The Benghazi Airport was closed overnight and remained closed for much of the day because of heavy anti-aircraft fire around the city by various Islamist factions targeting the US drones that have been looming overhead since the attack on the US consulate earlier this week.
Libya’s Deputy Interior Minister said the US had authorization to use the drones over Benghazi, and initial speculation was that the airport was closed just to all the drones to operate without anything else in the air.
The government’s statement was ambiguous, saying that it was done for “security reasons,” but Deputy Interior Minister Sharif later said the decision to close the airport was directly related to the anti-aircraft fire and the fear that they might hit civilian aircraft.
Libya had one of the largest anti-aircraft stockpiles in Africa, and this was almost entirely looted after last year’s regime change. Many of the weapons have ended up abroad, but various factions inside Libya have loaded up on armament as well.
yeah the west goes around fucks with the world and they wonder why people hate USA
No, no, no David, They hate us for our freedumbs.
Smack dem drones upside the head !
Here's another fine mess that Obama has gotten America into… by/with his Rahm, and other Neocon friends……..
Pilots would hate this. Drone manufacturers would not.
Not to worry. The same "good guys" have been taking this stuff to Syria. Why is it that Syrian population does not seem to like these "liberators"? It is because they are so dumb that they bite the hand that feeds. They had it good in Libya, so why are they taking it to us? It may be just a small matter of money. May be we did not make last few payments…
Please Bianca, don't use 'we' and 'us' in this context. I had nothing to do with any of this and I hope neither did you. The blame belongs to the smallish gangs of thieves seated in some capital cities. It is unfortunate that some of the affected may decide that 'we' are responsible, but that'd deee… mocracy for you.
Anyone find it both disturbing and unsurprising that the Libyan government sits enthralled by the dollars waved under its nose but the private citizen groups – Islamic radicals – are the ones actually protecting their nation from the West's interference? Add to this the comments Con Carney made that the riots were "not in response to US policy".
And once the AAA ammo's gone? There won't be any more.
Then the sky will truly be the limit.
The AA weapons in question are all those truck mounted "technicals" that dominated the ground fighting. Everybody who is anybody with a militia has lots. Basically just heavy machine guns, the ground war revolved around them. The ammo is essentially unlimited, just Soviet era machine gun ammo.
From Sec of Defense Donald Rumsfeld memo of October 16, 2003. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/executive…
"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?
Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions…. Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder we get"?"
Ten years later the answer is obvious. The US has failed miserably. But the beat goes on.
Most of the looted arms are in the hands of Hamas and Hezbullah and israel is scared SH..tless so they may talk about invading gaza and Lebanon but they know who has them and would not dare only" stupid talk".