Check out the pic. (If that weapon system could talk...)
Halifax, NS | Sat, August 20th, 2011Libyans flee as rebels advance
Tripoli racked as assault intensifies
By KARIN LAUB The Associated Press
Fri, Aug 19 - 4:54 AM
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A Libyan rebel sniper peers through his scope in Sabratha, Libya. Families are fleeing their homes to avoid a possible rebel assault. (Giulio Petrocco / AP)
ZINTAN, Libya — Families fleeing their homes to avoid a possible rebel assault on the Libyan capital described deteriorating living conditions in Tripoli: Power outages lasting days, gun battles at night and a climate of fear in which no one dares to criticize the regime — even among friends.
With opposition fighters steadily gaining ground in the six-month-old civil war, there are signs that Moammar Gadhafi’s 42-year-old rule may be unraveling.
The rebels seized Libya’s last functioning oil refinery Thursday and claimed to have captured most of the nearby city of Zawiya, just 50 kilometres west of the capital along the Mediterranean coast.
A rebel victory in Zawiya could leave Gadhafi nearly cornered in his increasingly isolated stronghold of Tripoli.
Rebel fighters are now closing in on the capital from the west and the south, while NATO controls the seas to the north. The opposition is in charge of most of the eastern half of the country.
The Libyan leader has given no indication he is willing to relinquish power, however, and rebels could easily get bogged down on the way to the capital or face a protracted battle there.
"We know he (Gadhafi) is finished," said Mohammed Said, a 50-year-old school teacher who fled Tripoli on Tuesday. "We just don’t know when."
Tripoli residents are aware of the rebel advances, but won’t speak out against the regime, even among friends, for fear of arrest.
"We are afraid of one another," said Said, who now lives with his 13-member family in his parents’ home in the mountain town of Zintan, the nerve centre of the rebels’ recent push toward the Gadhafi-held coast.
A 42-year-old Islamic school teacher and her four children, ages 12 to 17, left their home in the Tripoli neighbourhood of Tajoura, an anti-regime bastion, on Monday and reached Zintan through back roads.
The family members said they had lived in constant fear of Gadhafi loyalists and requested anonymity to avoid retribution.
"Every household in Tajoura has someone in prison," said the mother, who is originally from Zintan and found refuge in her childhood home.
She said there were nightly gun battles in her Tripoli neighbourhood.
Her 16-year-old son said he mostly stayed home in recent months, rarely going to school, to avoid being searched and questioned at checkpoints. He said that out of 30 classmates, five were arrested because they participated in anti-government protests in February.
The family left home with just a few belongings so neighbours would not be alerted to the departure, said the woman.
When driving south, the family encountered about 10 checkpoints and lied to the soldiers about their destination to avoid being turned back.
At the last checkpoint, troops refused to let the car pass. The woman said she turned around and followed other drivers on back roads.
"I was terrified. My heart was pounding," she said.
Said, who left his home in Tripoli’s western Janzour neighbourhood, said life is becoming increasingly difficult in the capital. Since the start of August, there have been blackouts lasting several days at a time.
© 2011 The Halifax Herald Limited
http://thechronicleherald.ca/World/1259041.html
, isn't it "cute" how 
