when the files of the Jamahiriya were opened up, allegedly. Since then he has disappeared.
For the record I have captured his quite unremarkable interview here with the announced "dissident and leading member of the LIFG, Ismail Kamoka. For a leading member, he keeps a low profile, difficult though with the huge bushy beard. [photo]

Ridley introduced Kamoka and his lifelong hobby thus: "....he's been committed to overthrowing Gaddafi for nearly 20 years...
"you must really want to be in Libya at the moment. Tell us about the nature of the opposition in Libya" "There are 4 or 5 groups as far as I know [note - it seems to crop up no 26 of 27 opposition groups here in Feb 2011] .I was with one of these groups,its called the Libyan Fighting group (sic). The main aim for this group before before [is] to take, the specific one, they try many times to assassinate Gaddafi. The reason for that one is to give freedom for the people [when] decided for themselves what they are going to do because the regime in that time is very brutal and Gaddafi is a dictator."
"What did you feel about how Tony Blair,[and] the west were becomeing friends with the person you were trying to assassinate?" "I think I felt very angry because Tony Blair himself tried to have a good "relation" [ship] with Libya for one reason, for the benefit of his country . He doesn't care about the benefit of Libyan people."
"But what about life after Gaddafi? This is something that everybody is focussing on at the moment. Are these groups that are in Libya and of course dissidents like yourself - are you capable of forming a government and taking Libya ahead into the new phase?" "I think so. The Libyan people they are capable they have very high(ly) qualified people" "But what has been the price been so far for this freedom, there is talk of 1000s of peole injured more than a thousand dead?" "We feel very sad about this price but if you read the history,if you want the freedom the freedom doesn't come easy"
"So they don't want the king back, but Gaddafi and his sons are saying there will be Al Qaeda in Libya ,the Islamic extremists will take over even while he talks about Omar al Mukhtar at the same time. Did you feel while watching his speech...? "I think when I (heard) this speech they try to play this game with the people because the first part they tried to play on the fears of the people and with this fears it provoked the people to come out and in the uprising everyone doesn't care even he would like to die for his own country. They changed their tactics, they changed their new game they tried to play with Islamic extremism. They will come and take over something like that. In reality, the main point is now we need the regime gone, we need Gaddafi to get out.
"How frustruating is it for you sittng in London? Are you tempted to go out and join the people in this revolution?" "My heart is there since 15 February. I tried to help my country, my people 20 years ago. I feel this is the time now for me for everybody that is outside to be there because we have been waiting for this a long time"

Perhaps the preferred destination of NATO is the descent of Libya and the rest of of the Mediterranean rim into an Islamic Ice Age

Mr Kamoka (the name seems local to Pakistan, rather than Libya, but then these LIFG types are very well travelled with many interesting visas in their passports and many aliases as well. Indeed Mr K also seems to have an alias) has gone to ground again and he registers no presence in 2012, indeed no presence in Libya in 2011. Perhaps he never went.

Former LIFG member Numan Ben Othman or Noman Benotman is based in London and now embedded as a senior researcher with the Quilliam Foundation "challenging extremism". Limited hangout information from early 2005 on the LIFG here on the Centre for Defense Inforation site : In the Spotlight: The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)

On October 15 2009, Islamisation Watch noted (captured AFP report) that:
Libya on Thursday freed 88 Islamists and announced it will demolish Abu Slim prison, notorious for what human rights groups say was a 1996 massacre in which more than 1,000 prisoners were killed.
The Islamists with Al-Qaeda links walked out of the Tripoli prison, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.
The Kadhafi Foundation, headed by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, confirmed the planned closure of Abu Slim, saying the remaining inmates would be transferred to another jail.
The building "will be destroyed in the next few days," a Libyan source told AFP, adding that a residential district and a green space would replace the prison, which has often been used to detain political prisoners.... The Foundation, in a joint statement with lawyers' groups, said: "45 members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and 43 members of other jihadist groups were freed" from Abu Slim on Thursday.
"Apart from the LIFG members, the other people freed were former Al-Qaeda members who were active in Afghanistan or Iraq," Saleh Saleh Abdessalem, an aide to Seif al-Islam, told AFP
According to Abu Hashem, his nom-de-guerre, the release programme followed "talks with Seif al-Islam through the intermediary of (Libyan cleric) Ali Sallabi."
The Kadhafi Foundation said it is "working to strengthen peace in Libya," emphasising the "big success" of the dialogue with the LIFG, formed in secret in Afghanistan in the early 1990s and which came to public notice in 1995 when it launched an armed campaign against Kadhafi's regime.

Al-Qaeda announced in November 2007 that the LIFG had joined the jihadist network. The men's release comes at a time when Seif al-Islam is reportedly being proposed for Libya's second most

HRW duly reported this the following day with calls for more releases (of people whose mission was to assassinate Gaddafi).

Note on the LIFG from Amnesty International,June 2010 report, "Libya of Tomorrow - what hope for human rights"
In recent years there have been some welcome developments. Hundreds of members of al- Jama’a al-Islamiya al-Muqatila (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Front, LIFG) and other groups,many of whom had been held arbitrarily for years, have been released.
The releases were reportedly facilitated by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation (Gaddafi Development Foundation, GDF) headed by Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader.50 For several years, the GDF engaged in a dialogue with leaders of the LIFG, which contributed to the group publicly renouncing violence in 2009.
The latest releases took place in March 2010. According to Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, among those released were 80 individuals cleared by courts, 100 individuals accused of involvement in terrorism-related activities with armed groups in Iraq and 34 members of the LIFG, including several who had been returned from secret detention by the US authorities.
However, the Secretary of the General People’s Committee for Justice (equivalent to the Minister of Justice), estimated that more than 300 individuals were arbitrarily detained by the ISA at the beginning of 2010.
This means that more than 200 individuals were still detained arbitrarily according to official estimates after the release of 80 individuals cleared by courts in March 2010.
Real numbers are believed to be higher, given that this estimate does not include those detained after unfair trials or prisoners of conscience.


Note 15: In the late 1990s, several of the surviving members of the LIFG were believed to have fled to various countries in Europe, Asia and the Gulf. The LIFG was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in December 2004 by the US Department of State.
The US Country Report on Terrorism of 2008 states that some members of the LIFG had links with the international terrorist movement and that some were believed to be part of the al-Qa’ida leadership. US forces captured a number of Libyan nationals suspected of belonging to the LIFG in Pakistan and transferred several of them to Libya after 2004.
In 2010, the US Govt listed LIFG as a " Foreign Terrorist Organization".
Mr Kamoka was one of five LIFG members arrested in police swoops in the UK. [however, in August 2003,we read courtesy of the Institute of Race Relations,: Found in possession of £6,000. Sun newspaper reported that he was being held under ATCSA at Belmarsh and that police believed the money was for the purposes of terrorism., an interesting case of a tabloid newspaper citation]On 9/11 2011, it was announced that two of them, Mr Kamoka had also become litigious : "Mr Kamoka plans to sue Britain for detaining him under control orders." (lifted in 2009)

Note on the Quilliam Foundation.
This foundation was set up with British taxpayers' money by Tony Blair and Jack Straw ***, with the ostensible purpose of "watching" other jihadis operating under the wings of MI6. Benotman renounced his jihadi image and worked on behalf of Britain, securing release from the present Libyan government, the National Transitional Council, of 600 former activists from prison, arguing for this on the basis of the role that the LIFG played at the frontline to remove the Qaddafi regime.

PS Is Mr Kamoka getting younger by the day? Compare the photo seen at this June 11 2007 BBC article, Three Jailed over terror funding with the one above. Or does he dye his bushy beard? *** These are the guys Belhaj is going to sue. These are the guys who set up the Quilliam Foundation. These are the guys who wanted a rapprochement with Gadafi who set up the Quilliam Foundation which employs Benotman who belonged to the LIFG whose mission was not rapprochement but assassination of Gaddafi...Go figure. But Belhaj actually doesn't want to sue them any more, he just wants an apology. Like one does. Because he now has his own political party.
7/7/2012 Something I missed - Al Qaeda LIFG leader Abdul Belhaj writes column for Guardian! [Land Destroyer Sept 27 2011] by Tony Cartalucci "However, Mr. Belhaj has had time, apparently, allegedly, to draft a lengthy editorial titled, "The revolution belongs to all Libyans, secular or not," gladly published by the London Guardian [CiF], [The revolution belongs to all Libyans, secular or not] where he is allowed to go on at length, whitewashing what is essential a life-long career in terrorism and expound the merits of the wholesale mass murder he and his cohorts, under NATO cover, are committing against the Libyan people" No comment needed.
Update 19 Aug 2012
A blog which seems interested in the LIFG, Harati & Co:
The Flower Throwers

Shed Massacre Witnesses: "Executioner" Ibrahim Khalifa/Tajouri/Lousha BUSTED!

May 15-18, 2012

<< The Khamis Brigade Shed Massacre

Time for another spike in the coffin of that amazing confrontation staged for Feras Kilani, just yesterday exposed in my new video Amnesty by Way of Fakery. The centerpiece of that was “meet the accusers,” a well-established fake survivor (here Bashir Al-Sadeq) who’s changed names and stories repeatedly, a second unharmed survivor (Hussein Al-Lafi) rendered suspect by agreeing with the fake memories of Al-Sadeq, and their on-site manager, Dr. Salem Al-Farjani, who... you just need to see the video.

 Right after finishing that I realized it’s time to meet the accused, the young kid soldier who allegedly led the slaughter. Possibly drugged, possibly tortured, I said. Time to add possibly an actor. (I think there will be a smaller part two) Below, we will link together three named mass-murderers, all named Ibrahim, starting with this reasonably famous one.

The conclusions aren't 100% certain, but ... fairly close. The similarities are just too thick for coincidence in this shallow pool of captured loyalist soldiers connected - as a lead executioner - to the shed massacre. Unless there was more than one 20-year old Ibrahim from Tajoura, Tripoli, in the accepted number of five executioners, then at least one of these names and/or accounts must be unreal. I'm betting on all three being fake.

Ibrahim Tajouri:
Bashir Al-Sadeq (with agreement from Hussein Al-Lafi) has the cold-hearted kid stepping into the shed between the second and third grenades and opening fire. He emptied nearly four clips on Mohammed Al-Lafi, old Ramadan Jabr, and some foreigners not mentioned elsewhere, a group of Egyptians and an old Palestinian man, 80 years old (The debut of these victims was to Palestinians Kilani, for BBC Arabic. Slick!) He just doesn't remember any of it. He was high on drugs, but he did remember being threatened to do it by Mohammed Mansour, the base commander.

We see Tajouri’s face (as shared adequately in the video), blank, passive, tired or broken perhaps, but comfortably so. He looks perfectly healthy, seems relaxed. His clothing is sporty, casual, something with a hood, sandals. He wears a different outfit for the Kilani interview than for the confrontation. His posture while waiting is passive, hands behind his back. He could be waiting for a job interview, but for a job he doesn't really need.

Kilani’s interview for BBC’s Fifth Floor program (quite a ways in) adds some details:

I thought he was a man, a big one. But when he entered the room, in the prison where he is, I can’t believe this is the person who killed the prisoners. He’s the first one who threw the grenades, and then entered the place and opened fire on them. He’s just 20 years old and he looks like – he doesn’t know wheat he did until now. He looked calm, he can’t even explain his situation. Something … something’s still missing about him. It’s just meaningless.

He threw in the grenades, besides stepping in to kill between them. He’s left little work for the other 2-4 active executioners reported. He's already, apparently, on the record as doing the mop-up afterwards too.

Same Guy Rumored Before Capture?
Abdulrahim Ibrahim Bashir told Human Rights Watch back on August 27 2011:

After I escaped, I saw one of the soldiers finish off anyone who was wounded lightly. He would just finish them off. I saw him from far away. He was wearing trouser fatigues and a civilian top. I recognized him. He was one of the ones guarding us. His name was Brahim and he was from Tajoura …

Ibrahim's name, Tajouri, means from Tajoura. This probably refers to the same person, whatever the cause and effect relationship behind the name alignment. Here, he's not specified in starting the massacre, but could have (allegedly) been. He is sworn to finishing off the dead later that night, as executioner "Laskhar" is said to have done. Laskhar, by the way, is apparently out as a match for our Ibrahim. With at least seven years in the military, he's got to be older than 20.

Ibrahim Sadeq Khalifah:
Back in January, AFP reporter Jay Deshmukh was taken to a prison in Misrata, and shown the healthy and apparently torture-free captive soldier Ibrahim Sadeq Khalifa. He reported back that “he looks like any other young Libyan, but the 20-year-old prisoner has good reason to fear for his future in the new Libya.”

What he looks like is Ibrahim Tajouri. The photos don’t show his face, but for the chin, with the same little cropped beard. (full-body, upper body, possibly the faint cigarette burn visible, that he says was not delivered there) His clothing and posture – sporty and casual, relaxed in sandals and a hoody, well-fitting and baggy, hands patiently behind his back.

(more analysis later... the chin, lower left, is admittedly not an obvious fit, but the hair alone, longer at the corners" could give the added angularity we perceive. The lower lip and angle of dip to the chin seem the same. The skin tone is arguably off, even accounting for the lighting difference. But it's a big difference, and even more arguably, the other clues are strong enough we should just chalk this up to lighting.)

Besides looking and dressing a bit like the same-aged Ibrahim from Tajoura, he "was captured by former rebels from his home in Tajura, a suburb of Tripoli," Deshmukh wrote, "three days later [Aug. 25], when the city was overrun by anti-Kadhafi fighters." But at this rebel posting the AFP piece, an informed-sounding commentator added "You need to get you facts right. This guy is NOT from Tajura he is from Tarhona but lives in Tajura. Tajura has given enough blood to this uprising, we lost five people from one Family." He was later named Tajouri, suggesting he was "from" there. But the name would change again...

Account details: Vague, damning, incorrect.

His crime, which he acknowledged in front of an AFP team touring the prison, was that he burned alive around 150 men in a garage in Tripoli
[…]
“I threw grenades on them after my colleagues doused them in petrol. We then locked the garage and left. We burnt them alive,” Khalifa told AFP, of the massacre that he and four other Qaddafi soldiers carried out.

Khalifa admits that those killed by him and his comrades in the Khalit al-Farjan area of Tripoli on the afternoon of Aug. 22 were civilians.

Ibrahim Lousha:
Then comes Robert F. Worth's sprawling and bizarre epic "In Libya, the Captors Have Become the Captive." (analyzed/discussed here) Because of the stuff before this and after the following quote, we can be quite sure the video described in this quote is a fake. It and the other videos in the same trove are the centerpiece of Worth's story.

Jalal clicked on another video. In this one, Jumaa and two other guards were kicking and beating a blindfolded prisoner with extraordinary ferocity. “Kill me, Ibrahim, kill me!” the prisoner screamed repeatedly. “I don’t want to live anymore! Kill me!” The man to whom he was pleading was Ibrahim Lousha, whom I already knew by reputation as the most notorious torturer at Yarmouk. “Do you love the leader?” Lousha said, and the prisoner replied frantically, “Yes, yes!”

Quite young to have achieved such an esteemed status. No previous witnesses had singled him out by name, as the prisoner in the recently-faked video knew to do. I'll go ahead and share what Worth writes about his meeting with this young self-described prodigy of evil.

Ibrahim Lousha, the torturer on the video ... was being held by one of the brigades in Misurata, about two hours from Tripoli, in a battered old government building. I was led to a big empty room and told to wait, and then suddenly there he was, looking like a mere child as he slumped in a chair. He wore gray sweat pants and a blue V-neck sweater and flip-flops. He had big eyes and a buzz cut, a morose expression on his face. He sat with his hands together in his lap, his left leg bouncing restlessly. The Misurata brigade had become infamous for the torture of Qaddafi loyalists in recent months, but Lousha said he was treated well. No one was monitoring us, aside from a bored-looking guard across the room.

He was 20 years old, he said, the son of a Tripoli policeman. When I asked him about the torture at Yarmouk, Lousha answered numbly: beatings, electricity, other methods. “We didn’t give them water every day,” he said. “We brought them piss.” Whose? “Our piss. In bottles. Also we gave them a Muammar poster and made them pray on it.” I asked if he was ordered to do these things. He said no, that he and the fellow guards came up with these ideas while drinking liquor and smoking hashish. Wasn’t that an insult to Islam, to make people pray to Qaddafi, I asked. “We didn’t think about it,” he said. He told me that on the day of the massacre, a commander named Muhammad Mansour arrived late in the afternoon and ordered the guards to kill all the prisoners in the hangar. Then he left without saying anything about why they were to be killed or where the order originated.

“We looked at each other,” Lousha said. “And then I got the grenades.” He spoke in monosyllables, and I had to press him constantly for more details. “The other guards had the grenades. I told them, ‘Give the grenades to me.’ ” He threw two into the hangar, one after the other, and the door blew open. He could hear the screams of the dying prisoners. I asked him what he thought about after he went home to his parents and siblings. He had made no effort to escape. “I was thinking about everything that happened,” he said, his face as expressionless as ever. “The whole disaster, the killing. I was thinking between me and God.”

How can this not be young Ibrahim's third incarnation?

Name Meaning
Why so many last names for Ibrahim? Why so few first ones?

The latter might have something to do with his handler, Ibrahim Beat'emall (transliterations vary). The head of the Misrata Military Council, he used this actor to illustrate that contraryto what all the victims of Misratan torture have said, they do not torture. This kid Ibrahim looks perfectly healthy but in the eyes, well-fed, well-dressed, and hardly a mark. And he deserved torture, for burning alive 150 men. On that grounds, he implicitly barred human rights groups from Misrata ("I don't even want to see their faces.")

So anyway, what does this name mean?It's important when considering a character who's a work of fiction, whether in a novel that matters or a criminal operation like this. Does Mr. Beat'emall's life-long reflection on his own name and special destiny have any bearing on what this character's derivative name is supposed to illustrate?

Ibrahim: Of course, Arabic version of Abraham, father of many nations. Islamic Dictionary explains the context from the Islamic side:

He was the "Close One to Allah" Who preferred him over many others and selected him to be a messenger. Though brought up in a pagan community that worshiped idols, Abraham refused to do so and realized that there must be a greater god of the universe. Allah guided him to the right path and revealed His message to him. He then directed his mission to his people, and called on them to renounce idolatry. He was answered with stubborn refusals. They plotted against him but their schemes were in vain, for Allah, the Almighty, provided support and protection to His servant and prophet, Abraham. Abraham was the forefather of a line of prophets through his two sons Ishmael and Isaac. It was Abraham who began the construction of the Kaabah with the help of Ishmael.

Sadeq: Islamic Dictionary: truthful, real.
Khalifa: Islamic Dictionary: As in Caliph, a leader, a good steward.
Tajouri: From Tajoura
Lousha: No info

So his first given name, Ibrahim Sadeq Klhalifa is the most revealing of any potential poetry. Father of nations / close to God/rejector of an unholy world / Truthful / Islamic Leader. Clearly the meaning would be ironic in the context of a sacrilegious, cruel, murderous, slavish follower of a wicked regime. Only the middle name Sadeq stands out as a direct illustration of a core feature we’re to perceive non-ironically. Whatever lies he lived before, he is now telling the truth - under the proper rebel guidance.

Commentary
I left a comment at the Feb. 17 posting of Deshmukh's article: http://feb17.info/news/pro-gaddafi-mass-murderer-awaits-fate-in-libya-jail/#comment-114143 It apparently wasn't a fit, awaiting moderation now for a few days. So here's the comment:

Ibrahim Khalifa, 20, from Tajoura sounds like “Brahim,” from Tajoura, looks just like Ibrahim Tajouri, 20, interviewed by Feras Kilani, and they both sound just like Ibrahim Lousha, 20, Robert F. Worth, calling him “the most notorious torturer at Yarmouk.” Quite young to have such a reputation!

Why so many last names, but so few first ones?

His leading evil role is described differently each time – first wave gunner, grenadier, mop-up killer, giving the wrong date or incorrectly saying the prisoners were burned alive, by him (above). All under influence of X-regime thugs and drugs.

The reason he looks healthy and well-dressed in his own style – is it because the Misratans do not torture, or because he’s an actor paid to stand-in for the real prisoners behind the scenes?

I’m on subject and detailed, so this comment should be allowed.

Really not a good fit. The previous drivel about how this controlled faker and pawn for scripting rebel myths should be treated careened between two poles of duped stupidity. The first is ostensibly liberal but studiously condescending, and ultimately geared towards a big-picture view of the elimination of the whole Gaddafi system, as opposed to getting hung up on individual vengeance. This is clearly the direction this script is supposed to head, in a redemption of lost souls narrative. The second view is just so fucking ugly, it was probably written by the same person to enforce the above point.

John A. Lincoln:
We have to understand that most of X-Gathafi’s Regime Supporters and Beneficiaries for the Past 45 years are illiterate and Primitive People. The Regime to blame for their plight, because they have been abused directly and indirectly to serve the Regime.

[...]

Most of the blame must be directed towards the X-Regime Officials and Leaders who have been using these poor and illiterate people to protect them, extend their Dictatorship span and murder the oppositions internally and externally.

These illiterate and poor people human rights should be respected, rehabilitated, educated, interrogated and taken care of their families if Libya and the Libyans ever going to reconcile, forgive and forget their past confused and abused history.

The other view, refreshing in comparison:

James Miller:
Ah shut up! It’s your liberal hogwash that is to blame. Your western idiot ideas of appeasement is what kept Gadaffi in power for 42 years and enables all fascists everywhere.

Learn to take a stand. We die or they die, We are free or we are dead and when we are free they are dead. [...]

What makes us different is they force us to kill them. They chose it , we did not. Torture them stomp them and kill them. And take your Western propaganda to hades with you and them.

[To Ibrahim Khalifa, the soldier] You are going to die and deservedly be executed because you chose evil and murder. [...] If you had refused your orders you would have died a martyr and been allowed into heaven, but instead you chose evil and cowardice and thus will become the garbage of history. [...] No one will care about you or remember you when you are gone. You will simply be a problem that has been erased.