Katiba
The katiba ( Arabic كتيبة, DMG Katība ) is a former military complex in downtown Benghazi in Libya . It was stormed and looted by insurgents in the wake of the uprising in Libya in February 2011.
In the extensive area, which included military , secret service and prison facilities, there was also a Bedouin tent of the then head of state Muammar al-Gaddafi .
The conquest of the area by insurgents in February 2011 lasted five days. According to their information, elite soldiers and African mercenaries defended themselves there with the help of anti-aircraft bullets and bazookas . 350 people died in the fighting; about a thousand were injured. The insurgents' decisive breakthrough came on February 20, 2011, when they received heavy weapons and reinforcements from al-Bayda and other cities east of Benghazi. A suicide bomber drove on the same day with an explosives-filled car in front of the north gate and blew himself up and the car there in the air. Insurgents were then able to penetrate there. The driver of the car was then venerated as a martyr in Benghazi .
The area was known as a torture prison . In the course of the rebels' conquest, dozens of prisoners were freed, some of whom are said to have been locked up for years in underground concrete rooms with only an air pipe and without doors.
Commons
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c Martin Gehlen: Buried alive. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . February 27, 2011, accessed February 28, 2011 .
- ^ Robert F. Worth: On Libya's Revolutionary Road. In: New York Times . March 30, 2011, accessed June 14, 2011 .
- ↑ Suiccide Bomber opens Katiba libyancivilwar.blogspot.com, May 22, 2011
- ↑ Josh Clark: CNN oddly celebrates suicide bomber ( October 15, 2011 memento in the Internet Archive ), March 25, 2011
Coordinates: 32 ° 7 ′ 31.7 ″ N , 20 ° 4 ′ 33 ″ E