Metransparent exclusive
Informed sources in Libya told Shaffaf that casualties in Libya’s eastern region are twice as much as numbers reported by news agencies. Sources talked of 50 to 60 protestors killed in al-Bayda and Benghazi in the last few days.
Most worrying, sources confirmed the regime is, now, deploying military units composed of Asian and African ‘mercenaries’ to quell the troubles and regain control of major citiers. Qaddafi is known to have recruited mercenaries from Asian and African muslim countries into his so-called ‘Islamic legion’ as far back as his Chad wars in the1970s and 1980s.
Sources, however, could not confirm if Libya’s regime is using ‘borrowed’ soldiers from neighbouring countries which had profited from Qaddafi’s largesse in the last decade.