Shy and frail-looking, Yuma Omram Shaban presented with three of their comrades wearing the same clothes he wore on October 20, the date will never forget. Immediately, as if they wanted to offer evidence that his story is irrefutable, placed on a table his most precious spoils: two pistols, one of them gold, a black leather boot made in London and a military cap. Omran teaches trophies with a look of pride and a faint smile. Electrical engineering student of 21 years is not the Libyan rebels who are interested, those shabab (young men) to be launched into battle against troops of Muammar Gaddafi in the early moments of the revolt who was born in Benghazi, and two days later, on February 19, caught a Misrata. It is a quiet young man of 21 years, weak voice, slightly acute, mid-April just decided to join the insurgents in Libya. His city was being cruelly attacked. "I joined the revolution because the soldiers employed in Misrata Gaddafi dirtiest methods. In March, in my neighborhood, any man who left the house was arrested, killed children, raped women ...", says unfazed. On Thursday of last week to glory with a drain full of rubbish in Sirte, the birthplace of the tyrant. "Do not believe what my eyes. Nobody thought that Gaddafi was there. It is very difficult to describe my feelings. But now I think I caught the biggest terrorist in the world after Osama bin Laden," said Omran, now, more smiling.
Muammar Gaddafi
A FUND
Birth: 1942 Location: Sirte
Libya
A FUND
Capital: Tripoli. Government: People's Socialist Republic. Population: 6,173,579 (est. 2008)
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"I captured the biggest terrorist in the world after Osama bin Laden," says one of the rebels who found
It is very difficult to find a Libyan trial would have preferred the dictator. Most prefer dead
"The 'shabab' of Misrata have been very aggressive. It was a revenge. They can not control," says a rebel colonel Sirte will not be a priority in reconstruction. And if it were, take long to get back to normal
One sees clearly the two that say to the camera of a mobile Gaddafi ended. It should not cost you locate
In Misrata killed four people in one hour trips by air to celebrate the dictator's death
The last hours of the dictator, the self-proclaimed leader brother, the king of kings, began around eight in the morning of day 20. "We received information that a convoy of 50 vehicles was moving from the district 2 of Sirte. Mutasim knew that the son of Gaddafi, was in town because many people who had fled told us that they had seen, while knew that NATO attacked the caravan that time, "recounts Omran.
Ahmed Ghazal, an employee of a catering company in 21 years, Nabil Darwish, owner of a garage, 25; Salem Bakir, merchant, 28, and three militiamen accompanied the future electrical engineer in monitoring the area where the NATO attack became burned a dozen junk cars. Gadafistas soldiers were dispersed in a desperate escape attempt as futile, and the seven Shabab took pains to trace the arid zone as dozens of rebels were added to the search. "The soldiers were hiding in the nearby power station and in the trees. There was heavy fighting, but many of them killed and others were arrested. Gadhafi's soldiers were divided: some wanted to surrender and others chose to fight," says Omran, who , and his colleagues in command, seems elusive man of few words with foreigners.
200 meters from the convoy iron mass of decomposing corpses, remained six days in the place-extend two cement pipes under a road used to prevent flooding. It was the last distance walked the dictator in this open space, with very little vegetation, a lousy place to find a hiding place. "At one end of the pipes, one of 15 soldiers sheltered there raised the white flag, but on the other side of the road, just 20 meters, the gadafistas kept shooting." Our leader is here, "suddenly shouted the soldier willing to surrender. But imagine for a moment that was leader Gaddafi, "continues the story.
Destroyed some of the military and the rebels surrendered to other officers of the most loyal to the old regime, Bakir Salem approached the end of the pipe. It was the decisive moment, the anxious waiting since February 17 the vast majority of Libyans, which all ensured in this Arab country that would eventually come.
"Throughout my life," continues Bakir, "when he saw the convoy of dozens of vehicles Qaddafi moved from Tripoli to Sirte, thought it was a king or someone superhuman. I saw him first when he was out of the pipe and two feet away from me. I was shocked and paralyzed. But I touched the Koran in my pocket, and that gave me the strength to shout, 'Here's Gaddafi!, here's Gaddafi!' I told him to drop his weapon three times, but did not. And he said, 'What?, What happens?, What happens? ".
Omran, who was driving at that moment a machine gun, jumped from the truck to the body bloodied and the satrap, five feet below the asphalt. "I was seeing the other side of the pipe leaving the military rifles on the ground, but even in their hands and could shoot. It scared me. Then I pounced on Gaddafi and I took one of the pistols, which does not is gold. Do not know where I got the strength, "says Omran. Groups of rebels drove their truck at full speed toward the place. Ahmed Ghazal, catering employee, recalls: "When I saw him crawling and looking head on one side, I thought, 'How the king of kings could be there like a rat?' That picture with me every night of my life when I go to sleep. I picked up his boots and cap. " And minutes later, in the tumult, between shrieks of joy and proclamations uh Alla Akbar (God is great), the macabre spectacle of lynching, kicking and slapping against helpless and bewildered the despot who begs for mercy while being beaten. Many rebels recorded the brutal attack on their mobile phones.
A trail of blood, perhaps the dictator, still paints the pavement of the road from where an ambulance left with Gaddafi as a patient, or inmate who is going to execute. Hundreds of fighters names and their hometowns are written in the concrete that surrounds the exit of the ducts. As are two dates that will be reflected in the history books and marked indelibly on the memory of all Libya. They look in red ink on the wall of the nearby power plant: February 17, birthday of the revolt, and October 20, 2011, date of death of the capricious ruler.
It is not known exactly when or who will forcible unlocking the bullets in the head and abdomen Qaddafi, although at least two insurgents boast of having killed the dictator. The truth is that on Friday October 21, the bodies of Gadhafi, his son Mutasim, and his defense minister, Gen. Abu Bakr Younis Jaber, were exposed in the cold Misrata central market. Four days Libyans could verify in situ the tyrant -42 years after the coup that overthrew King Idris, postponed once because in March 1969 gave a concert in Benghazi, the Egyptian singer Um afamadísima Khultum-era history. When a couple of days after the battle raged Sirte criticism from international NGOs to the rebel government by violent circumstances of the death-Western governments have not exactly cry out to heaven, the militants were careful when Gaddafi put the head tilted to the left to hide the shot to the temple, and also cover with a blanket bullet hole in the throat Mutasim.
And is that Islamic precepts prescribing the burial within 24 hours of death were not respected by the devout militants misratíes, much less is going to worry about the protection of human rights, violation of which have suffered so many Libyans as flagrant. Now it is announced an investigation into the alleged cold-blooded murder as much as tempers were hot-and Mutasim Gaddafi, who appears on other recordings chatting with rebels, wounded slightly, smoking and drinking water. Whatever the outcome of these investigations, it is very difficult to find someone who would rather Libyan dictator trial. Most say openly, emulating the act of shooting, rather than dead. It should not cost too much to locate the two individuals who claim to the mobile phone camera have ended the life of Gaddafi. You see them quite clearly.
Libya across the revelry after news broke of the event. Hundreds of thousands of the six million men and women who populate Libya, including children, held in the squares and the disappearance of those who have been bitter over four decades of existence of arbitrariness, which might suffice frequenting a mosque to purge six years in prison, as happened to the airline pilot Mohamed Darwish, who came regularly to church in his neighborhood in Tripoli because he was unemployed after the commercial aviation embargo the U.S. imposed on Libya in the early the eighties of last century.
But if there is a city in which the excitement was overwhelming, that's Misrata. They have the locals in this city of 400,000 about-no census or statistics, the calculations are very complicated in Libya, which only an hour killed four people, victims of the shooting in the air of enfervorecidos fighters drove the soldiers and mercenaries gadafistas on April 24 after a dreadful carnage of two months. Because the February 19 died the first martyr, whom Gaddafi branded as "rats". Khaled Abu Mustafa Shajma was born in 1968. Four days after the first shell fell on Misrata. About 3,000 residents, hundreds of them innocent civilians have died alone in this locality. His photographs are now seeing with a copy of the death certificate of Gaddafi in the improvised war museum, located in Tripoli street devastated by explosions, and also where the sculpture stands metal fist that crushes the U.S. aircraft , a symbol of power that Gaddafi Misrata fighters transported to their city from Bab el Azizia, the bastion of the autocrat in the capital, once in late August conquered Tripoli. The boldness of militants Misrata was crucial. Now is proud to be the first co-Zinta-in Nafusa mountains in western Libya to compete bravely broke the triple cement wall that bulwark of the regime.
It is famously entrepreneurial city Misrata, to have business savvy, and had not taken a step backwards in the race. Even the deaf, filed Friday in a mass celebration, joined the unequal fight. Sedik the Fituri, businessman, 52, owns a company of cranes and heavy transport trucks. He has spent 400,000 dinars (about 220,000 euros) in a war that became a brigade commander. All the material has been damaged beyond repair. "I've lost everything, but I'm happy. On March 6, the military entered Misrata Gaddafi and killed almost everyone. We set traps in which they fell because they did not know the city. On that day knew that here was an army . About 50,000 people took up arms. Listen ... My wife, when I saw my children at home resting or sleeping, I said, 'Take the gun, get up and go and fight. "Ingenious, when the enemy snipers holed in buildings on the battlefield of Tripoli Street, the rebels put batteries in lights in dogs and cats for snipers shot and thus be able to locate them. Only Misrata Zinta and have fought from day one. We prefer to die back. Besides those killed, 40,000 wounded have 1,000 people have suffered amputations, and 100 have gone blind. In Benghazi, however, stopped the war soon, and that allowed the gadafistas focused on attacking us. Misrata has been the city hardest hit, "said El Fituri with a hint of bitterness toward fellow of the cradle of the rebellion.
It's that bloody medieval siege to the city which has led to ruthless revenge also Misrata militias in Sirte, the Bedouin village where he was born 69 years ago Gaddafi, who tried to make the capital of the country and free port. It built the convention center Ouagadougou, a pharaoh complex now shattered that took place in the African Union summit. And although many Libyans claim that homes were built knowing that nobody was going to live in them, with the sole intention of giving the town an appearance of grandeur, the dictator was overwhelmingly backed majority in Sirte. And if now they are few, Abdelaziz al Farjani is one of them who shriek "Muammar, Mu'ammar" raising his arms with clenched fists, imitating the ousted leader, it is because the city has an eerie landscape. The exodus has been complete. No water, no electricity, no food. Its 80,000 residents have fled to the desert or Sabha, 700 kilometers south of Tripoli. People carrying mattresses in trucks en route to their tents in the Sahara, is the image most often these days.
The destruction in Sirte in Libya is unmatched even supports the commander's Fituri. Say hello to the neighborhood 2, the district from which the last convoy left Gaddafi, a rebellious graffiti: "Sirte, the new Leptis," reads the brief allusion to the splendid Roman ruins of Leptis Magna, located a hundred kilometers west of Misrata. The house of Al Farjani is just one example. The gaps of the shells have pounded viciously. No building has been spared. Compared locals Sirte in Grozny, the Chechen capital destroyed by the Russian Army in the early nineties. The picture on several streets is indeed very similar. Some mosques are waste and its minaret has been topped, power stations, also, destroyed schools are obvious as well as looted hospitals. In one week were collected from the streets and out of the rubble about 400 bodies. On Thursday still reeked of death in the street September 1, when the power stroke that clinched the dictator.
In Sirte, of course, rodents are the ones who rose up against tyranny. "Militants are rats. Here respaldábamos Qaddafi, who slept every night in a different house. When Tripoli fell, came here, but do not know exactly when," says Ibrahim, a medical student 20 years at the doors of a hospital it no longer appears. Although it was his hometown, no military expert explains why the tyrant Sirte chose to take refuge after his flight from the capital. It is a trap. But he preferred the safer desert. Many refer to their mentality and argues that the character who was traveling abroad with their tents on their backs to feel at home played a decisive role. Gadhafi promised always to never leave his country and die in Libya, whatever the circumstances. And he kept his word.
Since 15 September, the siege of Sirte was complete. Abderrahim the Agili Colonel, born in Benghazi, is one of the rebel leaders that gripped this town by the eastern flank. "It's hard to know," he explains, "how many militia groups have fought because they came from many places. But about 15,000 surrounded the city. Most of the 80,000 inhabitants have gone to Sirte desert to the south. West will not because it is Misrata. It is true that the shabab of Misrata have been very aggressive. It was a revenge. they can not control. " Surprised by the ease with which the insurgents allowed the excesses when asked about the apparent looting. In the great avenue of September 1 is not a store without breaking. "It is true that many militants robbed the stores," he admits in a splendid English engineering student Ahmed Meshri, militant in recent months. He says, his mouth small, to search and punish the guilty. But it seems he does not believe his words. The orgy of violence during the last days of the Battle of Sirte shudders.
Do not be repaired if it does not explain the hairy Abdelmulá Saleh, another supporter of Colonel Gaddafi said at the reception of the devastated hotel Mahari, in which the Mediterranean front lawn 53 bodies were found shot dead, many of them tied up. Saleh points to the black spots on a wall facing the lobby plastered under a railing on the first floor. "You know what that is? Are brands of shoes hanging from their kicking before he died. The red hose hung with that fire," he says indignantly. "We also found slain men in a mosque and dozens of deaths in the hotel," he added angrily, before making a distinction shared by few people who swarm population.
Sirte neighbors attribute the monopoly of the crimes Misrata insurgents. The thirtysomething Abdelhamid, serious face, does not hide the anger that keeps to the fighters of the city located 240 kilometers to the west. He also admires the dictator and includes the price paid in any war. He owns a photography trade articles in which nothing remains. It is the rule: all establishments have a look bleak. "The guerrillas of Benghazi, mine, mine, "he says with a Libyan expression means perfect. "They were," says Abdelhamid, "Just combatants. They did nothing horrible." The few citizens who remain in the city, flooded several streets through the pipes burst, cud his misfortune. A few hundreds of men swept streets of debris, fallen lampposts removed from the main road and power lines of the soils in the periphery, while bow-to-hang force the rebels to patrol the city.
Khaled noted the tremendous damage in the apartment block where he lived. His mother waits on the stairs. The truckload of equipment is ready to go into exile destination. "We will Samsum, about 150 kilometers south of here. I will live in a tent. The worst thing is that we can not return to Sirte until all damage is repaired. If everything is arranged, return." Khaled know what trust that long. That in a country ravaged by a war of eight months, Sirte will not be the priority in the reconstruction. And if it were, the damage is of such magnitude that will be long before everything can return to normal. Not to speak of reconciliation, one of the stated objectives of the new authorities, a mission that seems to be superhuman.
Hassan al-Osta, an economist Misrata is of the opinion of Fathi Terbil, counsel of the most famous victims of the massacre of the regime that perpetrated in June 1996 in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, where 1270 prisoners, many of them political activists, were shot and butchered with grenades and machine guns in the courtyard of the prison. "Violence will cause people now hate the revolution," said Terbil days ago, a member of the National Transitional Council, the governing body of the uprising. "The looting in Sirte are unacceptable because of things like get up against Gaddafi," agrees Al Osta.
And while Sirte and Bani Walid Zliten, strongholds of the deposed regime, are now depopulated towns, Misrata lives a permanent celebration, only tinged with the seriousness it requires a visit to the war museum, an outdoor showcase of grenades, tanks, shells of all sizes ... Military parades, marching in trucks with mounted guns, a symbol of rebellion, succeed one day every other well; the helicopters fly over the city with the new tricolor (the monarchist green, black and red ) hanging from their guts, are handed diplomas, flowers and a Koran to the families of each of the rebellious victims, whose names are read one by one the children pose to be immortalized with their guns from their parents, the fighter pilots who refused to obey the orders of the dictator and flew to Malta or the bombs were dropped on the desert are cheered, ambulances, fire trucks, including refuse collection vehicles, are applauded by misratíes. And armed insurgents slapping dance and singing at the military base, 10 kilometers from Sirte, from which organized the siege. The chorus, which rhymes in Arabic, goes on to say: "Whoever hurts Misrata receive fire. Gadhafi, wait, wait, we will put you in Misrata underground." -
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