Libya: NTC Forces Capture Sabha City

Tripoli--Libya’s interim government forces claim they have seized the strategic southern town of Sabha, sealing off the possible escape route for the ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi and his loyalists.

The National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters were seen firing into the air in celebration of the take over of the desert town which controls the main road south, an exit route recently used by Col Gaddafi’s close allies and relatives to escape to Niger.

Head of Sabha local council Suleiman Khalifa announced the liberation saying the city was “totally free” even after reports of remnants of pro-Gaddafi snipers in few areas of the city. Eighteen NTC fighters are said to have died during the final operation.

Elsewhere the NTC forces seized the three main towns-Hun, Waddan and Sokna-in the Al-Jufra oasis deep in the Sahara, impounding a secret stockpile of chemical weapons from an abandoned nuclear plant.

NTC leaders have said they were holding back their push for the Sirte city for a week following shortage of arms. Hundreds of civilians have been seen leaving the besieged city, after reports that NATO was planning to hit the city on Thursday. Aid groups have raised concern over deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the city which has been cut off basic supplies.

Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for Gaddafi, told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that NATO airstrike and interim forces attacks on Sirte from Wednesday  had claimed 151 civilian lives.

NATO has said its mission in Libya could be finished within the next three months, following an extension for another 90 days. NATO said its operation was now restricted to the three last pockets of Bani Walid, Sirte, and Al-Fugaha held by Gaddafi forces.

Former Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi was arrested and jailed in Tunisia for illegal entry into the country. Tunisian authorities say that al-Mahmoudi who was jailed for six months on Thursday was arrested alongside two others in southern Tunisia.

Lack of coordinated attacks and poor arming by NTC forces have slowed down their push for the last pockets under Gaddafi, seen as embarrassment for the western powers that have been instrumental in its installment.

 

Kampala, Uganda

Ugandan Court Grants LRA Rebel Amnesty

A Ugandan court has ordered the release of a Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel commander charged on counts of war crimes and other abuses against humanity.

Thomas Kwoyelo, a former LRA colonel and fourth in command was released by the Ugandan constitutional court on grounds that other LRA rebels had been granted amnesty. He was captured two years ago in DR Congo during a Ugandan army operation and charged with 53 counts of murder and other war crimes.

He was the first LRA rebel commander to face trial under Uganda’s special war crimes tribunal set up in 2008 following peace talks between the government and the LRA. The talks which later collapsed had sought for a local trial of the rebels rather than at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

His defence lawyer Ben Ikilai said that the constitutional court had decided that he was supposed to be released because it was discriminatory not to grant him amnesty in line with other LRA rebels who had already been granted.

Mr. Kwoyelo was charged with commanding attacks on villages northern Uganda and DR Congo between 1992 and 2005, burning property, taking hostages, raiding crops and livestock.

Formed in 1987, the LRA under Joseph Kony has been seeking to establish a theocratic state based on Christianity and local Acholi traditions in Uganda, leading to greatest human rights violations in mainly northern Uganda and neighbouring DR Congo.

Driven out of Uganda in a US-supported military operation by Ugandan army in 2009, the LRA fighters continue to rein terror on local communities in the border regions of Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central Africa Republic in trademarked attacks of mutilating victims’ ears and lips.

Kony alongside other four LRA leaders are wanted by the ICC for charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes.