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Incident

Gaddafi forces storm Misrata, rebels offer truce

01 April 2011 19:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Muammar Gaddafi’s forces stormed the western rebel outpost of Misrata with tanks and artillery on Friday, a rebel spokesman said, while insurgents marshaled defenses in their eastern heartland, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
A rebel leader speaking after talks with a U.N. envoy in Benghazi offered a ceasefire on condition Gaddafi left Libya and his forces withdrew from cities now under government control. It was unclear if the offer was part of broader diplomatic moves to end a conflict that appears deadlocked on the military front.
Rebels speaking from Misrata said Gaddafi’s forces had brought their superior firepower to bear on the insurgents’ last western enclave with an intense bombardment.
"They used tanks, rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and other projectiles to hit the city today. It was random and very intense bombardment," the spokesman, called Sami, told Reuters by telephone. "We no longer recognize the place. The destruction cannot be described."
"The pro-Gaddafi soldiers who made it inside the city through Tripoli Street are pillaging the place, the shops, even homes, and destroying everything in the process."
"They are targeting everyone, including civilians’ homes. I don’t know what to say, may Allah help us," he said.
The account from Misrata, Libya’s third biggest city 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, could not be verified. Authorities do not allow journalists to report freely from the city.
A doctor in Misrata told Reuters in an email that the 32nd Brigade, one of the best-equipped and trained units, had been sent early on Friday to seize control of the city.
"So the question is where is the international community?" the doctor said.
CHECKPOINTS
Gaddafi, who has ruled Libya since taking power in a coup in 1969, describes the rebels as terrorists and Western agents. He accuses NATO led air forces, operating under a U.N. mandate, of killing huge numbers of civilians in bombing raids.
Civilian deaths haunt the calculations of coalition governments. Any sign of mounting casualties could shatter a fragile consensus between Western and Arab capitals who first called for creation of a militarily enforced no-fly zone.
BBC television quoted a Libyan doctor as saying a coalition air strike had killed seven civilians, mostly children, and wounded another 25 near the oil town of Brega on Wednesday.
The doctor said he had been called to a village 15 km (9 miles) from Brega after the strike hit a pro-Gaddafi military convoy. A trailer containing ammunition exploded between two homes, killing girls and young men aged between 12 and 20, the BBC said on Friday. The report has not been confirmed.
Libyan rebels moved heavier weaponry toward government forces at the eastern oil town of Brega on Friday and sought to marshal rag-tag units into a more disciplined force to fend off Gaddafi’s regular army and turn the tide of recent events.
Rebels said neither side could claim control of Brega, one of a string of oil towns along the Mediterranean coast that have been taken and retaken by each side in recent weeks.
But there were signs on Friday of a more ordered approach.
Rebels said more trained officers were at the front, heavier rockets were seen moving from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi toward Ajdabiyah to the south late on Thursday and checkpoints were screening those going through.
"Only those who have large weapons are being allowed through. Civilians without weapons are prohibited," said Ahmed Zaitoun, one of the rebel fighters and part of a brigade of civilian volunteers who have received more training than most.
"Today we have officers coming with us. Before we went alone," he said, and he pointed to a man complaining at being stopped at one of the checkpoints, adding: "He is a young boy and he doesn’t have a gun. What will he do up there?"
The new approach has yet to be tested after the rout rebels sustained this week when a two-day rebel advance forward along about 200 km (125 miles) of coast west from Brega was repulsed and turned into a rapid retreat over the following two days.
On the road between Ajdabiyah and Benghazi, gun emplacements were set up in freshly dug ditches with sand berms facing toward Ajdabiyah and the front line, the first sign of organised defensive positions protecting the rebel ’capital’.
Only two weeks ago, Gaddafi’s forces were at the gates of Benghazi and the Libyan leader pledged "No mercy, no pity" for rebels who would be flushed out "house by house, room by room."
"Benghazi is quite secure," senior rebel council official Abdel Hameed Ghoga told reporters. "Our forces have defended it before...We don’t think Gaddafi can attack Benghazi again."
SHOOTING IN TRIPOLI
Heavy gunfire rang out near Gaddafi’s fortified compound in Tripoli for about 20 minutes before dawn and residents said they saw snipers on rooftops and heard distant chanting or shouting.
"There were pools of blood on the streets. You will not find anything now. It’s been hosed down and cleaned by the fire trucks," said one Tripoli resident.
Reporters in the city, on edge in past days with popular anxiety compounded by fuel shortages and increasingly long queues outside bakeries and gas stations, are confined to hotels and unable to verify reports from the streets.
While Western action has failed to bring any end to fighting or a quick collapse of Gaddafi’s administration, signs have emerged of secret contacts between Tripoli and Western capitals.
Foreign minister Moussa Koussa defected in London this week. A Gaddafi appointee also declined to take up his post as U.N. ambassador, condemning the "spilling of blood" in Libya. Other reports of defections are unconfirmed [ID:nWEA2134]
A British government source said Mohammed Ismail, an aide to Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, had been visiting family members in London, but that Britain had "taken the opportunity to send some very strong messages about the Gaddafi regime."