LIBYA: Families flee the besieged town of Bani Walid where fighters loyal to deposed leader, Muammar Gaddafi continue to offer resistance

Record ID: 560204

  • Title: LIBYA: Families flee the besieged town of Bani Walid where fighters loyal to deposed leader, Muammar Gaddafi continue to offer resistance
  • Date: 14th September 2011
  • Summary: VICTORY SIGN VARIOUS OF FIGHTERS AND NTC VEHICLE AT CHECK POINT LOADED PICK UP TRUCK STOPPED AT CHECK POINT NTC FIGHTER LIFTING GREEN TARPAULIN TO REVEAL SUPPLIES LOADED ON PICK UP (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) TRUCK DRIVER DELIVERING AID TO BANI WALID HOSPITAL, FATHI ABDULLAH, SAYING: "I am going to Bani Walid to offer aid to the people of Bani Walid -- the Bani Walid Hospital, which is running short of medicine and medical equipment." CHECKPOINT
  • Embargoed: 29th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Libya
  • Country: Libya
  • Topics: Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVA59MDKQQAFXC8YEL0E37AXTUTE
  • Story Text: Wary of alienating a powerful local tribe, fighters backing Libya's new rulers urged families on Tuesday (September 13) to leave the besieged town of Bani Walid before resorting to full-scale military force to take one of Muammar Gaddafi's last strongholds.
    The drawn-out standoff at the town -- home of Libya's biggest tribe, the Warfalla -- has turned the obscure oasis 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli into a new flashpoint in the North African nation's seven-month-long war. Libya's new rulers are keen to bring the stubborn town into the fold as quickly as possible but have hesitated to employ heavy-handed tactics that could estrange the Warfalla and derail their efforts to create an all-inclusive government. After Tripoli's relatively quick fall last month, Bani Walid's fierce resistance has been a mystery even to local fighters. Residents say many people in the Warfalla tribe fear retribution because of their traditionally close links to Gaddafi's tribe.
    National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters at the northern gate of the city said they were giving civilians two more days to leave Bani Walid before mounting a full-scale assault. A radio address transmitted from the nearby town of Tarhouna was appealing to people to leave to safer areas, fighters said.
    Bani Walid resident Ali Salem said that most people in the town supported the NTC but there was a "small group who are involved in the bloodshed who are the ones controlling the situation," he said, driving away with his family.
    Along with Gaddafi's home town of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast and the loyalist bastion of Sabha deep in the Sahara, Bani Walid is one of the last pockets of Gaddafi resistance. Die-hard loyalists of the fugitive leader have put up stiffer than expected resistance, firing rockets and mortars from inside Bani Walid and deploying snipers in the town centre.
    Fighters and residents said Gaddafi forces in the town centre still had plenty of support among local households who are defiantly flying Gaddafi's green flags above their homes.
    Their cars and trucks loaded with sacks of personal belongings, families have poured out of Bani Walid, a scattering of sun-scorched houses spread around a terrain of rocky hills and valleys.
    "We ran away from the shooting. Just this morning while I was in the market, I was shot at twice. My courtyard faces the rebels from one side and the market from the other. All the shooting is coming from the direction of the market," said Mubarak Awad who fled the town.
    NTC fighters estimated that about half of Bani Walid's families had escaped north towards Tripoli as well as towards the coastal city of Misrata, but many Gaddafi supporters had stayed behind.
    But not everyone is leaving. Fathi Abdullah was transferring life-saving medical supplies and other provisions to Bani Walid hospital, "which is running short of medicine and medical equipment," he said as NTC fighters searched his truck.
    A difficult local terrain, different from the flat desert that defines many other parts of Libya, has contributed to the lack of NTC progress at Bani Walid. Sitting at the crossroads of transport routes south of Tripoli, Bani Walid is perched on the slopes of a sprawling valley criss-crossed by steep and narrow gullies, making any advance from the outside difficult and slow.
    For now, Libyan national army troops and local anti-Gaddafi brigades are massing outside Bani Walid, waiting for orders to push forward.
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