The chief of Libya’s former rebels has arrived in Tripoli, greeted by a boisterous red carpet ceremony meant to show he is taking charge of the interim government replacing the ousted regime of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
However, even as Libya’s new leaders tried to consolidate control over the vast country, Qaddafi loyalists pushed back hard against an assault on the town of Bani Walid, one of Qaddafi’s remaining strongholds, in a sign that the battle is far from over.
National Transitional Council (NTC) Chairman Mustafa -Abdul-Jalil, head of the anti-Qaddafi forces, landed on Saturday at an air force base on the outskirts of Tripoli. A faded red carpet was rolled out and hundreds of fighters and officials in suits rushed toward the plane as he walked down the steps. Some flashed victory signs or shouted “God is great.”
Abdul-Jalil was mobbed by the crowd as he tried to make his way to the air force building. A fistfight broke out between two men after Abdul-Jalil was rushed inside, and one waved his pistol in the air. Other men trying to shove their way in knocked over a metal detector and a large potted plant.
After meeting with local leaders inside, Abdul-Jalil called for unity among Libyans to finish the fight against Qaddafi loyalists. He also called for forgiveness to allow Libyans to rebuild the country.
“This is not the time for -retribution. This is not the time for taking matters into your own hands. Many rights have been lost and many tragedies have occurred,” he said. “We have to realize that Muammar Qaddafi is not done yet and we must direct all our means to liberate the rest of the cities.”
Abdul-Jalil’s arrival was meant to show that the former rebels are getting ready to establish their government in the capital. Until now, most leaders of the anti-Qaddafi movement had been based in the eastern city of Benghazi.
“It’s a day that shows Libya is finally in the hands of its people,” said Abdullah Gzema, an NTC member from Zawiya. “We know we have nothing ahead of us but challenges. The challenge now is to organize the state and that will be harder than the military campaign.”
NTC Interior Minister Ahmed Darrad took the disorderly welcome for Abdul-Jalil in stride.
“We expected that he would get a popular reception, but we didn’t expect it to be quite to this extent,” he said, smiling.
Revolutionary forces entered Tripoli on Aug. 21, six months after the uprising against Qaddafi began.
The fall of Tripoli effectively sealed the fate of Qaddafi’s regime, but Abdul-Jalil stayed away from the capital until Saturday. His prolonged absence had raised questions about the former rebels’ ability to take charge.
Officials close to Abdul-Jalil cited security concerns.
While anti-Qaddafi forces have driven armed loyalists out of Tripoli, the security situation remains shaky. The capital has been flooded with weapons, including those in the hands of civilians.
Earlier on Saturday, as reporters waited for Abdul-Jalil’s arrival at the air force base, a group of fighters escorted a wooden -coffin to a nearby plane. The coffin carried a fighter who was killed on Friday by a young civilian in Tripoli’s main square. The assailant drew a pistol and shot the fighter in the chest after being told he could not enter the square, said Rafa al-Mogherbi, who witnessed the shooting.
Anti-Qaddafi forces control much of Libya, but have had trouble driving loyalists out of three strongholds, including the town of Bani Walid, where fierce fighting raged on Saturday. From hiding, the fugitive Qaddafi has exhorted loyalists to keep fighting in audio messages.
On Saturday night, a radio station in Bani Walid rebroadcast Qaddafi’s last recording, in which he urged his followers to rise up and fight, saying “this is the zero hour.”
“Shame on you if you don’t fight. If you don’t fight, you will go to hell,” he said in the message, which was repeatedly replayed on the station.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing