Eight days into operation Odyssey Dawn and there have been the first signs that the operation is working on the ground. The rebels have retaken Ajdabiya, with further reports that they have advanced and retaken Brega.
As yet there have been no confirmed cases of civilian deaths due to the air campaign.
The critics of the UN backed action continue to point abstract fingers at events, in an effort to deliberately misunderstand the notion of protecting civilians.
On Saturday morning a concrete example of a civilian in need of protection walked into the Rixos hotel in Tripoli.
Iman al-Obeidi claims that she was detained at a check point and subjected to two days of torture, during which she was gang raped and defecated on. Before she could be properly interviewed, Gaddafi regime minders jumped on her and hustled her away. In the melee a CNN camera crew had their equipment smashed. The Financial Times reporter, Charles Clover was assaulted, as well as other journalists who stepped in to try and defend the woman.
Rumours of rape being used as a weapon by the Gaddafi regime have circulated for weeks.
Perhaps more extraordinary, in a country without the internet, with tapped phones, and all but media but the state broadcaster jamed, was that Libya TV then launched into a propaganda assault on Ms al-Obeidi, calling her a prostitute, ridiculing her story, and declaring that after investigation, including talking to her sister, that it wasn’t her real name; this in addition to branding her mentally ill at the time of arrest.
She is currently one of the main topics of conversation among the queues at petrol stations in Tripoli.
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