No more 'crazy hair' as Gaddafi's Libya lies wrecked
Tripoli airport is a quiet place these days. Colonel Gaddafi’s golf buggy used to transport him to his jet, lying on a pavement outside the terminal building, blogs Alex Thomson.
The rebels had only taken Gasr Ben Gashir at dawn. As we drove through the outskirts this dusty town close to Tripoli airport looked deserted, abandoned.
But then we saw it, up ahead – crowds all over the town’s central roundabout. Flags, crying, shouting and singing “Alahu akhbar”.
All around us men firing off Kalashnikovs in celebration every now and then the defeating blast of Toyota-mounted anti-aircraft guns. Most of it – I hope – directed skyward – though our security guard had to politely nudge more than one loaded magazine skyward. Just in case.
“We are free! Free at last!” screamed one woman.
“Forty-two years we have waited for this – for Libya” yells another above all the gunfire.
They call the Colonel “shafshufa” or “‘crazy hair” because – well you know why.
“Shafshufa – we’re free now” they chant over and over again.
At the airport nearby a group of fighters arrived in air-firing noisy celebration to spread the word.
It’s a quiet place these days. Colonel Gaddafi’s golf buggy used to transport him to his jet, lying on a pavement outside the terminal building.
The jet, sitting airside on a tarmac apron growing weeds in the months of Nato‘s no-fly zone.
Inside the terminal a mix of cordite, rotting food and human excrement fills the nostrils. Fighters lounge around, nursing their rifles, languidly welcoming our team, before taking us out airside – as if there were any planes flying.
Instead the burned-out hull of an Afriqair Airbus greets the eye. Another has taken a rocket- propelled grenade round in the fuselage but remains intact.
What we are told is the Colonel’s personal Afriqair jet sits on the tarmac, its passenger door wide open.
In the distance two more planes lie destroyed. Grey heaps of wreckage on the silent taxi-ways.
It is altogether an eerie, silent place, the rebels out on the tarmac anxious to get moving, get us out of here.
Off camera they are nervous, on camera they’re on message talking about victory and easy control of the airport area.
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