The New, New Libya
Libyan Brigadier General Hamed Belkhair, commander of the Benghazi garrison had himself been abducted in the general atmosphere of chaotic insecurity in Libya. Colonel Moammar Ghadafi did one thing very well when he was in charge of the country; he repressed violent insurrection and the fanatic hostilities that erupted between tribes, despite the well entrenched turpitude of his administration.Shortly after his troops had been performing duty protecting crowds of anti-Islamist demonstrators storming bases belonging to Ansar al-Sharia - suspected on fairly good intelligence of having been behind the well-armed mob that converged on the American Benghazi consulate, and responsible for the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans - and other Islamist groups, he had been abducted outside his home.
He reported that his masked abductors scorned him verbally as a "kuffar", an infidel and a "traitor". His fate, it would appear, might have been swiftly sealed, in a manner perhaps resembling the gruesome bodily harm visited on Moammar Ghadafi when he was tracked down and murdered. But a telephone call appeared to come through on the cusp of his disposal which instructed his abductors to release him, and they threw him from the vehicle.
He had, he said, originally kept his troops in their barracks when a peaceful demonstration had been called by ordinary civilians to protest against the illegal and destructive power of armed militias refusing to surrender their arms to the government military infrastructure. The people of Benghazi were particularly enraged that someone whom they trusted and respected had been killed.
When the protest turned against the militias that seemed a truly spontaneous backlash to the community-destabilizing work of the Islamist Ansar al-Shariah and Rafallah al-Sahati, another prominent Islamist battalion, licensed and nominally responsive to the defence ministry. Brig.-Gen Belkhair then ordered his troops to the scene to ensure civilians were protected from harm.
He regretted that the revolutionary government, the National Transitional Council, had erred in permitting all the militias to remain in place and armed with the successful conclusion of the revolution. But the reason is obvious enough; the transitional council hadn't the manpower to remove the weapons of the tribal militias.
With a new government now in place under a newly-elected Prime Minister, Mustafa Abushagur, there are hopes of completely disbanding the militias, having them surrender their arms stores to the government. In the final analysis there may be the need for an uncomfortable compromise to secure the country from the threat of al-Qaeda-allied-and-inspired Islamists.
Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur appears to be negotiating with senior Islamist leaders who will insist on being invited to become part of the new government.
Labels: Chaos, Conflict, Islamism, Libya, Political Realities, Revolution, Terrorism, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 25, 2012
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