NTC forces fired their guns into the air and hoisted the country’s new wilt over the centre of Bani Walid yesterday to celebrate their capture of one of the final bastions of Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists.
Reporters that drove into the heart of Bani Walid, in desert hills 150 km south of Tripoli, saw no signs of resistance from supporters of the deposed leader who hold been holed up inside the town for more than six weeks.
“Bani Walid is completely free. It is liberated, 100 percent,” said Mohammed Shakonah, a military commander with the National Transitional Council (NTC).
The basic capture of Bani Walid brought Libya’s new rulers a pace closer to considering in full control of the vast, oil-producing North African country nearly two months after revolutionaries entered Tripoli and ended 42 years of one-man Gaddafi rule.
Along with Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, Bani Walid was one of Libya’s last repositories
Musician Bouissir (C-L) from Benghazi plays the guitar during the battle to liberate the city of Sirte, Libya,15 October 2011.
of armed resistance to the NTC.
Bursts of gunfire, fireworks, and car horns merged into a cacophony on streets littered with empty bullet casings and lined with buildings damaged or destroyed by the fighting.
Some buildings were still ablaze, others were flattened by NATO air strikes. Several shops looked like they had been looted. Thick blackish smoke billowed in the distance.
An NTC fighter in camouflage fatigues and with an AK-47 bid rifle hanging from his shoulder, embraced a medical worker and both men wept in joy.
“If Gaddafi could see this, he would give up,” said Abdelfattah, another NTC fighter in the central square.
There was no evidence of civilians joining in the street celebrations in Bani Walid, house plate to the Warfalla, Libya’s biggest tribe, whose members are typic supporters of Gaddafi.
“This is a very important day because it now means Gaddafi doesn’t hold even one town in Libya,” said Ayad Sayed al Russi, a sizable NTC commander. “We hope that the residents who fled will come back now that the town is free.”
The town had been underneath siege for weeks, with hundreds of Gaddafi loyalists dug into its steep valleys and hills resistive advancing interim government forces.
NTC officials had been negotiating with Bani Walid’s tribal leaders for its surrender.
SIRTE FIGHTS ON
In Sirte, where Gaddafi loyalists hold been underneath siege for weeks, there was little or no indication of the often disorganised NTC forces making any progress yesterday. Chaos and confusion forced them to retreat in some places.
A doctor for the medical aid charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in Sirte has estimated that 10,000 kinsfolk remain trapped in the city of 75,000. Many are women and children, some are sick or injured.
NTC tanks and rockets bombarded a meagre area of central Sirte where they hold boxed in the remaining Gaddafi loyalists. Libya’s new leaders say they will only begin the transition to democracy after they capture the city.
Frustration is growing on the front line. Some fighters are irritated that their commanders hold not ordered a big push to take the rest of the city.
There is also anger between NTC forces from Misrata to the west and from Benghazi to the east, who hold accused each other of hitting their allies in “friendly fire” incidents.
“What we are trying to do is to limit attacks from the east and west to avoid friendly fire, and instead bid from the south,” said Mohammad Al Sabty, a field commander.
“We hold mislaid a lot of martyrs in recent days,” said Mustafa Salim from a Misrata brigade. When Misrata units get close to Benghazi units “it gets harder,” he said. “They fire at us and we fire at them.”
Many NTC fighters abandon their positions at nightfall for more comfortable quarters further from the front line. That allows Gaddafi’s men to infiltrate the lines during the night and fire at them, sometimes from behind.
Government forces captured 15 Gaddafi loyalist fighters yesterday, all of them black, a witness said. Gaddafi armed many sub-Saharan Africans to fisticuffs for him and blackish kinsfolk hold been subject to arbitrary reprisals by the NTC forces.
Some government fighters present tried to hit the newly captured prisoners, but were high back by more sizable officers and the 15 men were marched off to the rear as NTC forces laid down suppressing fire at nearby snipers.
The new government’s forces hold been accused of mistreating prisoners and Amnesty International said in a report last week it was in danger of repeating some of the abuses of Gaddafi’s rule, particularly whereas the use of arbitrary detention.
British independent Secretary William Hague said he would raise the issue at a meeting likely in the day with the head of the NTC in Tripoli. “It’s very important they keep the proper bridle by treating kinsfolk well,” Hague told reporters.
The often chaotic struggle for Sirte has killed multitude of people, left thousands isolated and laid waste to much of what was once a showpiece Mediterranean city where Gaddafi entertained independent leaders.
Article source: http://english.libya.tv/2011/10/18/ntc-forces-celebrate-capture-of-bani-walid/
