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| Africa North |
| Rebels Hijack Gadhafi's Phone Network |
| 2011-04-13 |
| Interesting read, especially how the lack of a mobile phone system affected the anti-Daffy forces. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #1 Excellent article. It reveals a lot of alliances. And fears. For example: The Chinese company Huawei Technologies Ltd., one of the original contractors for Libyana's cellular network backbone, refused to sell equipment for the rebel project Sounds to me like the Chinese have some major oil uncertainty. By March 21, most of the main pieces of equipment had arrived in the U.A.E. and Mr. Abushagur was ready to ship them to Benghazi with three Libyan telecom engineers, four Western engineers and a team of bodyguards. Hmm. Western engineers. Who provided the bodyguards given the western personnel? But Col. Gadhafi's forces were still threatening to overrun the rebel capital and trying to bomb its airport. Mr. Abushagur diverted the team and their equipment to an Egyptian air base on the Libyan border. Customs bureaucracy cost them a week, though Egypt's eventual approval was another show of Arab support for rebels. Egypt's governing military council couldn't be reached for comment. I'll bet not. Not a very secure situation given Obean's habit of sitting on the fence so much that his butt crack has probably gone horizontal. The last piece of the puzzle was securing a satellite feed through which the Free Libyana calls could be routed—a solution provided by Etisalat, according to Benghazi officials. http://www.etisalat.ae/index.jsp Notice the ".ae"? That means UAE. I wonder if the UAE is beholden to anyone else on this venture. Probably not, but if so, they may have had to get approval from them, too. On April 2, Mr. Abushagur placed a test call on the system to his wife back in Abu Dhabi. "She's the one who told me to go for it in the first place," he said. Obean looks to the UN for approval, and these guys look closer to their hearts. Which is better? |
| Posted by: gorb 2011-04-13 12:00 |