Someone bombed Tripoli, but who?
At least six are dead, and no one knows who’s responsible.
In today’s bizarre news, at least six are dead in an airstrike that took out a small arms depot and other targets. The problem is, no one really knows who is responsible.
The New York Times reports:
Unidentified warplanes on Monday bombed a small arms depot and other locations in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that are controlled by Islamist-aligned militias, suggesting that a foreign state had intervened in the escalating battle for control of the city.
At least six people were killed, The Associated Press reported. The origin of the planes remained a mystery.
The airstrikes were beyond the capacity of the limited Libyan Air Force, and Libyan authorities said the planes had come from a foreign state. The United States, France, Italy and Egypt all denied responsibility.
“The United States was not involved whatsoever in these events,” said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman.
But the targets indicated the intent of the strikes. Although the month-old conflict in Tripoli is largely a contest for power between rival coalitions of cities and tribes, one side is considered to be allied with the forces of political Islam, while the other portrays itself as fighting an Islamist takeover. The strikes on Monday all hit the Islamist side.
Some renegade Libyan general claims he was responsible for the airstrikes, but as the NYT pointed out, the strikes were, “beyond the capacity of the limited Libyan Air Force.” It’s also not uncommon for would-be bad guys to pop up and claim violent tragedies are part of their own criminal master-mind.
Reuters explains:
Renegade General Khalifa Haftar’s air force was responsible for strikes on Islamist-leaning militia in Tripoli on Monday, one of his commanders said, after weeks of fighting for the capital in Libya’s worst violence since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011.
Fighters from Misrata – east of Tripoli – have been battling militia from the western Zintan region for weeks and have thrown the North African state into anarchy. Zintanis and Misratis worked together to topple Gaddafi but have fallen out since.
The fighting hitherto has been limited to ground action with artillery and rockets. None of the militias had been thought to own warplanes, while the central government has only an outdated air force, badly in need of repair.
Libyan television news channels speculated that the country’s neighbours might be behind the overnight air strikes, which Tripoli official Mohammed al-Kriwi said had killed about five people and wounded as many as 30.
A U.S. official and an Egyptian security source, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said their countries had not been involved. A NATO official said: “There are no fighter jets under NATO command involved in operations over Libya”.
NATO air strikes helped rebels overthrow Gaddafi.
The air attacks escalate a struggle between Islamist and more moderate forces as well as between militias from different cities all vying for power in the oil producer. Central government has no control of either Tripoli or Benghazi.
The case of the anonymous airstrikes remains open. For now…
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Comments
Libya. Another example of why we should not arm or support or think we can identify “moderate” Islamic “resistance fighters.”
“Moderate Islamist” is as incomprehensible, and therefore as rare, as a “Moderate Democrat”.
It was the Swiss Guards.
Knights Templar…???
Of all the groups alleged to be long conspiracies to take over the world, you have to give it to the Knights Templar for sheer patience.
And some thought the Masons and the Illuminati played the long game – just pikers. And the Rockefellers and Bildebergers are fresh-faced rookies.
If Marie Harf says it- it is wrong. SOS Kerry and the valley girl spox for State would be the last people to know what the DIA, CIA, or DOD did or did not do…because bombing people is icky.
Re Harf, yes. The rest, piffle.
Eygpt is my bet
Another set-back for Real Americans who know that affordable health insurance is tyranny:
http://ctmirror.org/after-rate-hike-rejected-anthem-to-decrease-premiums-next-year/
Time to ramp up those threats of “civil war” because the Kenyan usurper implemented the Republican healthcare plan.
What this crap has to do with Libya, I’ll never know, but…
you STILL cannot READ, you flucking moron.
This was a fascist business knuckling under to a fascist bureaucrat to cook its numbers.
“In rejecting Anthem’s initial proposal, Insurance Department Actuary Paul Lombardo determined that the company should reduce or remove several factors used in calculating premiums, including the estimate of how much the cost of covering medical services will rise. He also concluded that insurers will be eligible for more federal aid in the case of large medical claims than companies assumed when calculating their rates. Lombardo provided new guidelines for Anthem to use in recalculating its rates.
In a statement Friday, Anthem said it has “demonstrated a strong commitment” to working with the insurance department and Access Health to bring coverage to more state residents.”
Fugatabout the rising costs of medicine AND include the Federal slush funds we expect you’ll get.
What an amazing demonstration of stupid…
“This was a fascist business knuckling under to a fascist bureaucrat to cook its numbers.”
Ah, yes, this MUST be the case, because for (how long?) very learned Tealibanigelicals have been screaming about “rate shock!!!!!”
If only there was an objective way to tell if Tealiban prognostication was correct ….
Oh wait.
ShortBus Gus… trolling one thread at a time!
It’s more fun on /b/ or /pol/ cuz there ain’t no Ragspierre to smack yo slappy ass! 😆
Yikes, what has the Clownselor been telling you?
Why are you guys SO obsessed with homoerotic imagery?
“The case of the anonymous airstrikes”
Sounds like a good who-dun-it.
Google.
They’re now doing contract airstrikes.
The “renegade” General was a Gadhafi supporter up until he joined the rebellion. He is not a bad guy.
The General has been active for a long time and I first heard about his activities months ago. He had been active in Benghazi taking care of a few Islamists.
Is it possible that he is responsible? I do not know because I did not think that he had access to aircraft.
I would have been betting on the French for this adventure. I do not think that the Dutch would have been responsible for the attack.
The Libyan government does not know who is responsible for the attack…. but they have called on the U.N. for assistance to stop the Islamists.
Unlike a lot of other people I am glad that Gadhafi is dead. What most do not understand is that Gadhafi had been secretly arming many of those who are actively causing chaos in other countries today, especially in Mali. He claimed to be doing something about Islamists but he was only dealing with his political enemies, and he was murdering them…. the Gadhafi family had quite a long history of murdering political opponents (and a few others).
The rebels were in fact made up of some pro-Western people as well as the Islamists. The pro-Western people are the real moderates, and hopefully they can gain control of the Libyan government. What they did in Libya was cast off the Marxist government of Gadhafi.
Michigan Militia?
shoot I was hoping that would go unnoticed.
oh well too late now.
I did it.
Captain Midnight? Wrong Way Corrigan?
It’s obviously the EPA.
Hollywood. They’ve been dropping bombs all summer…
Team America:World Police.
It was North Korean, using the former Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 as a bomber. I thought with all the satellite tracking, that they would have been able to track Flight 370 from N. Korea to Tripoli and back.
Good one, MIke! I have to take exception, though, because I am so firmly convinced the airstrike is the work of the world-famous Sudanese Air Force! Word on the dusty tracks is that their khat-chewing pilots fly without the aid of planes and they self-immolate on contact with the target…
Then again it could be Quadaffi’s ghost as recently reported in the New York Post and National Enquirer. The ghost is said to cause accidents like those you sometimes see where the suicide bomber class blows itself to smithereens…
There are only two ways in without being caught by Egyptian or Morrocan or Algerian radar.
Either it came from the Mediterranean, a carrier or from Italy, or from Egypt. Italy is a US/NATO base and so would any carriers have been, so it most likely was an Egyptian strike.
The Rosecrucians?
…or the Guildensternians.
Following the chaos in N.Africa over the last two years and into the foreseeable future is a sport in its own right. Bookies and odds makers of any ilk should provide us an outlet for our prognostications.
Whereas a cloak of secrecy clouds most real information and apparently all congressional oversight as to U.S. involvement in the region I doubt very much we will ever know with any certainty what’s going on until well after any political fallout could damage our current “players”.
Some of the most intriguing commentary I’ve read over the last two years comes from ex-operatives who’ve left the “Company” and are now doing consulting work for “non-partisan” groups. (Is there really any such beast?)
We (the U.S.) were apparently arming post-Qaddafi militants in Libya, Mali,Syria and elsewhere in the region in an effort to wield at least a modicum of influence and steer outcomes from the chaos we (the U.S.) helped initiate.
It would be no surprise at all if this pinprick airstrike were another product of the unknowable Foreign Policies of the Smartest President Ever.