Gaddafi Scud missile attack on civilians was foiled by Nato

AN officer who defected from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces has told The Scotsman that the Nato bombing campaign in Libya prevented forces loyal to the regime from attacking rebel capital Benghazi with Scud missiles.

"Gaddafi intended to strike the court house with Scud missiles, but the launcher had to be moved from his home town of Sirte, and the missiles brought from another city. They couldn't do it; the threat of Nato bombing stopped them," he said.

The officer, a colonel who asked not to be named to protect his family from reprisals, was working in a weapons factory in a government town in the plains below the country's Western Mountains. "The plan to use Scuds was top secret, but we received information when they summoned the specialist engineer for that weapon to Sirte".

Still in his green regime uniform, in a bullet-hole peppered office in his home town of Nalut, the colonel reflected on why he risked his life to escape. In his early sixties, he had spent decades working to keep Gaddafi in power, but the regime's reaction to the popular revolt was too disgusting to defend he said.

"It was awful, bombing civilians randomly, the actions in Benghazi and the siege of Misrata; it affected many men, made many people not want Gaddafi any more."

Libyan rebel forces yesterday entered the oil town of Brega and reported 127 fighters wounded in street battles in one of the biggest offensive moves in weeks. After six months of fighting in a war that is raging across the country, and has three major front lines, the colonel's account suggests signs of strain in government ranks. Up to "80 per cent" would leave if they could, he said. Thousands of men, and recently women, have been drafted in by regime forces, but most are under prepared and lack the will to fight. They were inexperienced; some barely could hold a gun".

Captured government soldiers speaking from inside a locked hospital ward in the rebel held western mountain town of Yefren said hundreds of young men from low income families in Libya, many with roots in neighbouring Mali and Niger were recruited from their homes in the south of the country.

"I was promised 500 dinar to fight. My father died long ago, and my family needed the money. When I got there I was frightened and I wanted to go home. My mother didn't want me to come," said a black soldier from Mali aged 20.

Both the colonel and soldiers held as prisoners of war in rebel-controlled Yefren reported that lies and death threats were used to keep soldiers in line.

"They told us we were fighting an invading force of Al Qaeda. A few months ago, they told us Osama Bin Laden had visited," said a captive member of Gaddafi's security brigades.

"And on state television we saw that Nato was hitting the homes of innocent civilians. Watching other news channels is a punishable offence. It is hard to escape. If they think you might defect, they will execute you immediately," said the colonel, who is now helping train rebel fighters in the mountain town of Nalut. "Gaddafi still has lots of ammunition," he said. "And there are loyalists who have joined him."