Nasser statue destroyed in Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya, February 11, 2012 (AFP)
A pro-Islamist group on Saturday destroyed a memorial honouring the leader of pan-Arab nationalism, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi.
An AFP reporter said the attackers used hammers and other tools to bring down the statue, on a road also named after the former Egyptian president.
It was not immediately clear why the memorial was targeted.
The statue had been erected by the ousted regime of slain Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi, whose policies for decades had been influenced by Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalism.
Kadhafi was killed on October 20 in his home town of Sirte, ending a bloody conflict against his 42-year iron-fisted rule.
The revolt against Kadhafi first erupted in Benghazi on February 17 last year.

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Jamal Abdul Nasser’s statue toppled in Benghazi

Posted on February 13, 2012

By Habib Toumi
Libyan toppled a large statue of Egyptian former president Jamal Abdul Nasser in Benghazi.
The statue was erected by former leader Muammar Gaddafi as a tribute to the man seen as a potent symbol of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gaddafi repeatedly said that Nasser was his guide in his attempts to unite Arab countries.
The street, one of the busiest in the city and known until Saturday as Jamal Abdul Nasser Street, was renamed after Abdul Fattah Younis, a senior military officer who was Gaddafi’s interior minister before defecting in February to the rebels.
He was reported killed in July in unclear circumstances. No reason was given for the decision to topple the statue.
Source: Gulf News

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