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This is an archive article published on April 19, 2011

Libya charge like Iraq WMD claim: Seif

Says there is zero evidence of airstrikes on Libyan districts.

Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafis son Seif has hit out at Western nations for the air strikes against his country on a premise he termed as false as Iraqs weapons of mass destruction,while insisting that his regime did not commit any crime against its people.

The world had gone to war with Libya based on nothing more than rumour and propaganda, the 38-year-old Seif-al-Islam Gaddafi,the second son of Gaddafi,said in an interview to The Washington Post.

He claimed the UN Security Council resolution for establishing a no-fly zone over Libya was based on claims that Libyan air force was bombing Tajoura and Fashloom districts in Tripoli and killing thousands,but there was zero evidence of such a bombardment. Show me one trace,one evidence that we bombarded Tajoura. Zero, Seif said.

So you go there and ask anybody. So everything was based on rumours. Its exactly like the WMD. WMD,WMD,WMD,go and attack Iraq. Now,civilians,civilians,civilians,go and attack Libya. Its the same thing,its a repetition of history, he said.

Blaming the rebellion against his fathers regime on al-Qaeda,Seif said the Americans,should have rather helped Libya root out the terrorists. A defiant Gaddafi scion also said he had been betrayed by his friends who defected to join the rebels,and said nobody in the Middle East had thought that one day President Barack Obama will attack Libya or an Arabic country.

Seif said he had brought many reformers into the government in the past decade,as part of a promise that Libya would move towards democracy and freedom of expression.

Several of those men have since defected and played leading roles in the rebel Transitional National Council,a fact that could help explain the younger Gaddafis keenness to emphasise his nationalist credentials,the paper said.

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Dismissing accusations against the Gaddafi government,Seif said the army was fighting terrorists,just as the Russian army did in the Chechen capital,Grozny,just as Americans did in Fallujah in Iraq. Its exactly the same thing, he said. I am not going to accept it,that the Libyan army killed civilians. This didnt happen. It will never happen.

Instead of attacking Libya,he said,the US should be helping it fight al-Qaeda. Then,once the terrorists are removed from Misrata and Benghazi,he said,it will be time to talk of national reconciliation and democracy,under a new constitution that would reduce Gaddafis role to a symbolic one.

 

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