http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/eleven-killed-after-protesters-attack-militias-in-benghazi/article4561247/?cmpid=rss1


Eleven killed after protesters attack militias in Benghazi
MAGGIE MICHAEL
BENGHAZI — Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press
Published Saturday, Sep. 22 2012, 8:30 AM EDT


Libyan authorities regained control of the headquarters and bases of armed militias in Benghazi on Saturday, after armed protesters attacked them overnight in violence that killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 70.

Six members of the security forces were among those killed in the unrest that rocked Libya’s second city, and were apparently “executed,” a medical examiner at the Benghazi Medical Centre morgue told AFP.


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“From the nature of the wounds it is clear that the six were executed,” she said on condition of anonymity, adding that all six had been shot in the head.

“In total we’ve received 11 fatalities” she said, including four bodies in “civilian clothes” and another that was found at the headquarters of Raf Allah al-Sahati, an Islamist militia targeted overnight.

The violence erupted late on Friday when hundreds of protesters, some of them armed, attacked bases of paramilitary groups whose militants were former rebels who helped topple Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in last year’s rebellion.

The protesters first attacked a group based in a security building in central Benghazi before turning their wrath on the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia, a radical Salafist militia and the main paramilitary group in the city.

To shouts of “The martyrs’ blood was not shed in vain,” the demonstrators pushed into the compound which was pillaged and torched, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Regular armed forces retook control of those two bases on Saturday, the correspondent said.

Ansar al-Sharia has been accused of - but denied - involvement in the murder this month of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11.

The militiamen took flight as hundreds of protesters stormed and then set their compound ablaze, and also evicted them from the city’s Al-Jalaa hospital where they were replaced by military police, an AFP correspondent reported.

Protesters also attacked the headquarters of the Raf Allah al-Sahati brigade, an Islamist group which is under the authority of the defence ministry, on Benghazi’s outskirts.

The trigger for the assault on the paramilitaries was a “Save Benghazi” protest after the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday that was joined by some 30,000 peaceful demonstrators.

It drowned out a smaller rally attended by just a few hundred people called by the jihadists and hardline Islamists furious over a U.S.-made film that mocks Islam and cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by a French magazine.

Demonstrators paid tribute to Ambassador Stevens and carried banners calling for justice to be done.

For many Libyans, the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was the last straw in one of the biggest problems Libya has faced since last year’s ouster and death of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi: the multiple mini-armies armed with machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades that are stronger than government security forces.

But in an indication of government fears of a sudden security vacuum without the militias it relies on to keep order, officials called on protesters to respect “legitimate” militias.

While the late Friday protests were planned in advance though social networking sites and flyers, the storming of the heavily armed militia headquarters took many by surprise. After breaking off from a huge anti-militia march — the biggest in the eastern city since the fall of Col. Gadhafi’s regime last October — protesters overtook a building used by Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia, set fire to a vehicle and offices after freeing three detainees held in an underground cell. The group is linked to the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Protesters on foot and in cars, some carrying guns and others machetes, moved to another heavy armed compound on Benghazi’s outskirts that houses Rafallah Sahati militia.

Panicked, Libyan government officials urged protesters to differentiate between what it called “legitimate and non-legitimate” militias.

The militias, a legacy of the rag-tag popular forces that fought Col. Gadhafi’s regime, tout themselves as protectors of Libya’s revolution, providing security where police cannot. But they now face public criticism and are accused of acting like gangs, detaining and intimidating rivals and carrying out killings.

Libyan military chief of staff Youssef al-Mangoush said three big militias — Rafallah Sahati, Feb. 17 and Libya Shield — are considered “pro-government” and warned protesters against pushing for what he described as “counter-revolution” goals. The government heavily depended on Rafallah Sahati, for example, to secure Benghazi during the country’s first national elections in July in decades. The militia took its name from an Islamist fighter who battled fiercely against Col. Gadhafi’s forces earlier in the revolution.

But most of Libya’s militias still answer to their commanders before the state. Protesters, like those on Friday, want the fighters to be trained outside Benghazi and follow state army orders as individual soldiers and not as part of a militia. Many of the militiamen are unruly and undisciplined civilians who raised arms during the eight-month war.

Mohammed al-Megarif, head of Libya’s General National Congress, ordered protesters to leave alone militias that are “under state legitimacy, and go home.” Nearly seven hours of clashes ended shortly after his demand that was broadcast on local Libyan TV channels.

Standing next to charred cars and several pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, weary armed militiamen guarded the entrance of the Rafallah Sahati compound. The compound was once one of Col. Gadhafi’s houses. Some of the men wore military uniforms, while others were dressed in Afghani-style clothes.

“Those you call protesters are looters and thieves,” said Nour Eddin al-Haddad, a young armed man with hanging a rifle on his back. “We fought for the revolution. We are the real revolutionaries. We are part of the army. I have official documents to prove it.”

However, 22-year-old protester Farag Akwash, who was wounded with a bullet in his arm, described it as “a Moammar militia.”

“If you are really an army force, you wouldn’t shoot at the people. You wouldn’t kill people. You protect people,” said Mr. Akwash, whose arm was hidden under a bandage at Benghazi Medical Center. “We don’t want to see militias in the city anymore. We only want to see army and police.”