Benghazi

The Palestinian bid for statehood and traffic congestion weren't the only things going on in New York last week as the 66th U.N. General Assembly convened. One of the issues privately discussed by foreign ministers at the United Nations was the "responsibility to protect," or R2P. This concept was central to the U.N. mandate to protect civilians in Libya, which led to NATO's aerial involvement there. As the dust settles in Tripoli, it has become necessary to refute a powerful myth that has developed among some pundits and politicians.

Even as it recovers from its recent civil war, Libya is fast becoming a place of sanctuary for thousands of refugees fleeing the bloodshed in Syria. Buses from Damascus, crammed with Syrian families, are arriving daily in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the effort to oust the late Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi. "Up to 4,000 Syrian families have sought refuge in Libya in the last weeks, and the numbers are increasing every day," said Mohammed Jammal, a Syrian community leader in the city.

Moammar Kadafi's military and beleaguered rebel fighters are gearing for a showdown in this opposition stronghold, a battle that will help determine whether the monthlong uprising in eastern Libya can prevail ? and, if not, whether a brutal regime can endure an underground resistance movement and the threat of foreign military action. Crushing thin rebel defenses in a string of eastern coastal cities since March 6, Kadafi has bet that he can win a race against outside intervention.

Libya's new leaders declared their nation "liberated" on Sunday, paving the way for elections and a constitution that the revolutionary government says will put the country on a path to its first representative democracy. The long-awaited pronouncement came with a heavy dose of Islamist sentiment, as Mustafa Abdul Jalil, leader of the transitional government, embraced the Muslim code known as Sharia law as a foundation for future legislation. During his more than four decades in power, Moammar Kadafi viewed Islamists as a threat and jailed hundreds of suspected religious militants.

Every day, residents of the two cities gather at photographic displays in their respective downtowns, paying homage to a distinct pantheon of the fallen: heroes of the regime in one case, martyrs of the resistance in the other. Officials in each city denounce atrocities — slayings, rapes, mass detentions — allegedly unfolding daily in the rival city. Here in Tripoli, marchers proclaim their unbending allegiance to the country's longtime leader. About 650 miles to the east, they trumpet their revulsion for him. Tripoli and Benghazi have come to embody the battle for Libya's future.

Even as it recovers from its recent civil war, Libya is fast becoming a place of sanctuary for thousands of refugees fleeing the bloodshed in Syria. Buses from Damascus, crammed with Syrian families, are arriving daily in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the effort to oust the late Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi. "Up to 4,000 Syrian families have sought refuge in Libya in the last weeks, and the numbers are increasing every day," said Mohammed Jammal, a Syrian community leader in the city.

Ahmed Mogarby lifted his 4-year-old son, Muhammed, so that the boy might touch a charred tank cannon and remember the day that Moammar Kadafi sent tanks to crush his city ? but instead was thwarted by foreign air power. "This is where the criminal Kadafi was stopped," Mogarby told the boy, who stared in wonder at his tiny fingertips, left black by the burned metal. Father and son stood in the flat desert south of Benghazi on Monday amid the smoking wreckage of government tanks and armored troop carriers.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi said he was "prepared to die" to defend his nation and warned the international community to stay out of his country's' internal affairs in a pair of letters sent to President Obama and other world leaders Saturday. UPDATE PARIS (AP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy says France has already taken action against Libya. Meanwhile, news agencies reported that his troops continued to violate a self-declared cease-fire against rebel-held territories as the international community prepared to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan air space.

Libyan rebels delivered an emphatic "no" to an African Union proposal for an end to fighting in their country, insisting that Moammar Kadafi must step down from power as part of any diplomatic solution. The opposition council's announcement after closed-door talks with an African Union delegation in Benghazi quashed hopes for an early end to the nearly 2-month-old conflict between Kadafi's forces and opposition fighters based in eastern Libya. South African President Jacob Zuma said late Sunday after meeting with Kadafi in Tripoli, the capital, that the Libyan leader had endorsed the African Union's road map for peace.

The leering visage of Moammar Kadafi, surrounded by rats made of plaster, stares down at visitors to a new art exhibit on the Benghazi waterfront. The Kadafi caricature stands 12 feet tall. It depicts the Libyan leader as a derelict imprisoned in a 15-foot-high trash bin and deluged with garbage. Titled "Dustbin of History," the work is the centerpiece of a new art exhibit sanctioned by the rebel movement fighting to overthrow Kadafi after 41 years of suffocating rule. "Kadafi is heading to the trash bin soon, God willing," said the artwork's creator, a long-haired, woolly-bearded former underground artist named Ali Wakwak.

The Palestinian bid for statehood and traffic congestion weren't the only things going on in New York last week as the 66th U.N. General Assembly convened. One of the issues privately discussed by foreign ministers at the United Nations was the "responsibility to protect," or R2P. This concept was central to the U.N. mandate to protect civilians in Libya, which led to NATO's aerial involvement there. As the dust settles in Tripoli, it has become necessary to refute a powerful myth that has developed among some pundits and politicians.

A plan approved Sunday by Libya's transitional leadership team to bring rebel fighters under civilian authority has stoked tension between the new civilian leadership and the rebel commander whose troops patrol the city. The dispute involves two of post-revolutionary Libya's best-known figures — Mahmoud Jibril, who serves as a kind of interim prime minister, and Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, Tripoli's top rebel military leader. Their differing backgrounds give some hint of the diversity of leadership in the new Libya.

The two cousins still couldn't believe it. Just six months ago, they were working-class guys in the coastal town of Misurata making ends meet in Moammar Kadafi's Libya. Now they were in their pickup cruising around the capital. A capital they controlled. Abdul Hamid Issa, 46, was a construction worker, Mohammad Issa, 45, a carpenter. But then came the Arab Spring. In February, inspired by the revolutions in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, the two men were among the first to take part in peaceful protests against the man who had ruled their country since they were children.

Twenty years ago this summer, American cities staged noisy, flag-waving parades to celebrate the U.S. victory in a war we've almost forgotten: the Persian Gulf War against Iraq. The president at the time, George H.W. Bush, saw his poll ratings soar in the war's afterglow. But 18 months later, on election day in 1992, the victory parades were ancient history. The voters, impatient with the economy's slow recovery from a recession, turned Bush out of office after a single term. In recent decades, victories abroad haven't mattered all that much in elections at home.

The leering visage of Moammar Kadafi, surrounded by rats made of plaster, stares down at visitors to a new art exhibit on the Benghazi waterfront. The Kadafi caricature stands 12 feet tall. It depicts the Libyan leader as a derelict imprisoned in a 15-foot-high trash bin and deluged with garbage. Titled "Dustbin of History," the work is the centerpiece of a new art exhibit sanctioned by the rebel movement fighting to overthrow Kadafi after 41 years of suffocating rule. "Kadafi is heading to the trash bin soon, God willing," said the artwork's creator, a long-haired, woolly-bearded former underground artist named Ali Wakwak.

Omar el Keish wanted to make a strong statement when he headed out with his wife and daughter recently for a revolutionary rally here in the de facto rebel capital. Keish decided to bring along a flag. It wasn't the ubiquitous Libyan rebel flag that flutters at every downtown rally. He chose the American flag — the Stars and Stripes — on a long, heavy pole. The 57-year-old airline pilot waved the big fluttering fabric with both arms, and rallygoers smiled and flashed the V for victory sign at the sight of Old Glory.

Every month for nearly 10 years, Ezzedin abu Azza's family traveled to the gates of Abu Salim prison in Tripoli to deliver a package of clothes, food and medicine, not knowing whether it ever reached him. They hadn't seen him since the day in 1993 when the 23-year-old was taken away for questioning by state security agents. But still they made their journey from Benghazi every month. Then, in 2002, the family was told he had died, six years earlier. Photos: A journey from Libya back to Egypt Here in this eastern city that has long simmered with resentment over the brutal rule of Moammar Kadafi, the Abu Azzas were among the lucky ones.

Officer Sharif Ganasi was working the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift, cruising the trash-strewn streets of Benghazi, alert for drunks and carjackers. His new black police uniform was too tight and too hot. He was drenched with sweat, his bulky body crammed into the tiny driver's seat of a white Hyundai compact. His hand-held radio kept cutting out. "We could use better equipment," he said as he guided car 23 through evening traffic in the de facto capital of Libya's rebels. Ganasi doesn't carry a gun or a badge.

Officer Sharif Ganasi was working the 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift, cruising the trash-strewn streets of Benghazi, alert for drunks and carjackers. His new black police uniform was too tight and too hot. He was drenched with sweat, his bulky body crammed into the tiny driver's seat of a white Hyundai compact. His hand-held radio kept cutting out. "We could use better equipment," he said as he guided car 23 through evening traffic in the de facto capital of Libya's rebels. Ganasi doesn't carry a gun or a badge.

A long convoy of dust-caked gun trucks descended Wednesday afternoon on downtown Benghazi, horns honking and guns blasting skyward. Rebel fighters had driven nearly 150 miles from Libya's eastern front to celebrate the glory of 11 dead comrades — shuhuda , or martyrs. The dead men, killed the day before, lay in caskets that bounced in the beds of the trucks. They had come home to be buried. Gunmen accompanying the caskets fired assault rifles and pistols over the rooftops as women on balconies ducked for cover.