Amnesty International released a report accusing the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) in Libya of allowing the abuse and torture of supporters of former leader Moammar Qaddafi by unofficial militias that control detention facilities.
French officials said Tuareg guerillas of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) killed some hundred residents at a village they occupied in northern Mali. Over 50,000 have fled fighting in the remote Saharan region.
The National Transitional Council has lost control of Libya’s west to a new federation of militias that accuses the NTC of trying to “hijack the revolution.” Sufis celebrated the birth of the Prophet in Tripoli despite threats and attacks from Salafists.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, joined by Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, charged that several detainees have been tortured to death in recent weeks by forces of Libya’s transitional government.
Anti-government protesters stormed the NTC offices in Benghazi, demanding that former Qaddafi-loysalists step down from the ruling body. Meanwhile, Qaddafi-loysalist fighters reportedly took the desert town of Bani Walid.
Mali’s army says 47 were killed in ongoing clashes with a new Tuareg rebel group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), whose members include former pro-Qaddafi fighters who fled Libya.
One solider was killed in northern Mali in a clash with Tuareg fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)—who authorities said were backed up by former pro-Qaddafi Libyan soldiers.
Hundreds of Libyan soldiers protested in the eastern city of Benghazi, demanding payment of overdue wages and complaining that militia groups have taken over their bases and resist joining a new national army.
The Germany-based Society for Threatened Peoples warns that Libya could face an imminent Berber revolt, if the ruling National Transitional Council does not end Qaddafi’s policies of “Arabization” and recognize cultural rights.
Reports in the North African press indicate that the US and France have jointly established a secret drone base in the Libyan desert, to seek out Saharan arms trafficking networks of al-Qeada in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Some 2,000 protesters filled Tripoli’s Martyrs’ Square to demand withdrawal of the militia forces that have been in the capital since the fall of Qaddafi. Jurists and police were among the march leaders, accusing the militias of terrorizing residents.
A Tunisian military court convicted former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in absentia on torture charges. Ben Ali and eight others were found guilty of the torture of 17 military generals in connection with a 1991 coup attempt.
