Attack on Coptic church building in Libya kills two

TRIPOLI, Libya --  A bombing on Sunday at a building belonging to a Coptic church in western Libya killed two Egyptian men and wounded two others, a military spokesman said.

Attackers threw a homemade bomb at an administration building belonging to the Egyptian Coptic church in Dafniya, close to the western city of Misrata, said Ibrahim Rajab of the Misrata military council.

The Egyptian consul in the city, Tareq Dahrouj, said he visited the church and the building where the two church workers were killed early on Sunday.

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In Libya Anti-Extremist Protestors Storm Islamic Militia Bases

BENGHAZI, Libya — Forces allied with the Libyan government took control of at least two powerful militias’ bases in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday after protesters overran the compounds in the early morning hours.

Clashes erupted outside one base, the stronghold of the influential Rafallah al-Sahati militia, leaving four people dead and dozens injured, according to Libyan state television.

The clashes followed a large-scale protest Friday in which thousands of people marched through the city demanding the dissolution of the militias that have run Libya’s streets in the absence of a strong central government and police force since a revolution ended the 42-year rule of Moammar Gaddafi last year.

Many Libyans have blamed extremist groups for the attack on the U.S. Consulate here last week that left four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, dead. The groups have operated with relative impunity in the security vacuum that has prevailed since Gaddafi’s ouster and death.

On Saturday, fighters from a militia loyal to the government roamed the ransacked base of the Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia, which many here have accused of leading the attack on the consulate.

“The ambassador was a good man. He ate with us. Even during the revolution he was with us,” said Riziq, a fighter with a government-allied militia across the street that had moved in to guard the abandoned compound and who declined to give his full name out of fear of retribution from Ansar al-Sharia.

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I have to admit this was not a news story I expected to read.

Obama dispatches US Marines to hunt killers

Barack Obama dispatched 50 US marines to Libya to help hunt down the killers of American ambassador Chris Stevens as suspicions grew that the attack was planned and carefully orchestrated.

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US Ambassador And Three Others Killed In Libya

U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed Tuesday in an assault on the American consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, the White House said.

In a statement issued by the White House early Wednesday morning, President Obama said he had directed an increase in security at U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. CNN reported that the Defense Department has dispatched two Marine anti-terrorism security teams to Benghazi to reinforce security there.

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In related news; Gov. Romney condemns Obama's response as "disgraceful."

Former Libyan oil minister found floating in Danube

A high-ranking former Libyan official who served under Moammar Gadhafi was found dead in the Danube River, in Vienna, the BBC reported Sunday, citing Austrian police.

Shukri Ghanem, 69, initially defected to Rome from Libya in June 2011, amid the uprising that ultimately ousted Gadhafi, the Tripoli Post reported. He told the Italian Ansa news service that  he left "to fight for a democratic country."

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American Citizen Barred From Returning to US

The ouster of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi was life-changing for Jamal Tarhuni, an American citizen from the North African country who was granted U.S. asylum in the 1970s. Over the past year as Libyans fought to destroy the vestiges of the four-decade long dictatorship, Tarhuni threw himself into aid work for his native country.

Now the Portland businessman is fighting for his right to fly home to the United States. Sometime during his most recent aid mission to Libya, it appears, Tarhuni landed on the government's no-fly list — a secret roster of thousands of people, including hundreds of Americans, whom the Department of Homeland Security has identified as terror suspects.

"(The United States) is a country that has given me a lot," Tarhuni said, speaking to msnbc.com from Tripoli. "All of the sudden this country I love very much has given me a slap in the face … Here we are, we just got rid of this regime (Gadhafi)… and this happens to me in the United States of America. It was really mind-boggling."

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Sharia law for Libya?

Mustafa Abdel Ja­lil, Libya’s interim leader, declared Sunday that post-Gaddafi Libya will be run as an Islamic state with legislation based on sharia law.

According to The Washington Post reporter Mary Beth Sheridan, Jalil declared to a crowd in Benghazi, “’We are an Islamic state,’ and pledged to get rid of regulations that didn’t conform to Islamic law.”

Among the Islamic changes Jalil mentioned in his speech

— ”Libya’s new constitution “will not disallow polygamy’” (FP.com)

— “The interest [on loans] will be ruled out,” in accordance with Islamic prohibition on charging interest.

Sharia law, as Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein wrote in 2010, in recent months has become “shorthand for extremism” among critics of Islam in the United States. For Muslims, it is a code of conduct for daily life, similar to Jewish law, but concern over its role in politics have shadowed the Arab Spring.

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Moammar Gaddafi is dead

TRIPOLI, Libya — Former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was killed Thursday when revolutionary fighters overran his last loyalist stronghold, setting off raucous celebrations of victory in an eight-month war backed by NATO.

Gaddafi, 69, the long-entrenched autocrat who was driven from power in Tripoli two months ago, died as the revolutionaries ended loyalist resistance in Sirte, his home town and tribal power base, the new government announced.

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Lockerbie Planner Reported Near Death

TRIPOLI, Libya — An official with the rebel government on Sunday ruled out extraditing the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted as the mastermind of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and released from a Scottish prison two years ago on the ground that he was near death.

The hero’s welcome back in Libya for the bombing planner, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, and his failure to die infuriated the United States and other Western governments, and calls for his return had been mounting as the Libyan revolution unfolded.

The rebels’ resolve to protect the former officer may prove only briefly relevant, however. Just hours after the official spoke, CNN reported that Mr. Megrahi was near death at his villa in the capital here, broadcasting images of a frail man lying comatose in an oxygen mask.

Mr. Megrahi’s death would end the possibility of eliciting his full account of the Libyan government’s role in the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans. But it would also remove a potentially serious point of friction between the rebels’ Transitional National Council and its Western backers.

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International court issues Gaddafi arrest warrant

NEW YORK — Judges from the International Criminal Court on Monday issued a warrant for the arrest of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, his son and a top military intelligence chief, calling for them to to stand trial for crimes against humanity in connection with a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters this year.

The three-judge pretrial chamber ruled that ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had established “reasonable grounds” to charge Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi, the chief of military intelligence, with the murder and persecution of hundreds of Libyan civilians since the government began suppressing public protests Feb. 15.


In issuing the ruling, Judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng said there was sufficient evidence to believe that the three Libyans “have committed the crimes alleged by the prosecutor” and that “their arrest appears necessary” to ensure they appear before the Hague-based court and to prevent them from continuing further crimes against the Libyan population.

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War Powers Act Does Not Apply to Libya, Obama Argues

WASHINGTON — The White House is telling Congress that President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers have not authorized it.

In a broader package of materials the Obama administration is sending to Congress on Wednesday defending its Libya policy, the White House, for the first time, offers lawmakers and the public an argument for why Mr. Obama has not been violating the War Powers Resolution since May 20.

On that day, the Vietnam-era law’s 60-day deadline for terminating unauthorized hostilities appeared to pass. But the White House argued that the activities of United States military forces in Libya do not amount to full-blown “hostilities” at the level necessary to involve the section of the War Powers Resolution that imposes the deadline.

“We are acting lawfully,” said Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, who expanded on the administration’s reasoning in a joint interview with White House Counsel Robert Bauer.

The two senior administration lawyers contended that American forces have not been in “hostilities” at least since April 7, when NATO took over leadership in maintaining a no-flight zone in Libya, and the United States took up what is mainly a supporting role — providing surveillance and refueling for allied warplanes — although unmanned drones operated by the United States periodically fire missiles as well.

Read the rest here (if you have the stomach).

Royal Navy Chief: Britain too weak to support Libya operations

The British military intervention in Libya is unsustainable, the head of the Navy has said.

Adml Sir Mark Stanhope said the campaign would have been more effective without the Government's defence cuts.

The aircraft carrier and the Harrier jump-jets scrapped under last year's strategic defence review would have made the mission more effective, faster and cheaper, he said.

Sir Mark warned that the Navy would not be able to sustain its operations in Libya for another three months without making cuts elsewhere.

The First Sea Lord's comments will stir the debate over defence cuts that have left Britain without a working aircraft carrier and forced the Royal Navy's Harrier jump jets to be mothballed.

Highlighting military anger over the shrinking Armed Forces, another admiral warned that "comical" defence cuts would leave the Navy without enough ships to be effective.

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What I wonder, would Britain do if they were suddenly obliged to fight someone other than a 5th rate military power?

Libya: Rebels retreat before Qaddafi counter-attack

RAS LANUF, Libya — Having halted a westward push by rebel fighters, forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi began a counteroffensive on Tuesday, marching eastward to the outskirts of this critical oil town, as an array of diplomats gathered in London to shape a political vision of a post-Qaddafi era.

“We meet now in London at a turning point,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the conference, urging continued military action by the NATO-led coalition in Libya along with “political and diplomatic pressure that makes clear to Qaddafi that he must go.”

On the ground, though, there was no indication that Colonel Qaddafi was prepared even for the cease-fire demanded by the United Nations resolution 12 days ago authorizing the military operation in Libya. Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain opened the conference by saying the Libyan leader was still in “flagrant breach” of the resolution.

Under withering allied airstrikes loyalist forces had fallen back in the last week from the gates of Benghazi hundreds of miles to the east to the strategically crucial town of Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown, which had been depicted as recently as Sunday as the next rebel objective. Surt is critical for both sides since it blocks the rebels’ advance to western Libya and the capital of Tripoli.

But on Monday they struck back, sending volleys of missile and tank fire that pushed the battle lines farther east. A chaotic cavalcade of hundreds of trucks and cars carrying fighters streamed late Monday afternoon into Bin Jawwad, a battered ghost town about 80 miles east of Surt. Bin Jawwad has switched hands three times in the last month, and it did not seem that loyalist forces planned to recapture it as much as simply push the rebels farther eastward.

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Another quick and glorious war...

NATO Reaches Deal to Take Command in Libya Effort

TRIPOLI, Libya — NATO reached agreement Thursday to take over full command of the military campaign in Libya as allied warplanes delivered a ferocious round of airstrikes on Libyan ground forces, tanks and artillery that seems to have begun to shift momentum from the forces loyal to Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi to the rebels opposing him.

The deal within NATO was reached after a four-way telephone call between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the foreign ministers of Turkey, France and Britain, which apparently allayed Turkish concerns that the allies were exceeding their authority in their sustained attacks on Colonel Qaddafi’s froces.

Earlier on Thursday a French Rafale fighter jet fired on a Libyan warplane that had been detected by reconaissance aircraft flying above the embattled city of Misurata, the French Defense Ministry said in a statement. The plane was hit by a missile shortly after landing at a nearby military airbase, the Defense Ministry said.

In Misurata, rebels say they are feeling reinvigorated by a second night of American and European air strikes against the Qaddafi forces that have besieged them. The rebels say they continue to battle a handful of Qaddafi gunmen in the city but that the armored units and artillery surrounding the city appeared to have pulled back, their supply and communication lines cut off by the air strikes.

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Germany Withdraws From NATO Naval Patrols

BERLIN — Germany, already at odds with its European allies and Washington over its decision not to support a United Nations no-fly zone over Libya, said on Wednesday it was withdrawing four vessels from NATO operations in the Mediterranean because it did not want to be dragged into a military role in the region, Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière, said on Wednesday.

The decision means that Germany will withdraw two frigates and two support vessels with a total of 550 sailors from NATO’s command and place them under its own orders. It was made after the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, announced that the alliance would monitor sea traffic in the region and intercept vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries to Libya.

“All allies are committed to meet their responsibilities under the United Nations resolution to stop the intolerable violence against Libyan civilians,” Mr. Rasmussen said.

But the German Defense Ministry said that because the mission included an arms embargo that permitted force if necessary, Germany decided it would not participate.

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French Air Force Attacks In Libya

It is being reported that French military aircraft are now in action over Libya against the forces of Col. Qaddafi.

Qaddafi defies West as attacks on city continue

TRIPOLI, Libya — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi urged President Obama and European leaders on Saturday to hold back from enforcing a no-flight zone over Libya as reports indicated that his forces were continuing to press their attacks against rebels in the east despite warnings from the United States and other Western countries that such moves would provoke military action from the West.

Colonel Qaddafi’s comments, in open letters to President Obama and other leaders that were the Libyan leader’s first public response to the threat from the West, were the latest indication that military confrontation in the skies over Libya may be imminent. And their tone suggested that Colonel Qaddafi was leaving himself little room to back down in order to avoid a clash with the West.

One letter was addressed to Mr. Obama and a second to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations.

“Libya is not yours. Libya is for all Libyans,” Colonel Qaddafi wrote, according to the government spokesman. “This is injustice, it is clear aggression, and it is uncalculated risk for its consequences on the Mediterranean and Europe.”

“You will regret it if you take a step toward intervening in our internal affairs,” he added.

President Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to a meeting in Paris on Saturday to consult with France, Britain and members of the Arab League on further action. An allied military strike on Libya did not appear imminent as he spoke.

President Obama on Friday ordered Colonel Qaddafi to carry out an immediate cease-fire, withdraw his forces from rebel-held cities and stop all attacks on Libyan civilians or face military action from the United States and its allies in Europe and the Arab world.

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I am absolutely opposed to sticking our nose into this mess. But given that intervention appears to be a done deal, my feeling is let's get this done and over with as quickly as possible. The decision has been made and troops committed. So it's time to take care of business and ring this tin pot dictator's bell. And then let's get the H--- out of there, within a month if possible.

The only thing worse than getting into a war we should not be in, is getting into a war by half measures. Smash him and then go home... QUICKLY.

UN Approves Air Attacks And No Fly Zone Against Libya

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council approved a measure on Thursday authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians from harm at the hands of forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The measure allows not only a no-fly zone but effectively any measures short of a ground invasion to halt attacks that might result in civilian fatalities. It comes as Colonel Qaddafi warned residents of Benghazi, Libya, the rebel capital, that an attack was imminent and promised lenient treatment for those who offered no resistance.

“We are coming tonight,” Colonel Qaddafi said. “You will come out from inside. Prepare yourselves from tonight. We will find you in your closets.”

Speaking on a call-in radio show, he promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away” but “no mercy or compassion” for those who fight. Explosions were heard in Benghazi early on Friday, unnerving residents there, Agence-France Presse reported.

The United States, originally leery of any military involvement in Libya, became a strong proponent of the resolution, particularly after the Arab League approved a no-fly zone, something that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called a “game changer”

With the recent advances made by pro-Qaddafi forces in the east, there was a growing consensus in the Obama administration that imposing a no-fly zone by itself would no longer make much of a difference and that there was a need for more aggressive airstrikes that would make targets of Colonel Qaddafi’s tanks and heavy artillery — an option sometimes referred to as a no-drive zone. The United States or its allies might also send military personnel to advise and train the rebels, an official said.

In the most strident verbal attack on Colonel Qaddafi to date by an American official, Mrs. Clinton said Thursday that the Western powers had little choice but to provide critical military backing for the rebels. “We want to support the opposition who are standing against the dictator,” she told an applauding audience in Tunisia on Thursday. “This is a man who has no conscience and will threaten anyone in his way.”

She added that Colonel Qaddafi would do “terrible things” to Libya and its neighbors. “It’s just in his nature. There are some creatures that are like that.”

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Great, another war. You would think two were enough. Someone explain to me exactly how this is any of our business.

Libyan army calls for Benghazi to surrender as Saif Gaddafi says town will fall within 48 hours

The Libyan army has told people in Benghazi to lay down their arms as its troops advanced closer to the rebel stronghold for what could be the decisive battle in the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, speaking to French-based TV channel Euronews, said his troops were near Benghazi and "everything will be over in 48 hours".

The town of Ajbadiyah, 150 km (90 miles) south of Benghazi on the Gulf of Sirte, was firmly in government hands after most of its rebel defenders retreated under fire from a withering artillery barrage on Tuesday. Those who stayed had now handed over their guns, a rebel officer said.

In Benghazi, seat of the insurgents' provisional national council, the mood was a mixture of defiance and nervousness, with some citizens predicting a bloodbath and others confident the rebels would still snatch victory against the government offensive.

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Washington’s Options on Libya

The Obama administration is throwing out so many conflicting messages on Libya that they are blunting any potential pressure on the Libyan regime and weakening American credibility. It’s dangerous to make threats if you’re not prepared to follow through. All of the public hand-wringing has made it even worse.

President Obama was talking tough again on Monday, warning that the West is considering all options, including military intervention. Just a day before, his chief of staff, William Daley, complained that “lots of people throw around phrases like no-fly zone; they talk about it as though it’s just a video game.” A few days earlier, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a no-fly zone could require a huge, prolonged operation, an argument challenged by some military planners.

We are not eager to see the United States involved in another conflict in the Muslim world. Sending in American troops would be a disaster. But some way must be found to support Libya’s uprising and stop Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from slaughtering his people. On Tuesday, his forces appeared to be gaining momentum as they again turned warplanes against the opposition.

Even with overwhelming air superiority, preventing Libyan warplanes from flying would entail some risk for American and NATO pilots. And what happens if Colonel Qaddafi holds on? Will the United States and its allies continue to patrol the skies?

When the United States, Britain and France imposed an air cap over Iraq after the 1991 gulf war, they grounded airplanes and helicopters and stopped the massacres of Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south. It went on for 12 years.

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See my comment on their op-ed here.