Gaddafi Planning to Sabotage Oil Pipelines?
At TIME’s website, Robert Baer cites an anonymous source who makes the disturbing prediction that Gaddafi may be about to sabotage Libya’s oil pipelines.
A source close to the Gaddafi regime … told me the already terrible situation in Libya will get much worse. Among other things, Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports. The sabotage, according to the insider, is meant to serve as a message to Libya’s rebellious tribes: It’s either me or chaos.
However, this source may not be all that reliable:
Two weeks ago this same man had told me the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt would never touch Libya. Gaddafi, he said, had a tight lock on all of the major tribes, the same ones that have kept him in power for the past 41 years. The man of course turned out to be wrong, and everything he now has to say about Gaddafi’s intentions needs to be taken in that context.