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Photographs coming out of the Corinthia Hotel show that rebels have barricaded themselves in luxury hotel grounds and are surrounded, unable to control even the city center by the sea. |
Even the city center directly on the coastal waters, is not under NATO rebel control, as evidenced by their being besieged and cowering behind erected cement blocks at the Corinthia Hotel.
The rebels, according to a source within NATO that spoke on condition of anonymity, are using the hotel as a base to fire upon the popular masses defending their country from the NATO-led invasion.
The Rixos Hotel had previously been considered safe from NATO bombing and had thus housed the foreign journalists as well as some western intelligence agents operating under the guise of CNN and the BBC.
After foreign mercenaries landed in Tripoli and aerial bombardment pushed a way forward for the rebels, the Rixos was used even at one point by government officials as a refuge from bombing, and the journalists there were prevented from leaving due to fights around the hotel for control of the area as well as sniper fire.
A Red Cross convoy had then arrived during a lull and rescued the journalists and moved them to the Corinthia Hotel by the sea yesterday, also in central Tripoli, with the aim of evacuating the foreigners by sea to Malta today.
However, the journalists and other foreigners are now yet again holed up, due to the rebels facing stiff resistance, using the hotel as a shelter and base, perhaps also hoping to flee to Malta to escape their fate in a hell fire they had not expected.
For an idea of what Tripoli is like, think of Adelaide in South Australia, a city by the sea, of just under 2 million people.
The only explanation of the inability of the rebels to take over Tripoli, is the armed population, and the popularity of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as well as his family who are leading the resistance.
As the photographs below show, the Corinthia Hotel is now a hide out for the rebels who are now surrounded, after they had entered Tripoli looting and harassing along the way, supported by NATO which took down communications and all TV stations.
NATO's Operation Mermaid, which was to take Tripoli by landing the mercenaries that had been trained and prepared in the UAE with a full mock-up of central Tripoli is a clear failure.
The replica of Tripoli in Qatar was also used to spread fake media reports on Jazeera, CNN and the BBC world wide.
The Qaddafi family, along with the Libyan citizens and defence forces, still control much of the city and have encircled the rebels and killed, according to government sources, over a thousand mercenaries.
It is evident that NATO does not control anything but the sea and are unable to even protect any ship to dock in Tripoli port, to evacuate foreigners.
A rebel source told Mathaba that they had not expected resistance from the population, as they had been living outside Libya and thought that Qaddafi was a tyrant and unpopular.
However, the Libyan leader rose in popularity after the NATO-led aggression against Libya, that was meant to assassinate him and over throw the popular government, failed to achieve any results with the expected 2-day operation now approaching 6 months.
Photographs by Rolando Segura, Telesur at Corinthia Hotel Tripoli:
Above: Corinthia Hotel grounds around 2pm, today Friday.
Rebels hiding in trees using hotel ground as defensive position, around 5pm.
Journalists take refuge amid clashes, before 5pm.
Above: Rebels managed to take control of Rixos Hotel as another refuge for them today.
