[D66] NATO assault on Sirte inflicts more Libyan civilian casualties

[Antid Oto]

NATO assault on Sirte inflicts more Libyan civilian casualties
By Patrick O’Connor
4 October 2011

The coastal Libyan city of Sirte is under ferocious bombardment from NATO in the
air, and militia fighters aligned with the National Transitional Council (NTC)
on the ground. Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in the area, and
are being subjected to indiscriminate rocket, mortar and missile attacks. The
military operation has also involved a prolonged blockade—denying residents
access to basic supplies, including food, water, medicine and fuel—that has
exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.

Numerous reports have emerged from civilians who have managed to flee Sirte in
recent days about NATO bombs destroying homes and other civilian buildings and
infrastructure.

Ashiq Hussein, an immigrant Pakistani electrician who escaped with 11 of his
family members, told AFP: “NATO struck one big building, Imarat Tamim, two days
ago, with 12 or 13 bombs. The whole building with nearly 600 flats is razed to
the ground now... Two of my neighbours died yesterday in a NATO bomb which hit
their home. Maybe they have information that on rooftops there were Gaddafi
men... But a lot of civilian buildings were getting hit. Also the incoming
shells from NTC forces were hitting civilian homes.”

NATO war planes are conducting continual operations in the air above Sirte,
carrying out reconnaissance and bombing operations and also dropping leaflets
demanding that civilians leave the city and pro-Gaddafi fighters surrender.
According to official figures released in Brussels, 78 strike sorties were
carried out last Saturday and Sunday, with all but two of the confirmed “key
hits” occurring in Sirte.

The American, British and French governments spearheading the bombardment are
guilty of war crimes. What is unfolding in Sirte has again put paid to the
“humanitarian” pretext for the regime change campaign in Libya that was driven
by the predatory economic and geo-strategic calculations of the US and European
powers. NATO figures now make little pretence that their operation has anything
to do with “saving lives” in Libya. The people of Sirte are being subjected to a
collective punishment for their hostility toward NATO and the NTC, with the
brutal military operation serving as a warning to people throughout Libya and
the region against any resistance to the agenda being advanced by Washington,
London and Paris.

Around 100,000 people live in Sirte, located about halfway between the Libyan
capital of Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi. It remains unclear how many
are left, but the number is certainly in the tens of thousands. The situation
there is already critical. The population has not had access to running water
and a regular electricity supply since August. Child malnutrition has been
reported and there are increasing incidents of sanitation-related diseases,
including diarrhoea.

Dr Siraj Assouri, who was in Sirte last weekend, told the Guardian that basic
medical supplies had run out and people were resorting to drinking contaminated
water to survive. “There is no medicine for heart disease or blood pressure, or
baby milk or nappies,” he explained. “There is very little water that is
drinkable. The water is contaminated with waste oil.”

Reuters interviewed Al-Sadiq, who said he had run the dialysis unit at Sirte’s
main hospital. He explained: “Doctors start operating, then the power goes. They
have a few litres of fuel for the generators, then the lights go out when they
operate. I saw a child of 14 die on the operating table because the power went
out during the operation.”

Mohammed Shnaq, a biochemist who fled the hospital on Sunday, added: “It’s a
catastrophe. Patients are dying every day for need of oxygen.”

NTC gunmen enforcing the siege of Sirte have deliberately created the
humanitarian crisis by refusing to allow supplies into the city. A group of
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers entered Sirte on
Saturday to deliver body bags and war wounded kits, but was unable to enter the
hospital because it came under fire from the NTC.

ICRC team leader Hichem Khadhraoui told AFP: “Several rockets landed within the
hospital buildings while we were there. We saw a lot of indiscriminate fire. I
don’t know where it was coming from.” Khadhraoui added that his team members
“were surprised” by the attack, because they had “contacted all parties to say
we were going in.”

The incident appears to have been another premeditated war crime carried out by
NTC forces. Al Jazeera reported that “NTC fighters are unhappy with the ICRC for
delivering supplies to the town rather than evacuating wounded people and
searching for disappeared residents.”

On Saturday, NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil announced a two-day “humanitarian”
ceasefire, supposedly to allow more civilians to evacuate. Yet the attack on
Sirte’s hospital occurred during this so-called ceasefire, while journalists on
the city’s outskirts reported no let up in the militias’ indiscriminate mortar
and rocket fire. On Saturday, according to AFP, two children and two adults were
killed when their vehicle, which was leaving Sirte, was hit by a rocket,
apparently fired by NTC militia. The children “were torn to pieces,” Dr Ahmed
Abu Oud, a field medic on the western side of Sirte, said. “They collected the
body parts in bags.”

The declared “ceasefire”—which was accepted as good coin by much of the US and
European media—was clearly motivated by propaganda considerations. NATO and NTC
forces are preparing their alibis for the civilian killings for which they will
be responsible in the final offensive on Sirte. Having supposedly given time for
civilians to flee, all those left in the city will be regarded as legitimate
targets by NTC fighters.

A similar campaign was waged in the lead up to the US assault of the Iraqi city
of Fallujah in November-December 2004. After demanding that civilians flee, the
commanders of the 10,000 US troops and marines who invaded the city regarded
everyone still there, especially men, as justifiable targets. The entire urban
centre became a free-fire zone, while civilian buildings were systematically
levelled as a means of killing snipers and other anti-occupation fighters.
Similarly in Sirte, snipers have played an important role in pushing TNC militia
out of the city centre.

Those left in Sirte include the most vulnerable layers of the population. One
fleeing resident told the BBC that “those left behind were either too badly
injured to leave, or lacked cars and petrol.” Petrol reportedly costs 600
dinars, or about $450, for 20 litres. Mohammed Dahab, a 30-year-old engineer who
was born in Sudan but has lived in Sirte since he was 5, told Spiegel Online:
“The only ones left are the poor, including many African foreigners.”

The African immigrant and dark-skinned Libyan community in Sirte has been
swollen by a recent influx of refugees from neighbouring Tawargha. The town of
about 10,000 people was entirely depopulated by NTC militiamen who went on a
racist rampage after they captured it in August.

Fears among Sirte residents of similar reprisal attacks are well-founded. When
NTC fighters fought their way into the Sirte district of Bouhadi yesterday, a
Reuters correspondent reported that they set a house on fire belonging to
someone allegedly close to Gaddafi. In other houses, the reporter added: “Some
helped themselves to belongings. NTC pickup trucks drove from the area loaded
with carpets, clothes and furniture. One NTC vehicle had a table football game
in the back.”

The author also recommends:

The slaughter in Sirte
[3 October 2011]

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/oct2011/liby-o04.shtml