“If they don’t leave, the Libyan Army will remove them by force”

"...People are turning in weapons every day, he said. “But some won’t give us weapons and we go into their homes and take them by force,” he explained. The day before we met, he told me, El Jedek’s men took three AK-47s from the home of a supposed Qaddafi supporter. How did he know? Neighbors tell the local council who they think is stockpiling arms, he said, and El Jedek’s guys go in and try to nab them. The room with all the returned or repossessed weapons was brimming with rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, Kalashnikovs, missiles, FNs and anti-aircraft guns.“We go to take their weapons because they are Qaddafi supporters and they are very dangerous,” El Jedek said. “Otherwise they would register them with us.” But there’s no way to really know who was on whose side, or which neighbors are just using the opportunity for unrelated vendettas. Soon, he said, they will ask all residents to register every weapon no matter who they are. ...

And what about those rebel fighters, the ones from outside Tripoli, who refuse to return from whence they came? El Jedek had a warning for them. “If they don’t leave, the Libyan National Army will remove them by force and power,” ..."