Col Gaddafi fires scud missile at rebel territory !!

[Kris75 Profile]

The rebels were attempting to identify the trajectory of the missile which was fired from Col Gaddafi's stronghold of Sirte even as his envoys headed for new talks with the opposition and a United Nations special envoy in Tunisia.


Despite rumours that he is preparing to flee, the opposition fear Col Gaddafi is preparing a desperate last stand in Tripoli and towns still loyal to him in the face of recent rebel advances on two fronts which has cut off his crucial supply routes.


In the early hours of Monday morning, the defiant Libyan leader addressed his people, calling on them to take up arms and "defend their fatherland" and predicting a swift end for "the rats" and the "coloniser" - the rebels and Nato.


But in a further sign of his weakening position, his deputy interior minister, said to be a long-time devoted loyalist, then apparently defected. Nasser al-Mabrouk Abdullah arrived in the Egyptian capital Cairo with nine members of his family claiming he was taking a holiday.


The launch of the ballistic Scud missile, which has a range of more than 200 miles, was detected by a US Aegis destroyer in the Mediterranean on Sunday, officials told The Daily Telegraph.

The regime is thought to possess more than 100 of the Scud B variant missiles. It agreed to destroy them in a deal to end sanctions a decade ago, but rows over their replacement mean the systems remain intact.

Although military planners believe that the majority of the missiles were taken out in recent air strikes, several mobile brigades are thought still to exist.

The missile fired may have been targeting rebel troop formations around Ajdabiyah, a key junction town seized from the regime earlier this year and home to the advance military headquarters of the rebels. It is believed the missile landed in the desert.

"That it didn't hit anything or kill anyone is not the point. It's a weapon of mass destruction that Col Gaddafi is willing to train on his own people," said one Western official.

Sirte, which was Col Gaddafi's birthplace and lies between Misurata and the rebels' eastern front line in Brega, is a potential site for a last stand if Tripoli comes under attack. While consolidating their hold on most residential parts of Brega, the rebels are also now just 30 miles from Tripoli to the west, having taken part of the town of Zawiyah, and 50 miles to the south, after claiming to have taken the garrison town of Gharyan.

From Sirte, the regime could still move Scuds through the desert to target the main rebel strongholds such as Misurata and Zintan. Col Gaddafi has a history of using Scud missiles to lash back at attacks.

The missiles were fired at the southern Italian island of Lampedusa after the 1986 bombing of Tripoli by President Ronald Reagan.

Western officials pointed to the seizure by rebels of much of Zawiyah at the weekend and the apparent defection of Nasser al-Mabrouk Abdullah as a sign of Col Gaddafi's weakening position.

Mr Abdullah was appointed a minister in June, part of a reshuffle following earlier defections.

He had been director of intelligence and was interior minister until 2006, when the shooting dead of 11 Islamist protesters outside the Italian embassy was deemed "disproportionate use of force" even for Libya and he was sacked.

Nevertheless, he remained among the most hardline loyalists of the Gaddafi apparatus.

Meanwhile, Libyan loyalists and rebels met yesterday as efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict intensified.

They was also some confusion about the presence of a UN envoy holding a meeting in Tunis over the coming days. Libyan government and opposition representatives have reportedly been meeting in a Tunisian hotel, but a regime spokesman continued to rule out any negotiated departure for the Libyan leader.

Col Gaddafi himself gave a live broadcast in the early hours of yesterday morning by telephone, defiantly predicting victory over the "rats".

"The Libyan people will remain and the revolution will remain," he shouted.

"Be prepared, go forth, get your weapons, to liberate Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from NATO."

His troops continued to put up resistance in Zawiyah after the attack that dislodged them from the south of the town, including the main road from Tripoli to the western border with Tunisia, on Saturday. Rebels claimed to have control of 80 per cent of the city of 300,000 people, but admitted that government snipers were still inflicting serious casualties.

Doctors in the rebel garrison town of Zintan said that they had treated dozens of men injured in the fighting. Fourteen men were killed on Sunday alone.

"We are treating many wounded in the battle, they have gunshot wounds from snipers mainly," said a urologist who had flown in from Qatar to treat casualties.


source
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... wdown.html




Gadhafi Forces Fire Scud Missile, No Casualties Reported


(NewsCore) - WASHINGTON – Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces fired a Scud missile from the stronghold of Sirte on Sunday but the weapon landed in the desert without causing any casualties, a US defense official said Monday.

"We think it was targeted at Brega," a town southwest of Benghazi that is now partially under rebel control, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The missile "overshot" the target by about 50 miles (80 kilometers) and fell "harmlessly in the desert," the official said.

No other missiles were fired, he added.

The launch marked the first time Gadhafi's forces had used the Scud since NATO began an air campaign against the regime on March 19.

Libya has an estimated 240 of the ballistic missiles in its arsenal, and its "Scud B" model has a range of about 186 miles (300 kilometers), according to the Jane's Defense military journal.

source
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpps/news/gadhaf ... b_14582019





Scud B variant
Country:
Libya

Associated Country: ´
Iran, North Korea, Egypt,

Class:
SRBM

Basing:
Road mobile

Length:
11.25 m

Diameter:
0.88 m

Launch Weight:
5900 kg

Payload:
Single warhead

Warhead:
HE, chemical

Propulsion:
Single-stage liquid

Range:
300 km

Status:
Operational

In Service:
1976-present


Details

The Libyan ‘Scud B’ variant is a short-range, road mobile, liquid propellant ballistic missile. It is believed that Libya purchased 240 Russian ‘Scud B’ missiles with 80 TEL units in 1976. It has been reported that as many as 7,000 ‘Scud’ missiles have been built in Russia and that the ‘Scud B’ missiles and improved variants have been built in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria and either imported or manufactured in Libya. In 2003 Libya announced that it would discontinue WMD projects and reduce the range of its ballistic missiles to 300 km with a payload of 500 kg. Assuming that the Libyan 'Scud B' missiles are unmodified, they are capable of traveling 300km with a 985 kg payload, so dropping the payload to 500 kg would considerably increase range. It is not clear how the Scud missiles will be modified to lower their maximum range.


Several different warheads were developed for the ‘Scud B’ missile including nuclear 5-70 kT, chemical, and conventional HE. The Russian ‘Scud B’ is 11.25 m long, 0.88 m in diameter and has a launch weight of 5,900 kg, and a range of 300 km (186.411 miles) with an accuracy of 450 m CEP. The Libyan ‘Scud’ likely takes advantage of Egyptian, North Korean and Iranian assistance and has an increased range to as much as 400 km (248.548 miles). It is reported that the Libyan military was attempting to develop a chemical warhead for the system. A typical ‘Scud B’ takes approximately one hour to finish a single launch sequence.

‘Scud B’ missiles have been exported to: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Libya, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Syria, UAE, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Yemen. Unconfirmed reports between 1996 and 2000 have suggested that Scud-B missiles have been purchased by Armenia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Pakistan, Peru, and the Sudan.


Whether modified or unmodified, it is believed that all 240 'Scud B' missiles are still in storage in Libya.(1)

source
http://www.missilethreat.com/missilesof ... detail.asp

[Mediasorcerer Profile]

poor old gaddafi,what the hell is nato really doing there,its a disgrace really,another waste of lives,and the theft of resources.

[Flecktarn Profile]

Mr Abdullah was appointed a minister in June, part of a reshuffle following earlier defections

heres the culprit dtv's very own abdullha14

[Perronick Profile]

When does the kinetic action/ no fly zone expires? I think it's October more or less. If Gadaffi resists until then it's almost imposible that it'd be renewed by the UN.

[Endless16 Profile]

poor old gaddafi,what the hell is nato really doing there,its a disgrace really,another waste of lives,and the theft of resources.

I hope he holds out and wins tbh.

[Kris75 Profile]

MAY 2011 - 2 RAF Tornado GR4s destroy FROG-7 rocket launchers and SCUD Missiles in Lybian Compound in Gadaffi's home town.

Video taken from the Tornado's Litening III targeting pod clearly shows a number of large secondary explosions after Paveway bombs struck the targets

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[Slith Profile]

Seeing the reliability of the Scud and it's precise targeting system, I imagine he was ducking for cover after about 4 minutes. What an asshole!

[Kris75 Profile]

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[Funnyman46 Profile YIM]

Wasn't this all because he wanted to say screw the FED and started printing his own (gold based) currency? In fact I believe there are pictures on the web of the paper and coin versions that were completed already. Now you know the big banks aren't going to stand for that little maneuver without using the US soldiers to shut him down. Independent money on the globe! no way.
Just another bankers holiday.

Edit: This would totally destroy the value of any other money based on a 'promise' to pay.

[Malogg Profile]

Great stuff Gaddafi will be chewing on nukes next