Gaddafi’s new female fighters

As the NATO bombing campaign in Libya entered its 100th day on Monday, Gaddafi loyalists revealed their latest plan to combat Libyan rebels in their ongoing conflict – female soldiers.

500 women of all ages graduated this weekend from a program designed to teach pro-Gaddafi females how to use weapons, reported the Guardian from a Tripoli event closely monitored by government minders.

"Libyan women are now joining the armed forces against NATO. We are training them. Their main role is defending homes. We have no plan to send them to the front line. They are not trained for that, and our army is very effective," Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, told the Guardian.

"We are going to make sure that every mother, the symbol of love and creation, is a bomb, a killing machine," Moussa added.

Gaddafi’s women warriors displayed their loyalty by hoisting green flags and enlarged photographs of the Libyan leader into the air. Others wore jewelry decorated with Gaddafi’s image.

Some of the women reportedly fired their newly-obtained guns into the air to celebrate finishing the program.

"We love Muammar Gaddafi and we want to save our country," one of the female graduates told the Guardian. "He made us happy. He makes us eat and makes the country free to do what we want. Before, we weren't free. My grandparents tell us that before Gaddafi, it was bad, there was no bread. He saved us."

Check out a photo slideshow of the event here.

Gaddafi’s newest recruits in the months-long conflict in Libya are certainly not the country's first female fighters. Rebel commanders have been training female soldiers near Benghazi for weeks, according to a Reuters video report released earlier this month.

The Libyan leader's own personal bodyguards are mostly comprised of women.

Meanwhile, residents of the besieged town of Misrata captured pro-Gaddafi mercenaries – all women – who were dispatched to Libya from Columbia, according to a news website sponsored by the U.S. army’s Africa Command.

Magharebia reports:

Moamer Kadhafi's government is using Colombian mercenaries to fight revolutionary forces, according to Misrata residents.

The rebels alleged that they captured several Colombian women belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the early days of the Libyan uprising.