{"id":46048,"date":"2011-10-28T02:33:07","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T23:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=46048"},"modified":"2011-10-28T02:33:07","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T23:33:07","slug":"qatar-admits-it-had-boots-on-ground-in-libya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/10\/28\/qatar-admits-it-had-boots-on-ground-in-libya\/","title":{"rendered":"Qatar admits it had boots on ground in Libya"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Qatar revealed for the first time on Wednesday that hundreds of its soldiers had joined Libyan rebel forces on the ground as they battled troops of veteran leader Moammar Qaddafi.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on ground were hundreds in every region,&#8221;<\/strong> said Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin Ali al-Atiya.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement marks the first time that Qatar has acknowledged it had military boots on the ground in Libya.<\/p>\n<p>Previously the gas-rich country said it had only lent the support of its air force to NATO-led operations to protect civilians during the eight-month uprising, which ended when Qaddafi was felled with a bullet to the head after being captured last week.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting in Doha of military allies of Libya&#8217;s National Transitional Council (NTC), Atiya said the Qataris had been &#8220;running the training and communication operations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Qatar had supervised the rebels&#8217; plans because they are civilians and did not have enough military experience. We acted as the link between the rebels and NATO forces,&#8221;<\/strong> he said.<\/p>\n<p>Libya&#8217;s interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told the meeting that Qatar had been &#8220;a major partner in all the battles we fought.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He added that the Qataris had &#8220;planned&#8221; the battles which paved the way for NTC fighters to gradually take over Qaddafi-held towns and cities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<em>AFP\/NOW Lebanon<\/em><\/p>\n<p>www.nowlebanon.com,\u00a0October 26, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Qatar revealed for the first time on Wednesday that hundreds of its soldiers had joined Libyan rebel forces on the ground as they battled troops of veteran leader Moammar Qaddafi. &#8220;We were among them and the numbers of Qataris on ground were hundreds in every region,&#8221; said Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":32532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[612,510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-libya","category-qatar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}