Pro-Gaddafi Combatants Caught in Bani Walid Following Explosion

Libyans overrun the US-backed General National Congress parliament in Tripoli protesting the siege of Bani Walid. The town is being shelled by the rebel regime installed by Washington last year., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Pro-Qaddafi combatants caught in Bani Walid following explosion

Tripoli, 23 February 2103

A Qaddafi revolutionary cell has apparently been discovered in Bani Walid following an explosion there, that killed its leader on Thursday. The cell was believed to be planning a bombing campaign in the town as well as in Tripoli.

According to local council media office spokesman Saad Mohamed Al-Daba, the group was preparing explosive devices in a house in the town, when one of them exploded killing Yousef Musbah Abdul Rahim Dabia, a member of one of Qaddafi’s Revolutionary Committees.

From Benghazi , Dabia, who was an explosives expert, had belonged to the 32nd Brigade (“the Khamis Brigade”), said the spokesman yesterday, Friday. The dead man had also been part of a team involved in the assassination of members of the opposition both inside Libya and abroad.

Two other members of the group were wounded in the blast – Khaled Abdussalam Ali Ramadan, from Tarhunah who had shrapnel wounds and had to have his leg amputated, and Ibrahim Saleh Alhaj Abdussalam, from Bani Walid, whose hands were blown off.

When the building was searched, it was found to be full of bomb-making materials, according to the spokesman.

In a statement to the media office, the head of Bani Walid’s Military Council Fathi Zili said that the cell was planning a bombing campaign to destabilise the country and that it was targeting both Bani Walid and Tripoli. Preliminary investigations indicated that the cell had members in the capital, he said.

Brigadier Hussein Khalifa, the military commander in Bani Walid, said investigations are underway to locate and arrest the rest of the cell. There were no links between it and the national army, he added.

The two men injured in the blast were now in hospitals in Tripoli under armed guard.