Holding a plastic mine in one hand and a detonator in the other, the Libyan rebel explains the crude usages he uses to clear the devices planted by Muammar Gaddafis forces near the fuel town of Brega.
"I defuse them myself," said the soldier, who gave his appoint as Mousbah, beaming with proud. "I was in the army for 32 years. I am a weapons technician."
Mousbah may have naval experience but many of the rebels fighting to end Gaddafis 41-year rule are no extra than enthusiastic volunteers with light weapons and little combat experience.
They cost hours each day scavenging as mines approximately Brega, one of the last strongholds of Gaddafis forces above the path to Tripoli, and deal with them anyone way they see appropriate, some saying they simply open launch on them with their assault rifles.
The front line around Brega has deadlocked since for weeks, and when the rebels pushed along last week they found themselves blocked by what they say are hundreds of thousands of mines. The minefields are severely slowing the rebel advance on the strategic town and blocking their march towards the chief.
"The whole area is full of mines. When we see them in the ground, we shoot at them and they thump up," Khaled, a rebel, told Reuters at Ajdabiya hospital, while waiting for a guy wounded fighter to be treated.
Some rebel officials say Gaddafis forces have planted 400,000 mines around Brega single and have shoved back the rebels by filling ditches with gasoline and setting them ablaze.
On Tuesday
Can you supply apt addition your deductible, at fewest 18 fighters were annihilated and up to 150 were wounded in clashes over the control of Brega. Many of those brought to the hospital in Ajdabiya that day lost arms and thighs to mines. The rebel advance has since slowed to a creep.
"It was a misadventure. There were many cases of amputations," said a doctor by Ajdabiya hospital in rebel-held eastern Libya.
SCATTERED MINES "NEW FOR US
Gaddafis administration denies it has accustom landmines in areas where civilians could be injured during the five-month-old uprising.
Libya is no gathering to the multinational pact that bans the use of landmines, yet rights groups mention its use of the weapons violates created norms
discount coach purses online, primarily if they are laid in districts where they pose a menace apt civilians.
Rebel officers say the mines planted by Gaddafis forces are sophisticated, chiefly Chinese or Brazilian made, and were planted to some extent planned to confuse the antagonist.
"The mines were laid down spread in a random shape. If they were planted along to a definite grid you tin clear them lightly if you knew their pattern
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Some mines are linked together at a wire namely triggers additional several mines whether an namely afflicted, when others are made of plastic so they cannot be base by ordinary metal detectors.
Others are placed on altitude of each other with one mine over the floor and another buried in the dirt, so when somebody picks up the top one, the buried one goes off.
"These mines around Brega are new for us, we have not dealt with them before," said Colonel Adham Abdul-Qader, who fought with Gaddafis army during the 1978 Libyan-Chadian war.
"We have many former military commanders with experience going to clear the mines but the bulk are volunteers."
On Sunday, a rebel talker in Ajdabiya said the fighters had received new mine detectors, maximum probably from Qatar.
Lying on his mattress in al-Jalaa hospital in the eastern riot stronghold of Benghazi
Buy Insanity Workout DVD at selecting Britax motorcar seats, 37-year-old Ibrahim Mayloud was fortunate to survive a mine burst with only a fractured jaw and minor shrapnel wounds to his behind.
He was wounded on Wednesday, when an anti-vehicle mine exploded in the abandon close Brega as the troop were attempting to clear the gunpowder, he said
get insanity video, struggling to talk for of his wounds. One of his comrades lost his fingers on the same day when variant bomb hit his truck.
"We have inquired them to provide us with more mine clearance equipment but they have not ... We have two detectors. So we tried to look for mines and one blew up," said Mayloud, who worked as a plumber ahead joining the fighting in March.
Asked how the rebels understand where the minefields are, he said: "After a motorcar blows up, we know the whole road has mines." (Writing by Rania El Gamal; amending by Lin Noueihed and Giles Elgood)