Home Secretary says she doesn't know how many Brits have returned to UK after fighting with ISIS!

 Manchester Bomber - Salman Abedi

IT seems quite extraordinary that when the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, was recently questioned about the Manchester suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, she admitted that the authorities didn’t know how many Britons had returned from fighting with ‘Islamic State’ or other extremist groups, and declined to say, how many times ‘exclusion orders’ had been used; “We have started to use them”, she said. Such an admission, is astonishing, from a government that claims that Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is ‘soft on terrorism’.

What many British people will find bewildering, is how a 22-year-old Manchester man of Libyan origin, who grew up in the Whalley Range area, could have carried out such a cowardly attack. After fleeing Libya, Abadi’s family, had been given political asylum in the UK. They were given housing, state benefits and their children were educated. Salman Abedi, had been a former student of Salford University.

Described as the “worse terror attack to hit northern England”, many of his victims who were injured in the bombing, were innocent young girls who had gone to the M.E.N. arena in Manchester to watch the American pop idol, Ariana Grande. Of the 22 people killed, his youngest victim, Saffie Roussos, was only eight-years-old. Another 120 people were injured, some, suffering serious life-threatening injuries.

Friends have described Salman Abedi, as:

“A young man quick to anger, who was involved in drink and drugs and supported Manchester United. A young man who found it difficult to fit in and cut a contradictory figure, who reacted violently to western sexual norms – once punching a woman for wearing a short skirt – and got into random fights.”

Investigators believe that Abedi, may have had help in making the explosive device, storing the materials, and buying the chemicals. People who knew Abedi, have claimed that they do not believe that he had the ‘acumen’ to “formulate the terrible plan he enacted on Monday,” (22^nd May 2017).

Yet, it is known, that teachers and religious figures in Manchester, who knew Salman Abedi, had raised concerns about his extremist views with the authorities on multiple occasions over several years using the ‘Terror Hotline’ and the ‘PREVENT’ strategy, introduced by the government. US intelligence sources also told NBC News, “that some members of his family had alerted officials and told them he was ‘dangerous’. It is also known that five years ago, students at Salford University, had called the terrorism hotline after claiming that Abedi had allegedly said “being a suicide bomber was OK’.

Before his arrest, Ramadan Abedi (a.k.a. Abu Ismail), the father of Abedi, who has been in Libya since 2011, protested his son’s innocence. He told the press: “We don’t believe in killing innocents. This is not us.” However, another son, Hashem Abadi, who was arrested in Tripoli while waiting to receive a transfer of cash from is brother Salman, is reported to have told Libyan anti-terror forces that he “Was aware of all the details of the terrorist attack,” and that he and Salman, were members of ‘Daesh’ (ISIS). Following the attack, ISIS claimed responsibility for the Manchester bombing.

Ramadan Abedi, fought with the ‘Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’ (LIFG) in Libya. The group was opposed to Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and sought to replace him with an Islamic state. It also proclaimed allegiance to Osama bin Laden. In 2004, LIFG, was classified as a terrorist organisation, when the U.S. sought to break-up ‘al-Qa'ida's’ network of sympathisers. On 28 May 2017, it was reported in the ‘Guardian’ newspaper, that “Abedi senior’s Facebook page shows that he supported the ‘Shura’ Council, a bitter enemy of ISIS in Libya’. The same article also claimed that earlier this year, Ramadan Abedi, had summoned Salman Abedi to Libya, because of concern about his son’s “erratic behaviour” and had confiscated his passport.

Given the reports about Abedi, and the ease with which, he shuttled back and forth between Manchester and Tripoli over many years, it is extremely surprising that the security services didn’t have him under closer scrutiny. He was known to the security services, but was “not one of the 3,000 people under active investigation’. Some reports have suggested that he was in Libya for the uprising in 2011 and “was injured in Ajdabiya in eastern Libya while fighting for an Islamic faction.” French intelligence sources have also claimed that Salman Abedi, was one of 3,500 Libyans who went to Syria to fight, an allegation that “has been played down by British intelligence.” Moreover, Abedi, had travelled back to England from Libya via Turkey and Düsseldorf, just four days before the attack.

In spite of his background, Ian Hopkins, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP), told BBC Radio Manchester that the local authorities had been unaware Abedi’s ‘radicalisation’ and he was not known to the PREVENT anti-radicalisation programme. He was only known to GMP because of a conviction for theft, receiving stolen goods and minor assault in 2012.

Since the bombing in Manchester, people have rightly sought explanations for why Salman Abedi, carried out the attack at the M.E.N. Arena. His sister, Jomana, told the ‘Wall Street Journal’ that her brother had been angered by what was happening in Syria:

“I think he saw children – Muslim children – dying everywhere, and wanted revenge. He saw explosives America drops on children in Syria and he wanted revenge. Whether he got that is between him and God.”

If this was the motive that drove Salman Abedi to carry out his cowardly attack, then it seems to have been driven by a most twisted and perverted kind of ‘Jihadi’ logic. Few of us, cannot help but feel appalled at the suffering we have seen meted out to innocent children and Syrian civilians, by various factions fighting in the Syrian conflict. But it isn’t just American and English bombs that kill Muslim children! Russian bombs and the barrel bombs of the Syrian ‘Shia’ Muslim leader, Bashar al-Assad, also kill Muslim children. And how many of us, would feel, that the way to avenge the deaths of Muslim children, is by murdering other people’s children in the west?

‘Jihad's’, like Abedi, may well feel outrage at western intervention in Muslim countries, but turn a convenient blind eye, when ISIS bomb schools, mosques and markets in those very same countries. This week, an Islamic State car bomb targeted families eating ice cream, after breaking their Ramadan fast, in the Karrada district of Baghdad, killing 17 people and wounding 32 more. This month, a bus carrying Egyptian ‘Coptic Christians’ was attacked leaving 29 dead and 20 more injured. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, declaring Christians in Egypt, “Our first target and favourite prey.” It is a fact, that ISIS regularly target civilians, including children, Shia shrines and Christian churches.

Many on the British left, are loathe to condemn the atrocities carried out by ISIS and their adherents, and to do so, runs the risk of one being accused of ‘Islamophobia’. Like the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the journalist John Pilger, they feel that it’s all the fault of western foreign policy and that if we didn’t involve ourselves in foreign wars, these things would be less likely to happen. No doubt, groups like ISIS have benefited from the campaigns waged by western governments to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and have taken advantage, of the chaos, brought about by the collapse of the State of Iraq. But this, ‘it’s all the fault of the west’ attitude, has seen some on the left, defending radical Islamist movements like ISIS, who decapitate apostates and unbelievers, enslave women, murder homosexuals and Jews, and are prepared to wipe out whole communities that will not submit to their ultra-fundamentalist and twisted interpretation of Islam. Notwithstanding, western foreign policy, it should be clear to most people who are not deluded, that groups like ISIS are ‘anti-western, anti-democratic, and anti-human rights’.

Professor Gareth Stansfield, professor of Middle East politics at Exeter University, believes that Abedi is typical of many second generation migrants drawn to Islamist groups -

“It’s the classic thing of being dispossessed, of having no roots. They see the perceived immorality of the west around them and these seeds are planted and become extremely toxic and poisonous.”

Since the bombing, thousands of people across Greater Manchester have attended vigils to remember the victims of this terror attack by the suicide bomber Salman Abedi. Far from spreading fear, hatred and division, as he intended, we have seen people of all communities and faiths in Greater Manchester coming together to show solidarity with everyone affected by the events in Manchester. A ‘JustGiving’ page set up to support the victims and their families, has so far surpassed £1.5 million. The “We Love Manchester Emergency Fund” has raised £6 million for people who have been injured or bereaved following the bombing. And this Sunday, Ariana Grande, is to perform a benefit concert for victims of the bombing at ‘Old Trafford cricket ground’. The ‘One Love Manchester’ concert includes Justin Bieber, Coldplay, Katey Perry and Miley Cyrus.

Is 'Stop War' misunderstanding Trump?

by Brian Bamford

'STOP the War' in a newsletter below issued yesterday* calling on Theresa May to end the 'Special Relationship' between the USA and the UK, declared:
'As Trump's aggressive foreign policy - which has led to further bombing in Syria and Iraq- becomes ever clearer it is urgent that we end the special relationship now.'
Most media pundits, other that 'Stop War', find Donald Trump's foreign policy anything but 'clear'. 
But last November, Thomas Wright, an expert on U.S. foreign policy at the Brooklings Institute said:  'No other election has had the capacity to completely overturn the international order - the global economy, geopolitics , etc.'
The conventional view is that President Trump is going to be an isolationist in so far as he is, according to Thomas Wright, 'opposed to America's alliance arrangements with other countries.'
What is fairly clear is that Trump is frustrated with the exiting alliance arrangements that mean that the U.S. has had to defend Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others such as the E.U. and does believe that the U.S. should keep coughing up so much. 
Referring to Hillary Clinton, Trump said:
'I would be slower to go to war than Hillary I would be very, very cautious. I think I'd be a lot slower.  She has a happy trigger.  You look, she votes for the wars, she goes in Libya.  I think it's a tremendous burden.  I think there is no greater burden that anybody could have.'
For pundits like Thomas Wright, what's not clear is if he means he just wants the others to pay a bit more, or whether he opposes the alliances overall,
If the latter is the case one would have thought that the Stop the War crowd  would be over the moon.
One would have thought that they would be even more over the moon, when he says NATO's original mission is 'obsolete', and that he doesn't believe that the U.S. (military) to be forwardly present.
* Help us to break the special relationship 'Today Theresa May goes to Washington. Any civilised or sensible government would be breaking links with President Trump but our PM is rushing to be the first foreign leader to meet him. As Trump's aggressive foreign policy - which has already led to further bombing in Syria and Iraq - becomes ever clearer it is urgent that we end the special relationship now. Stop the War Convenor Lindsey German said: 'Trump wants to increase military spending and the level of nuclear weapons. He also support torture. The special relationship has never benefited the people of Britain. With this president it will be positively harmful and should be ended.'

Media Silence on Libyan Connection!

Posted by The Editors on August 14, 2015, 10:31 am

Lexis finds 2,040 articles mentioning Yvette Cooper in the last month. Not one of these mentions her support for the war that wrecked Libya. Lexis finds 2,453 articles mentioning Andy Burnham in the last month. Not one of these mentions his support for the war that wrecked Libya. Lexis finds 1,855 articles mentioning Liz Kendall in the last month. Not one of these mentions her support for the war that wrecked Libya. Maybe it's just us: illegal regime change, mass killing, ethnic cleansing, mass torture, disappearances, fragmented militia rule, near-complete economic and social chaos, 100,000s of refugees, many of them drowning in the Mediterranean - you'd think it would feature. Especially as Corbyn voted against.  It says a lot about the fanatical discipline of the 'free press' that no-one has discussed it in any newspaper - it's a very recent war crime and the consequences ('migrants') have been covered heavily by the press this summer.  But the unwritten media agreement with politics, as we know, is that no matter how many people our politicians kill abroad, the issue doesn't feature in domestic elections. Even though it matters hugely to many voters, and even though it has obvious implications for future killing. For example, the unwritten rule allows the Guardian and Telegraph to endorse Cooper in the full knowledge that she'll support more war crimes. They care so much about the 'responsibility to protect' - they could start by discussing political candidates' penchant for killing. Check here for voting record: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mps/  Sent in by Trevor Hoyle

New Year 2013: A Decade of Northern Voices

Sir Cyril Smith, David Hoffman, Sophie Lancaster, the Bookfair Attacks, the Free Press & the Campaign Against the Blacklist

THIS has been probably been the most successful in the ten-year history of Northern Voices.  It has been a year in which Northern Voices made a serious breakthrough by being at the forefront and making inroads into some main stream media stories such as the Cyril Smith revelations last November.  In November 2012, the Northern Voices' Blog for the first time had a monthly page-viewing public that went well into five figures. Partly the reason for this was our exposure of the issues surrounding Sir Cyril Smith on the 13th, November, at 2.30 pm on the day in which the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, gave his speech in the House of Commons at around 4 pm, in which we knew he would would accuse Sir Cyril of child sex abuse. Paul Waugh, a journalist from Rochdale, as agreed had run the story at 10.30 am on his own site at www.politicshome.com  . The Cyril Smith post of the 19th, September 2010, now has the largest number of page-viewings, and it was this post that triggered the events that ultimately led to the events in November 2012. Naturally Northern Voices was involved in some important spade work in this regard in so far as we helped to find two vital witnesses, who were abused as young lads in the 1960s, who were now for the first time willing to go on the record. On Monday, last week, one of these witnesses identified by Northern Voices had his first interview with the main solicitor dealing with the Cyril Smith abuse case.

Throughout the Autumn of 2012, after the exposure of Jimmy Savile in the main stream media, the Northern Voices' Blog linked the cases of Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith in several postings. All of these posts scored well in terms of page-views. And yet, when the Cyril Smith case is examined in depth historically there are so many loose ends that lead in political and sociological directions to issues of power; such as the relationship between institutions and elites that may be involved either directly or indirectly: our printed publication Northern Voices No.8 ran a story in 2007 entitled 'Was Cyril Smith Set Up?: Rochdale MP in Seventies Sex Scandal'. In Southern Europe political corruption is often more blatant and less furtive than it appears to be in England, but some aspects of the Cyril Smith case seem to suggest curious glimpses of political networking that operated beneath the surface of respectable political live.

In 2012, our N.V. page-views as whole almost tripled. The attack by the free-lance photographer, David Hoffman, on Freedom Press, in which he alleged the publisher had breach his copyright led to several posts that scored highly on the N.V. Blog. Our approach was to defend Freedom from the Hoffman claim for damages, because it seemed to us to threaten the freedom of minority publications to publish material and David Hoffman seemed to making a living out of demanding fees from publications that may have inadvertently used his photos.

The year had begun with a debate with Dave Douglass on the N.V. Blog about Libya and NATO involvement, which Barry Woodling had originally introduced by at the Northern Anarchist Network Conference in Newcastle in November 2011. Barry followed this up with an interview in NV13 with Azeldin-El-Sharif, the Chair of the British Libyan Solidarity Campaign. The NV13 issue included a piece in the Tameside Eye column about Kieran Quinn and the Labour controlled Tameside Council flagrant awarding of contracts to the company that blacklists building workers – Carillion. Since Hull MBC has now banned companies guilty of blacklisting from putting in tenders, MPs are being urged by Unite to sign the Early Day Motion on Blacklisting, and the likelihood that a motion will be on the agenda at the coming North West TUC Conference in Manchester in March, Northern Voices' feels that its decade-long campaign with the Manchester electricians has been entirely justified. Northern Voices No.13 reported on Tameside Trade Union Council's success in getting Tameside MBC to award a Blue Plaque to the local Spanish Civil War volunteer who died fighting Fascism in Spain in March 1938.  The interview with Sophie Lancaster's mother, Sylvia, as a leading article in N.V.13, gained the journal much support especially at the showing of the play 'Black Roses' at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, when we had to have a special reprint of the publication.  Sophie Lancaster was a 'Goth Girl' from Bacup in Lancashire, who was murdered in 2007 for dressing differently.

The attacks on Northern Voices' supporters at bookfairs in October in London and December in Manchester by members of a minority political body, the Anarchist Federation, has only served to stimulate interest in the N.V. publication and its Blog.  The journal is certainly better known now nationally than at any other time in its ten-years of life, and this is largely owing to the efforts of Sally Hymen/ Miller and her friend the Anarchist Federation groupie, Ron Marsden, who now does voluntary work for Alex McFadden at the Salford Unemployed Centre.  Northern Voices was also banned at Touchstones' Museum bookshop in Rochdale, because of an attack in the last issue by Debbie Firth, of the protest group Touchstones' Challenge, on the Link4Life company that runs the Museum.

Dave Douglass, Democracy, War & 'the road to hell'

THIS Month's Freedom, the anarchist paper, has a centre-spread devoted to the critical comments of Dave Douglass on Barry Woodling's talk at last November's Northern Anarchist Network (NAN) conference in Newcastle on Libya's rebellion and NATO: or as he calls it 'The Support NATO bombing tendency'. Supporters of the NAN from the North West responded to Dave's diatribe in Freedom by accusing him of 'Orientalism' and 'Cookbook politics'. Dave Douglass particularly questioned the wisdom of anarchists who appealed to what he would call 'bourgeois democracies' to support the rebels, as the republican Spaniards did in the Spanish Civil War in 1936 when fighting Franco's forces, and he concluded by likening this to 'Anarchists end(ing) up so wrong-footed and totally confused and ... (that it was) in its slippery slope ... the road to hell ...,' and claiming 'but I now know the answer how old Kropotkin ended up supporting the first world war.'

Comrade Douglass, who is here also attacking Ian Bone's Blog for expressing the same sympathies as these North West elements of the NAN, claims 'bourgeois democracies' and imperialism don't 'give a monkeys about' massacres and bloodshed in places like Benghazi. For Dave it is just one of those simple Marxist cookbook explanations: 'Gaddafi was another peg in the board game against formally anti-imperialist leaders in the Middle East who proved a threat to Israel and US and Western oil interests.'

Really! I thought in recent years Gaddafi was pals with our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, America billionaires and had financial links with the London School of Economics. In the fuller version of his critique on the Freedom website, perhaps not surprisingly Dave Douglass quotes from the Morning Star, while his opponent, Barry Woodling, based his NAN analysis on empirical work done among Libyan exiles living in Manchester.

Although America took a back-seat in Libya, Dave Douglass's squib does raise an interesting point about how nation's now pursue wars; last Saturday, Peter W. Singer (author of 'Wired for War: The Robotic Revolution & Conflict in the 21st Century') in an article in the International Herald Tribune entitled 'Drone strikes on democracy', expresses concern about how today the US government is processing its war aims. Mr. Singer writes: 

'In democracies like ours, there have always been deep bonds between the public and its wars', arguing that 'Citizens have historically participated in its decisions to take military action, through their elected representatives, helping to ensure broad support for wars and a willingness to share the costs, both human and economic, of enduring them.' 

Mr. Singer claims that this bond has been broken with the recent US use of drones in Pakistan and that it breaches the intention of the founding fathers to ensure that the pursuit of war is not left 'to the executive ... alone'.

This brought forth a more interesting letter of response from J. Larson in Tokyo:

'Peter W. Singer's concern about the weakening bond between the American public and the wars that the country has involved itself in points to more than a problem of democracy and the Constitution. War has become a business in America, and the military just another corporation that makes its decisions based on money in conjunction with the capital power centers in the United States. This is exactly what James Burnham predicted decades ago in his 1941 book "The Managerial Revolution," where the United States would become more like an oligarchy than a democracy. The "people" now have little say in the wars that are started or their moral justification'

At the time of World War I, the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote a column in The Labour Leader entitled 'War: the Cause & the Cure', arguing that Britain was at war 'because it has been decreed by a handful of men: the three Emperors, and the cabinets of London and Paris'. For Russell this posed another question: 'Why do ordinary citizens obey their insane commands, and even obey them with enthusiasm, and with the utmost degree of devotion and heroism?'

Clearly, Dave Douglass's 'Road to Hell', and the public support for wars, is rather more complicated than he or any cookbook recipe could define.

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NORTHERN VOICES 13
Postal subscription: £5 for two issues (post included)
Cheques payable to 'Northern Voices' at
c/o 52, Todmorden Road,
Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

The next issue of Northern Voices, NV13 out in February, will include an interview between Barry Woodling and a member of the Libyan community in Manchester: this Libyan lad has now returned to Benghazi to participate in the unfolding events there.

Also in the Northern Voices 13 will be an article by the Jim Petty on the militant pacifist Philip Morrell, MP for Burnley 1910-1918, who almost alone in the House of Commons opposed the First World War forcing a debate.

The Strange Suicide of 'Stop the War'

'SUICIDE is Painless' was on a movie soundtrack in the 1970s, but last Monday (16th May) a strange event reportedly took place when the rampant revolutionaries of the Stop the War campaign were joined on the streets of London by a Libyan band of green flag waving supporters of Gadaffi; all calling for an end to the NATO backed 'No fly zone' over Libya. And the cry goes up 'Hands off Libya's Oil', from the agents of Gadaffi and the British Left alike; as a small dissident contingent of Libyan rebel protesters from the large Libyan community in Manchester joined by the well-known Manchester anarchist, John-the-Hat, heckled them in Whitehall.

Seldom since communists and Sir Oswald Mosley's blackshirts joined the same demonstration to protest at the time of the Edward VIII abdication has anything so odd happened. It was certainly a rum do last week seeing the stalwarts of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and neo-communists rubbing shoulders with Gadaffi's agents and followers. Stranger things happened in 1930s Germany of course, when the German Communists, on instructions from Moscow, supported a National Socialist (Nazi) plebiscite against the Social Democrat government of Prussia. According to the Italian novelist, Ignazio Silone, who wrote: 'On that occasion Communist groups were to be seen in harmonious unison with storm-troopers, forming "speaking choirs" in the courtyards of the big blocks of workers' flats and in the streets, urging the electors to vote against the Social Democrat government.'

Are we about to see a repeat of the folly of 1930s communism committed by the British Left? Are we witnessing the decline and fall of serious left-wing politics under what passes for British socialism? Are we seeing the strange suicide of 'Stop the War' as its members join hands with Gadaffi's pals?

What was reported to have happened in London on last Monday's 'Stop the War' demo is extraordinary but it is symptomatic of a movement that appears to have outlived its mission. Admittedly our source is from the Libyan rebel supporters in Manchester but there is a ring of truth in all this because the position of 'Stop the War', and much of the British Left, is objectively pro-Gadaffi.

More thoughts on Libya

A phone call last Friday to Johnny L from the city of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace and tribal homeland situated part way between Tripoli and Benghazi, told of a well-armed public ready to fight the rebels should they try to invade. Sirte is an artificial city with well watered lawns from underground wells and concrete bus-stops and no buses; the Libyan population there, at least the males, don't like work and import labour from elsewhere in Africa to do the donkey work around town - it is a cushy corrupt lifestyle supported by the revenues from oil and the people there are seemingly determined to defend it. Our informant tells us that most of the ordinary population in Sirte receive media reports from Tripoli rather than from the international media. Johnny L writes:

 "If I was to give another talk on Libya I would concentrate more on the very visible social disparities between West and East and the disparities within the West. Back then (in 2009, when I gave my talk to the Northern Anarchist Network in Shropshire) rebellion seemed so unlikely, though I had heard about unrest and military action. Once we were diverted from using Benghazi airport and had to fly out 'diplomatic' from Al Beida because of trouble in Kufra in the deep south east. Sebha in the mid west desert and Kufra are possible untouchable air bases for G, but I don't know what the politics are there. When the tribes in Kufra rebelled a couple of years back there was fear that this would spread to Benghazi through family and I suppose tribal contacts, hence the quarantine in Benghazi.

"If Gadaffi cannot 'easily' take neighbouring towns it points up the problem of taking Benghazi and therefore a probable divide between East and West. I hope that the East might open up into a 'Free Libya' and trade under its own account, so completely isolating Gadaffi. That means holding onto oil fields and producing oil, and that requires neutralising Gadaffi's air strike capability. I think the left and libertarians should recognise the spontaneous nature of this rebellion and see it as an urge to basic freedom. So make common cause with Cameron... strange bed-fellow."

Johnny L

From 'Our Man in Benghazi'

The latest from 'Our Man' - Johnny L - see 'Libya: The Manchester Connection' below

Hi Brian 

That's very amusing and fair. I feel that events have gone so quickly and the press have done a pretty good job of catching up.

Though they have perhaps overblown their assessment of the 'end game' in Tripoli. That might be a very long end game. Coming out of Tripoli I expect the regime army could retake neighbouring towns quite easily. Misurata is the town to watch. I don't know how any rebels from the East could travel easily to Tripoli - that would mean passing Sirt - said to be a Gaddafi stronghold. If they take Misurata, they link Sirt to Tripoli. My contact in Sirt says it is all quiet. Another is not mentioning the war, as it were, are probably too afraid or in denial. 

I think there might be a long stalemate with Tripoli pretty much subdued. It will then become a matter of squeezing Tripoli and Sirt. This looks highly likely with the oil fields in the hands of the rebels and the financial squeeze on the regime. I would expect people to become pragmatic when it pinches too much. As for the rebels - ordinary people - they look a rough bunch, much as I remember them - and quite a few must have military training, and now military weapons...

Also interesting signs of forming an alternative administration - talk of non-hierarchical committees mentioned in one report - wonder how long that will last - any 'democratic' experience will be of such committees and people's congresses - so they know how to chew the fat... also very promising that people insist on a united Libya with Tripoli as the capital .... a bit of a surprise that, to this outsider. And all this talk of the influential tribal leaders - But is Libya grappling with the problem of modernity? 

Johnny 'L'

Libya: The Manchester Connection?

ONLY last Sunday I was chopping a sweet onion very fine when who should come on the phone but 'Johnny L' - our man in Benghazi - he was just ringing to say 'anything I could say would be trivial as it's over two years since I was there'. I threw the onion in the Moroccan Tagine with Fruit & Honey and said 'Johnny tha' knows more than tha's pretending or than tha' realises'. He insisted that he didn't see any guns in the homes of the people he knew over there and he said he wondered about how much the reporters from Egypt really knew of what was going on and how much was conjecture on their part. But he none-the-less reported to NV as follows:

'Just been talking to a Libyan (from Benghazi) in Leeds, he seemed very agitated, excited by the events and he says that even the army are handing over their tanks in Benghazi, mentions 80 dead and he says that Derna is in the hands of the protesters. But I don't know if he can be completely trusted based on some of his other general conversation about Libya ... a tendency, I think, to believe what he wants to ... he also says that there is a media shutdown in Benghazi including phones and internet so I don't know how he is getting his info - it doesn't do to question too closely - can seem a bit impolite if you interrogate too closely.

'Libya needs to be understood as two entities, the East being where the main anti-Gadaffi sentiment is based. And I wouldn't be surprised if the West doesn't know much of what is going on. I have not one email in my inbox from Libya.

'I am really not the person to do any blogging. For a start no-one in Libya is going to want to talk to me on phone or internet, even if they are able to, too dangerous ... I am not familiar with the newer media of Twitter and Facebook. I am by no means sure of what the situation is, as my conversation today was only the third time a Libyan has spoken openly with me about the politics in Libya. What about Aasadin? I have his telephone number if you need it.'

Two years ago 'Johnny L' and Aasadin addressed a meeting of the Northern Anarchist Network in Wellington, Shropshire. Aasadin is from Manchester and was on the demos in London last weekend. Last week, Saif Gadaffi blamed, among others, Libyans in Manchester for what has happened in Libya in recent weeks.