Originally posted by Bosse de NageYes things are going swimmingly in "free" Libya. From your link:
City of the free.
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-23-people-power-drums-libyas-jihadists-out-of-benghazi
Some in Benghazi worry that the streets are now protected by the same police and army commanders who made their careers in Muammar Gaddafi's security forces.
Here's a less breathtaking view of the violence: http://gulfnews.com/news/region/libya/11-killed-as-libyans-depose-benghazi-militias-1.1079567
Apparently the elected government wasn't too happy:
But the protesters, angry at the power in the city of a raft of former rebel groups with varying degrees of loyalty to the central government, also stormed other paramilitary bases.
Some 70 demonstrators took over the barracks of the Martyrs of Abu Slim Brigade, while others expelled militiamen from at least four public buildings, before some of the protesters moved on the Raf Allah Al Sahati Brigade base on the city’s outskirts.
The two sides gave conflicting accounts of what sparked the deadly two hours of rocket and light arms exchanges that culminated in the brigade’s fighters pulling out and the attackers looting the base and seizing weaponry early Saturday.
“We came peacefully and asked them with our loudspeakers to disarm,” said protester Nasser Saad, stressing that armed reinforcements only came after the demonstration was attacked.
But one of the brigade’s fighters, Ahmad Faraj, insisted that the goal of the attackers was not the suppression of militias but the seizure of the base’s armoury.
“They were coming to take our weapons,” he said. “We are part of the ministry of defence, we fought in the revolution, we can’t just walk away and hand over heavy weapons to a bunch of drunks and criminals.”
National assembly chief Mohammad Al Megaref, who had initially welcomed the Benghazi protest, urged the demonstrators to withdraw from the bases of loyal brigades.
He named Raf Allah Al Sahati and February 17 Brigades, and Shield Libya.