By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 14 February 2015:
The head of the Beida-based government’s Information and Culture Board has warned that following the . . .[restrict]Islamic State takeover of government buildings in Sirte, including TV and radio studios, other Libya towns could be next.
“It’s Sirte today,” Omar Al-Gawairi told the Libya Herald. “But where next tomorrow?”
He blamed the growth and success of IS on Libya Dawn.
It, he said, had backed and supported the militants, thus enabling them to seize the facilities in Sirte belonging to the Information Board and start broadcasting “their poisonous and extremist ideology”. Hate and the promotion of violence was being spread by obscurantist forces, he declared.
They did not accept freedom of expression, he said. “They only understand murder and repression” which they carried out in the name of Islam.
This latest takeover of the media facilities had happened after IS had seized several other buildings in the town, such the Ouagadougou Centre, the courts and the headquarters of the internal security forces. But no one from Libya Dawn nor Misrata brigades had done anything about it, Gawairi said, himself from Misrata.
Sirte was now being turned into a fiefdom of the Islamic State and its “caliph”, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. [/restrict]
