A 16-year-old Irish schoolboy made a snap decision while on vacation in Tunsia to travel 15 hours to a rebel training camp in Tripoli. After just days of training he joined a band of 15 men on the frontline in Tripoli.
Muktar Smew, from Lucan, was the youngest in the group, who spent two weeks on fighting against Gaddafi’s men in the Libyan capital. His parents are doctors in Dublin.
He admitted that travelling to the rebel training ground was a snap decision and that his parents had no idea he was fighting. He told the Evening Herald “My parents didn't mind me going but I didn't intend to fight. They didn't know I was fighting until I got back.
“I didn't plan on fighting but when I heard that they captured Gaddafi's son I got excited. “My friend's uncle, who runs the training camp just outside Tripoli, brought me over,” he said.
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“When I arrived there the training was over and they were just getting ready to go out.
“They just basically showed me how to use the gun, just firing in the air and practising stuff, and then I got my own gun.”
The young man said he doesn’t know if he killed anyone during the fighting but said he has no qualms about killing one of Gaddafi’s soldiers.
“I wouldn't mind. In our religion you have permission to do it. I was near the front door (of Gaddafi's compound) but I didn't get in. A few of my friends want to go over now as well.
“It's hard to know who you are shooting at. Even Libyans shooting at you, you don't know. They were shooting in our direction but nobody got shot from our group. It was like a drive-by shooting. I was a bit scared when there were shots going off, you don't know what's going to happen.”
Once Smew has completed his Leaving Cert he plans to leave his home in Dublin and live permanently in Libya.
Smew is returning to Ireland to enter his Leaving Cert year in the Dublin’s Institute of Education, on Leeson Street. His sister Fadwa (20) is the president of the Irish Libyan Youth Organization.
His parents moved to Ireland 20 years ago to take up work as doctors. It’s estimated that up to 500 of the 3,000 Libyan’s living in Ireland travelled to Libya to join the rebel’s campaign.
Euro News – “No Comment” footage of the rebels in Libya advancing:
4 Comments
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.zyxwvutsrqponml | Sep 12, 2011, 07:58 PM EDT
"irish boy" Muktar Smew. Hmmm. The new world order train has left the station but I am not on board.
GeorgeDillon | Sep 02, 2011, 03:11 AM EDT
"His race"---What a stupid racist post, kittymurphy. Disgusting. For those who are not racists, I will explain that I oppose bombing. I don't think it's a good idea, regardless of what our crazy kittymurphy seems to think. I thought it was wrong when young men and women were leaving home-made bombs in the North of Ireland, and I think it equally wrong when over-paid young French, British, Italians etc are dropping $10k a piece bombs on a country with which they are not at war. It's nothing short of disgraceful that Obama has followed his warmonger predecessor--I sure won't be voting for him again. I also oppose imperialism, the attack on Libya was straight out of the nineteenth-century imperialist playbook, with the same old imperialist suspects--Britain and France, and Italy rushing along behind to get some of the action. As to the Libyan jerk who abandoned the land of his birth (some loyalty to Ireland) to go kill people, I think he's contemptible. I suppose kittymurphy would be crowing equally if the jerk was an Afghan who went to Afghanistan to attack Americans. Kittymurphy is a lousy racist, because she cheerleads for bombing Third World countries that have no air defenses. Take your dumb racism elsewhere, you hypocrite murphy.
KittyMurphy | Sep 01, 2011, 05:53 PM EDT
So this time is it his race, his motivation or what? Why is he a jerk exactly? Up Gaddafi is it GD? I think what he did was mad, brave and amazing. Good luck to him.
GeorgeDillon | Sep 01, 2011, 12:55 PM EDT
At least there's some good news there--this jerk intends to leave Ireland permanently. Why don't the Irish police interview him when he arrives in Dublin Airport? That's what they did in the case of some guys suspected of taking part in the Colombian Civil War a few years back. Why the double standard?