AU: Libyan rebels may be killing black people

The head of the rebel's transitional government, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, speaks during NATO talks in Doha, Monday Aug. 29, 2011. Top Libyan rebel officials Monday urged NATO to maintain pressure on the remnants of Muammar Qaddafi's regime and protect crews trying to restore critical water and power services. / AP Photo/Osama Faisal

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - The chairman of the African Union says Libyan rebels may be indiscriminately killing black people in Libya because they have confused innocent migrant workers with mercenaries.

Chairman Jean Ping told reporters Monday that this is one of the reasons the AU is refusing to recognize Libya's rebel Transitional National Council as the country's interim government.

He said "We need clarification because the TNC seems to confuse black people with mercenaries .... They are killing normal workers."

Ping also said there was no doubt now the council controlled the capital city of Tripoli and called on both sides to "stop the killing."

Meanwhile, Libyan rebel leaders asked NATO on Monday to keep up pressure on elements of Muammar Qaddafi's regime and to protect those struggling to restore electricity and water to the battle-scarred capital of Tripoli.

Transitional National Council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil told senior NATO envoys meeting in the Gulf Arab nation of Qatar that Qaddafi, who has been in hiding since rebels captured Tripoli a week ago, can still cause trouble.

Despite effectively ending his rule, the rebels have yet to find Qaddafi or his family members -- something that has cast a pall of lingering uncertainty over the opposition's victory.

"Qaddafi is still capable of doing something awful in the last moments," Abdul-Jalil told military chiefs of staff and other key defense officials from NATO nations including France, Italy and Turkey.

"Even after the fighting ends, we still need logistical and military support from NATO," he added. NATO has been bombing Qaddafi's forces since March under a United Nations mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

Rebels appear to have secured the capital after a week of fierce fighting in which they captured Qaddafi's compound and then cleared loyalists holed up in the residential neighborhood of Abu Salim nearby.

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In Tripoli Monday, the brother of the Libyan man convicted in the Lockerbie bombing said Abdel Baset al-Megrahi should not be returned to prison in the West because he is "between life and death" at his family's home in the capital.

New York senators on Aug. 22 asked the Libyan rebels' transitional government to hold al-Megrahi fully accountable for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people. Rebel leaders have said they will not extradite him.

The Scottish government released al-Megrahi in 2009, believing he would soon die of cancer. He was greeted as a hero in Libya.

Outside Tripoli, Qaddafi's hometown of Sirte is still a bastion of support and some have even speculated that the ousted leader himself may have fled there. Rebels have been converging from the east and west on Sirte, 250 miles east of Tripoli, preparing to battle Qaddafi loyalists.

A NATO officer who could not be identified due to alliance rules spoke of fighting 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Sirte. He said the regions of Sirte, Bani Walid south of Misrata and Sebha further south are conflict areas where both anti-Qaddafi and pro-Qaddafi forces continue to operate.

However, no fighting in Sirte itself has been reported yet and rebel leaders say they are trying to negotiate a peaceful surrender with local tribes to avoid further bloodshed.

Rebels say they want to take Qaddafi alive so they can try him in Libya.

"We hope that Qaddafi is still in Libya so we can rid the world of this insect," rebel military spokesman Ahmed Bani said. "The only way to treat this pest is to make him accountable for the crimes in Libya."

In the capital Tripoli, members of the Transitional National Council announced further steps to becoming an effective government. Suleiman Mahmoud al-Obeidi, the rebels' deputy military chief, announced the formation of a 17-member committee to represent the 30 or local military councils he said had been set up in the country's west.

The war was fought by disparate, local groups with only loose coordination. Bringing all local councils and rebel brigades under the council's leadership remains a challenge.

The rebel leadership, based in Benghazi throughout the war, has started to move to Tripoli. France said Monday it was dispatching a team of diplomats to reopen the French embassy there and see how France can aid the city.

[WeHappyFew]

God G*d people, Educate yourselves. North Africa is ethnically different from Sub and Nilo-Saharan Africa even though they share a geographic continent..

Gaddafi was only tolerated by the West for as long as he was because he preached nationalism over Islamism. What Gaddafi did to Sub-Saharans during his 42 years was unspeakable.

The vast majority of pure blood Arabs living in these countries despise Africans. Gaddafi had dungeons full of illegal migrants trying to cross through Libya to Southern Europe. my guess these are people, now liberated, are running amok and getting confused with mercenaries.

[touria55]

Libyans are AFRICANS and many are dark skinned and cannot be distinquished from other Africans of darker skins, many of the so-called rebels have black skin.
Unfortunately Americans, black and white are mentally ill when it comes to skin color, and see the whole world through that warped prism.
What the hell is an Arab? The people of the gulf are different from the people of North Africa...I have been to
both places.
The US media refused to show the brutal murder of innocent Africans from other countries, by these thugs called rebels. These same thugs will one day kill Americans ...just a matter of time.
NATO, France, Italy US/Israel have their own agenda
with the destruction on Libya. (wonder if it had anything to do with Qaddaffi selling oil to China? and the aquafers found in Libya?)

[WeHappyFew]

Rubbish. Libyans were originally Berbers but are know majority Ethnic Arab. Believe me there is no mistaking Hamito semitic peoples like Berbers and Arabs and Nilo Saharan or Sub saharan African peoples.

One of the reasons it was supposed Gaddafi's regime would fall under the embargo and blockade is because he had no standing Army just security forces and African migrant mercenaries.

the Arabs in Libya think themselves a cut above the indigenous Berbers and find ethnic Africans beyond the pale. If you had been to 'these places you'd know this.

[WeHappyFew]

Ps mercenaries were fighting on both sides.

[sallychicago]

Hmmm...nothing from the Arab League. They are conspicuously silent after encouraging NATO, et al to go in and get Ghadafi....now he knows who his friends are.

[sepa2]

Arabs are no. one racists. They did not like Africans in Libya (Just like Sudan).

[AOCGUY]

I do believe that Libyans are Africans too

[credibility2]

Some have stated that the U.S. should have bargained for oil before agreeing to be the primary funding and fire power entity of NATO...a major blunder by this administration...no one should be shocked by any atrocities committed by the rebels...they're just as ruthless and heartless as the despot they supposedly deposed...

[sallychicago]

I don't understand why NATO is still bombing if they have disabled the weaponry on the side of Ghadafi....and his family is fleeing. What atrocities and fighting is there left to do? I Think NATO Is way overstepping its boundaries. This is a coup, a civil war, and NATO (with the US) should step aside.

[nighttalk]

Gadhafi's loyalists...rebels...all of them are inbred muslim dogs...rebels are already telling us that they won't turn over terrorists...I think it's time to keep their f*****g money...put it in our general fund...oh...no wait...then it won't help any American...was a thought for a second though...let these animals...clean up their own s***...

[skithebumps]

Where in the heck are they finding black people in Africa?

[sallychicago]

You're kidding, right? There are black skinned Libyans...Libya is in Africa, not the Middle east. Blacks from Africa were migrant workers and mercenaries.

[PourpaixPourpaix]

The enemy of my enemy is rarely my friend for very long.

[sallychicago]

And another thing -- don't believe the U.S. is your friend...the U.S. is just as two faced and cutthroat as the Arabs.

[noneoftheabove1955]

What if just prior to the outbreak of hostilities in our own civil war the south had brought in, say, German mercenaries? What if these mercenaries went to northern cities and indiscrimenently killed citizens in areas known to be strongly anti-slavery? What if, after hostilities began, they continued to kill non-combatant civillians?
Do you think that after the war the north might have attempted to round them all up and hang or shoot them. Do you see a possibility that they may have wrongly executed some german speaking people who weren't mercenaries.
It is the same thing here. Black mercenaries came to their country and murdered non-combatant citizens for money. I'm sure they are seeking revenge. I don't doubt they are killing some innocent people in the process.
My advice is think twice before condemning people for doing the same thing most Americans would do in a similar situation. Amreica does have a history of reacting aggressively, sometimes perhaps a little over aggressively, when some group of people ruthlessly murder our non-combatant citizens.

[blackmanforever]

@noneoftheabove1955
How dumb can you be? You are comparing apples and oranges here! There is one fundemental fact that you are missing!! In your example with the Germans & The American Civil War.....The Americans and Germans have the same color skin!!! The "Germans" would have been able to mask their accents and blend in with the crowd!! Do you think the Blacks in Libya can "blend" in with the Libyan people??? I think not!!

[retw-m]

Looks like another Obama blunder. Obama and NATO claimed these rebels were freedom fighters. They don't have a clue who these rebels really were and are. They could be insurgent terrorists that are now commiting ethnic cleansing like in Bosnia.
Next will be a bloody civil war.

This should be a real feather in Obama's dunce cap for his re-election run.
Everything Barry touches turns to cr@p!!

[WildBill935]

Qadaffi family are a bunch of cowards leaving others to die for their cause, much like most Muslim leaders and clerics. Algeria will never give them up to extredition, so real justice may never be satisfied. T^o his "Loyalists I say "Suckers, I told you so. So what happened to Saif's vow to fight until the last bullet? Did he run out of ammo, If he did I have some blank ammunition to send him.

[sallychicago]

You're kidding right? You don't think his wife who is innocent and his daughters shouldn't leave? the wife is a millionaire and has businesses....so they should stay and die with everybody else? I'm LMAO.