The Libyan Revolution Pt.2
As my assignment to Libya has continued, I’ve fallen into the routine of a day in the city followed by a day on the checkpoints with the latter involving a lot of waiting and a lot of guns. When I say a lot, I mean a LOT. I’m continually expecting to see Mad Max wandering through the gatherings, as the NTC have converted all of their available cars and pick-up trucks into weapons of war. While some are armed with the right gear for the job, others have rocket launchers from the underside of military jets while the most scary of the lot seem to be drainpipes stuffed with high explosive rockets. I find myself standing well clear of those ones.
The biggest fear out of here is that of friendly fire. While Gaddafi's dwindling forces are essentially trained mercenaries and soldiers, the NTC is an army of the public with former lawyers fighting side-by-side with heavily armed teenage boys. In the week that I’ve been here, I’ve heard of a guard at our hotel taking most of his hand off through lack of basic safety protocol, while an NTC fighter on the front-line managed to lose his front teeth (but thankfully not his head) after using a live bullet as a hammer. There's a sense of giddy machismo among the fighters, particularly when around the media, that is a terrifying additive to a situation when the other principal ingredient is deadly weapons.
After all that gung-ho stuff, I had a short burst of normality when the political roadshow rolled into town. British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy became the first world leaders to visit Libya since Tripoli’s fall, causing much excitement and general security panic. In a bit of a "busman’s holiday", I found myself waiting with Pete Nicholls from The Times, Stefan Rousseau from PA and Jamie Wiseman from The Mail for the PM to rock up; basically a regular day in Downing Street!
With the day of politics over, it was back to the front-line. News was coming through that the fighting in Sirte had begun, so we gathered up our armour and hit the road. To break up the seven-hour journey to Gaddafi’s home-town, we stopped off briefly in Misrata, the city that was completely destroyed during fighting earlier in the month, and the place where Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed. I cannot begin to explain how much damage there was to see. Block after block of homes and businesses were riddled with bullet holes and whole streets had been burned to the ground. Due to it’s strategic importance in connecting roads between Tripoli, Bani Walid, Sirte and other major cities, the Pro-Gaddafi forces had fought tooth and nail to keep it, tearing it to pieces in the process.
Outside the remains of a shopping street, a temporary exhibition had been set up to show the range of weapons and firepower that was unleashed on this urban civilian area. Truly horrifying.
Now that the “relaxing break” was over, we got back in the car to complete our journey. As we got further from the capital, the checkpoints became more “Wild West” with massive sand-filled shipping containers blocking the dual carriageway at random points. Heavily-armed soldiers guarded each one with some waving you through without a glance while others searched the car, inspected our papers and demanded extra forms and letters to prove that our vehicle was worthy of handling off-road driving. As it was, we were in a Chrysler PT Cruiser; an adults equivalent of one of the 50p-a-go Noddy Cars that kids ride in supermarkets. Miraculously, we were eventually allowed to pass as long as we wore our body armour from that point onwards.
As we passed through the final checkpoint, the guard waved us through with a smile, saying something to us as we passed.
On asking for a translation, Mohammed Ali, an Arabic-speaking AFP journalist explained that he’d said “Welcome to Sirte. I hope you don’t die here”.
By now, I’m hoping that I’ve managed to give you even the smallest idea of how I was feeling. This really wasn’t much fun. As we progress down the road, we stopped as we passed every group to see how much further we could go. For some reason, I always thought of a front-line as being something more “solid” than how it actually is. As we got closer, we were told that just 30 minutes before, the area that was now filled with soldiers relaxing and eating had been the epicentre and could just as easily be the scene of fighting again in another thirty minutes. After a tentative approach, we finally reached what we knew to be the final “safe point”, where fighters and medics were gathering after brief probes into the centre.
Within five minutes, we were united with the other AFP team in the area including AFP’s Lisbon photographer Francisco Leong. After a brief hello, we climbed into their pick-up truck while they stayed behind to wire their work. As soon as we arrived on the main street to the airport, I could see that the far end was just a mass of smoke as both sides fought to take control of the strategically-vital crossroads. Most of the fire was outgoing so after a few minutes, we began to move forward to see what was happening. Suddenly, the tide turned and the NTC were in full retreat. We ran to the pickup and dashed back to the safety point.
Overhead, what I now know were grad rockets were popping in the sky, leaving dandelion clouds directly above us. At the time, I pondered why they were detonating early; were they on a timer? Were they faulty? As they continued to crack above us, I concentrated on the more pressing matters at ground level. It was a few months later that somebody told me how grad rockets work; the projectile explodes above the target, sending white hot shards of metal down onto the area, shredding everything below. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
With the firefight ending as suddenly as it had began, I wandered over to a makeshift munitions factory that had been set up on a pavement nearby. Rows of bullet belts for large calibre weapons stretched along the road, while young men forcefully hammered the shells into place, using live rounds of ammunition as tools. By this point, little was surprising.
As the forces began to move again, we headed back in, following a massive convoy of post-Apocalyptic trucks and cars, mounted with every sort of gun. On reaching a major roundabout, they drew to a standstill, considering it as a temporary safe point. Then the incoming fire began. Coming from the Sirte police headquarters nearby, the roundabout was less than a kilometre away and everyone rushed to turn their vehicles around to return fire. The sound was unbelievable with rocket launchers firing over our heads as anti-aircraft cannons tore through the foliage between where we were and the headquarters. The expected clatter and whoosh of weapons was joined by other screeches and metallic tearing sounds as ultra-high speed cannons began firing.
As we worked our way between the trucks, more pro-Gaddafi fighters started to fire on us from a nearby building and two separate sprays of bullets zipped over our heads and into the vehicles around us. Everyone dived for cover, with the advice to take cover behind the bulk of the car’s engine thankfully coming to mind at the right time. Within a few minutes, the sheer amount of firepower unleashed on their position was enough to silence the return fire and we were able to regroup and head to the safety point on the outskirts.
When I got back to the drop-off area, I quickly downloaded my images and looked through them to discover just how lacking they were in telling the story of what I’d just been through. There wasn’t a single frame that even hinted at what I’d just witnessed.
The thing about photographing this kind of thing is that it’s nearly impossible to capture the sights, sounds and chaos of what’s going on with a still image. While I shot frame after frame of people shooting and returning fire, inevitably, they’d be someone in the foreground, walking across the shot, looking as though they were heading to the shops on a Saturday afternoon. When I came out to Libya, I had no intention of covering the "bang bang" aspect of the story but due to the fluid way things were happening, I found myself here anyway. Not good. Speaking to people who actually enjoy shooting this kind of thing afterwards, they all agreed that it mainly lends itself to video and that a strong action picture from a firefight is actually incredibly rare. Those who do get the firefights are those prepared to risk everything for the image. During my day in Sirte, I met videographer James Foley who was constantly pushing to get closer and closer to the front, returning each time clearly filled with adrenaline from how close he’d managed to get to the fighting. James was later to become the first US citizen to be beheaded by ISIS, in a murder that shocked the world.
With my stress levels just about returning to normality, we jumped in the car to begin the long drive back to Misrata before nightfall due to security concerns on the roads. Halfway along the journey, we were running low on fuel so stopped off at a garage in the middle of the desert to fill up. Since the fighting began, Libya’s largest petrol company has been providing free fuel to the rebel forces, with journalists also allowed to take advantage. Due to the high demand, rather than fill up the underground forecourt tanks, a man was standing with a hosepipe, straight out of the back of a fuel tanker. On the end, was an empty water bottle, acting as a funnel and when he turned the hose over to go into the vehicle’s tank, fuel was spilling everywhere freely. Basically, it was a direct line to the whole reservoir in the truck. Yikes. I got out of the car on seeing this and attempted to casually saunter away while the manoeuvre took place. On returning to the car, my initial relief at getting through the re-fuel turned to panic as the “attendant” raised his head back up, to show he was actually smoking a cigarette. My jaw dropped and I didn’t know whether to run away or towards the car. I started waving, frantically at him, gesturing for him to stop. His response? He smiled at me, took his cigarette from his mouth… …and tapped the burning ash into the end of the main fuel pipe.
By now, we were all worn out and hit the road again, hoping to make the safety of Misrata before fatigue took hold. Within minutes of hitting the long desert road, everyone in the car was sound asleep, apart from myself and the local driver. Having shared enough stories with more experienced photographers and journalists, I had a feeling that I needed to be awake so kept my eye on the driver through the rear view mirror.
The miles clicked by and the scenery remained constant. No curves were visible in either direction and my eyes began to get heavy. Just as I felt that I was finally going, I snapped myself awake to see the driver's head slumped down and the car drifting across the four lanes into the path of an oncoming truck. Never have I shouted so loud in my life. Everyone in the car burst into life including, thankfully, the driver. Swerving with very little time to spare, we screeched to a halt and jumped out of the car, all gasping for air.
Eventually reaching the city after a few hours of forced conversation and loud music, I got into my hotel bed and tried to count the near-death misses I'd experienced in a single day.
*****
As a postscript to the post, at the time of my visit, nobody knew that Sirte was the hiding place of the country's former leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, with his Republican Guard choosing to take it as the place to make their final stand.