Thursday, February 24, 2011
posted by Perilous Times at 5:10 AM
- Qaddafi Orders Loyalists to Blow Up Libya's Oil Pipelines as Rebel Forces Advance on Capital and Crude Shoots Up to US$117 Per Barrel- Medvedev Identifies "Outside Forces" (CIA) for Fomenting Chechen and Arab Unrest, Deputy PM Sechin Blames Egyptian Revolution on Google (?!)
Pictured above: On Wednesday, Russians evacuated from Libya exit an Emergency Situations Ministry jet at Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport.
On Thursday, Kiev-based newspaper Segodnya confirmed that "Mercenary pilots from Ukraine are flying Libyan air force planes supporting the regime of embattled Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi." Additional quotes from this source:
The Ukrainian pilots, some of whom hold senior rank in the Libyan air force, operate MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter jets, as well as An-12 and An-26 cargo planes. Stratfor, a private firm that does political analysis, reported on Tuesday that Ukrainian mercenaries piloted planes that had bombed hundreds of protesters near the Libyan capital Tripoli. A spokesman at Ukraine's embassy in Tripoli denied that report.
The pilots receive between 2,000 and 8,000 dollars a month, Segodnya reported, citing Ukrainian combat flyers. A Ukrainian aircraft repair and overhaul facility reportedly has provided maintenance support for Libyan air force aircraft since 2008.
Ukrainian military professionals fighting on other nations' behalf have landed the former Soviet republic in hot water repeatedly. The most controversial recent incidents involved Ukrainian helicopter gunship pilots attacking Albanian rebels for the Macedonian government in 2001, and Ukrainian missile gunners shooting down Russian aircraft for Georgia during the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
Russia has evacuated more than 300 citizens from Libya, as well as Ukrainians, Armenians, and Kazakhs. About 1,000 Russians, reports The Moscow Times, remain in the North African country, awaiting evacuation via ferries, presumably to the European Union.
Meanwhile, in Tripoli, Russia's long-time ally, strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi and some 5,000 loyalists in the military are digging in, preparing to resist anti-government troops who have advanced within 50 kilometers of the national capital. "People's committees" armed with automatic weapons patrol towns that have fallen to 40,000 anti-regime military units.
The uprising in Libya, which began with anti-government protests in Benghazi on February 15, has crippled the economy. "The uprising has virtually wiped out Libyan oil exports, said the head of Italy's ENI, Libya's biggest foreign oil operator," the Irish media reports, noting: "The unrest has driven world oil prices up to around $117 a barrel, stoking concern about the economic recovery." Crazy man Qaddafi has threatened to blow up oil pipelines that supply the EU with 10 percent of its energy requirements.
This week, Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev blamed "outside forces" for fomenting unrest that toppled the socialist dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, that presently emperils Libya's, and that intends to dismember Russia. With a dark nod toward an alleged conspiracy between Chechen terrorists and the US Central Intelligence Agency, Soviet Komsomol grad Medvedev rumbled: "Let's face the truth. They [USA] have been preparing such a scenario for us, and now they will try even harder to implement it. In any case, this scenario will not work."
Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin went so far as to name Google as a force behind the "regime change" in Egypt. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sechin stated: "One should examine closer the events in Egypt, to look into what high-profile Google managers had been doing in Egypt, what kind of manipulations with the people's energy had taken place there."
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