People loyal to ousted Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi attacked an oil refinery yesterday, killing 15 guards in an apparent attempt to disrupt a drive by Libya’s new rulers to seize the Qaddafis’ last bastions and revive the oil-based economy.
Witnesses said the assailants damaged the front gate of the refinery, 20km from the coastal town of Ras Lanuf, but not the plant itself, which is not fully operational.
About 60 staff were at the refinery at the time of the attack, according to one of two wounded survivors at a hospital where the dead were also taken. Blood stained the floor.
Refinery worker Ramadan Abdel Qader, who had been shot in the foot, said gunmen in 14 or 15 trucks had come from the direction of the Qaddafi-held coastal city of Sirte.
“We heard firing and shelling at around 9 in the morning from Qaddafi loyalists,” he said.
Staff had been asleep.
The assault occurred only hours after Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) announced that it had resumed some oil production, which had been all but halted since anti-Qaddafi protests turned into civil war in March.
As pressure builds on Qaddafi’s last strongholds, some of his top officials and family members have fled abroad — including his son Saadi, who arrived in Niger on Sunday after crossing the remote Sahara desert frontier.
The NTC has said it will send a delegation to Niger to seek the return of anyone wanted for crimes, but Jalal al-Galal, a -council spokesman, said the visit had not yet been scheduled.
“We want to take the necessary legal steps to give us [the] possibility of obtaining the detention and extradition of anyone we are seeking,” he said, adding that time was needed to prepare the paperwork to satisfy international legal norms.
The departure of Saadi, who had at one stage offered peace negotiations with the NTC, leaves Qaddafi, Saif al-Islam and two other hardline sons, military commanders Mutassim and Khamis, as the most prominent figures still at large. Another son, Saif al-Arab, was reported killed during the war.
In Tripoli, NTC fighters revealed they had captured Qaddafi’s foreign spy chief, Bouzaid Dorda.
Reporters saw Dorda, a former Libyan prime minister who ran Qaddafi’s external spy service, held by a group of about 20 fighters in a house in the capital’s Zenata district.
A lanky figure in safari jacket and slip-on shoes, Dorda was sitting on a sofa and was not physically restrained, but an armed guard sat beside him.
When a fighter asserted that he had killed people, he replied: “Prove it.”
Residents fleeing Bani Walid reported intense street fighting, while NATO warplanes could be heard overhead.
Families trapped in the besieged town for weeks fled after Qaddafi forces abandoned some checkpoints on the outskirts. Dozens of cars packed with civilians streamed out of the area.
“We are leaving because of the rockets. They are falling near civilian homes,” said Ali Hussain, a resident.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)