New fighting breaks out in heart of Libyan capital (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya – A gunbattle erupted Friday between hundreds of revolutionary forces and Moammar Gadhafi supporters in the capital for the first time in more than two months after loyalists tried to raise the green flag that symbolizes the ousted leader's regime.

The fighting began when dozens of loyalists carrying the green flag appeared on the streets of Tripoli's Abu Salim neighborhood, which houses the notorious prison of the same name.

Shouting "God is Great," anti-Gadhafi fighters converged on the area, which has long been a pro-Gadhafi stronghold, in pickups mounted with weapons, setting up checkpoints as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets.

Friday's outbreak of violence underscored the difficulty Libya's new rulers face in restoring order as Gadhafi remains on the run. The capital has been relatively calm since then-rebels swept into the city in late August, toppling the regime and sending Gadhafi, the ruler for nearly 42 years into hiding. But his loyalists have control of at least two cities around the country and have battled off revolutionary forces besieging them for weeks, while Gadhafi has issued several audio recordings from hiding trying to rally supporters against the North African nation's transitional leadership.

The crowd of men and women tried to raise Gadhafi's green flag at the end of a street in the Hay Nasr district, witnesses said.

"I looked out of my window and I saw men and women in a group of 50 to 80 people, carrying the green flag," said Abadi Omar, a resident in one of the buildings in the area. "They put one of these flags at the end of our street. This is when the rebels came out and these people disappeared."

Revolutionary forces started searching every building in the area and found weapons on some of the rooftops, many hidden under water tanks, Omar said. Then snipers opened fire and the gunbattle began as anti-Gadhafi fighters gave chase around the closely packed buildings.

Assem al-Bashir, a fighter with Tripoli's Eagle Brigade, also said revolutionary forces suspected there were snipers in the surrounding high rises after spotting a man trying to raise the green flag.

Another fighter, Ahmad al-Warsly, from the Zintan brigade, said several Gadhafi supporters apparently planned a protest but drew fire because they were armed. They then fled and were pursued by revolutionary forces, prompting fierce street battles.

Al-Warsly said one man carrying a gun was captured and identified as a suspect wanted for the killings of protesters in the nearby city of Zawiya.

"It seems like it was organized," he said. "They were planning to have a big demonstration, then the fight started."

Explosions also were reported elsewhere in the capital, but details could not immediately be confirmed.

While Tripoli has remained mostly calm in recent weeks, revolutionary forces are fighting remnants of the regime in Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte and the desert enclave of Bani Walid.

In Geneva, a senior U.N. human rights official expressed concern about a risk of serious abuses against suspected loyalists occurring when Gadhafi's last strongholds fall to revolutionary forces.

The head of the U.N. human right's office's rule of law section, Mona Rishmawi, said Libya's transitional government is trying to ensure the rights of captured Gadhafi fighters are protected but "the system that is currently in place is not adequate."

She said in Geneva Friday that "there is a lot of room for abuse" of the estimated 7,000 people detained in sometimes makeshift prisons throughout Libya.

Rishmawi recently visited Libya as part of a U.N. delegation.

Fighters in Sirte pounded loyalists holed up in two neighborhoods with rocket and machine-gun fire Friday, but also suffered heavy casualties themselves, with wounded men streaming into frontline medical units, then being evacuated to field hospitals on the city's outskirts.

Libya's new rulers have insisted Sirte's fall is imminent, and they expect to declare liberation this week. That could allow them to name a new interim government and set a timeline for holding elections within eight months.

But Gadhafi's forces have proven resilient, fighting back fiercely despite heavy shelling and NATO airstrikes.

Former rebels control much of the battered coastal city after launching a major push a week ago, but they were still under intense sniper fire Friday.

NATO was conducting "intensive overwatch missions" around both areas, according to the British Ministry of Defense.

British warplanes struck three armed trucks belonging to former regime forces hidden beneath trees east of Bani Walid on Thursday, the ministry said.

"The vehicles were successfully engaged by our aircraft, using Paveway guided bombs, and destroyed," Maj. Gen. Nick Pope said in a statement.

NATO has called the continued resistance by Gadhafi forces in Sirte "surprising," as they appear to be losing the battle since revolutionary forces have the area surrounded.

Tanks and weapons-mounted vehicles from the revolutionary forces have kept up a steady barrage of fire into the small enclave known as District 2, where commanders believe several hundred remaining loyalists, possibly including high-ranking figures from the former regime, are hiding.

AP Television footage on Friday showed smoke rising from a building in one part of the city, and a burning car presumably in another. Pick-up trucks with mounted machine guns are seen driving through a flooded street, and elsewhere, an injured revolutionary soldier is carried on a stretcher into an ambulance.

Thousands of civilians have fled the city to escape the violence.

One resident returned Friday to collect personal items from his home, which had been used as a firing position for pro-Gadhafi forces. Their uniforms and mattresses littered the front courtyard.

The owner, who would not give his name because of fear of reprisals, left carrying just a blanket, saying, "the pictures speak for themselves." He then left the city with several of his relatives.

___

Associated Press writers Kim Gamel in Tripoli and Christopher Gillette in Sirte contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Fighting halts aid mission into Libyan siege city (Reuters)

SIRTE, Libya, Oct 3 – A Red Cross convoy carrying aid to relieve a humanitarian crisis in Libya's besieged city of Sirte had to turn back Monday because Libyan interim government forces unleashed a barrage of fire.

Government forces on the other side of the city, Muammar Gaddafi's home town, broke weeks of deadlock by pushing into a district of Sirte where their commanders had said they believed one of Gaddafi's sons, Mo'atassem, was hiding.

In Tripoli, the man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound airline over the Scottish town of Lockerbie told Reuters in an interview his role had been exaggerated and that the truth behind the bombing would emerge soon.

Aid agencies say they are concerned about the welfare of civilians inside Sirte, one of the last pro-Gaddafi bastions left in the country, who are trapped by the fighting and running out of food, water, fuel and medical supplies.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) took some supplies into Sirte last week, and it tried again on Monday, assembling a convoy of two trucks carrying aid, and accompanied by two four-wheel drive vehicles.

The convoy set off from a bridge a few kilometers west of Sirte but came to a halt after only about 100 meters (109.4 yards) because interim government forces started firing into the city.

They fired a heavy barrage of mortar bombs, artillery, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft weapons just as the convoy was starting to move. The ICRC convoy turned around and headed back west, away from Sirte.

An anti-Gaddafi commander at the scene, Ismail Al-Sosi, told Reuters: "The rebels secured the way for the International Red Cross to go but as soon as they entered the city they returned because of the (pro-Gaddafi) militias firing. We did not start the firing. The militias started the firing."

However, a Reuters team who witnessed the incident, said they saw no incoming fire from the Gaddafi loyalists inside Sirte.

Speaking just before the aborted attempt to get supplies into the city, an ICRC official said the humanitarian situation there was dire.

"We're trying to provide medical assistance and oxygen to the hospital in Sirte," said Hishem Khadrawy. "We are really concerned about the medical situation because of the conflict."

GOVERNMENT ADVANCE

Government forces who had for weeks been pinned down by artillery and rocket fire on the eastern edge of Sirte were able to advance several kilometers into the city, capturing the southern district of Bouhadi.

Commanders with the interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), had earlier said they believed one of Gaddafi's sons was in the district.

"The army has fled," said NTC fighter Hussein al-Mazeq.

A Reuters reporter at a traffic circle in the center of Bouhadi said the NTC forces appeared to be in control, though they said there were isolated pockets where loyalists fighters were still holed up.

Government fighters loaded their pick-up trucks with items taken from houses in the district, including carpets and chairs.

On the way in to Bouhadi, the streets were deserted apart from some burned-out cars and tank shell casings. Billboards which had shown images of Muammar Gaddafi were torn down.

A group of NTC fighters headed out of the city on foot carrying a haul of rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles, boxes of ammunition and pairs of new army boots. They said they found them in the homes of Gaddafi supporters.

"We took them from Muammar, Allahu Akbar! (God is Greatest)," one of the fighters shouted.

LOCKERBIE BOMBING

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted in a Scottish court over the Lockerbie bombing. He was released two years ago on the grounds that he was suffering from terminal cancer.

Looking frail and his breathing labored, he spoke from a bed at his home in Tripoli, with medical monitors pinging in the background.

"The facts (about the Lockerbie bombing) will become clear one day and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced," he told Reuters Television.

"The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months."

Al-Megrahi, who had served as an intelligence agent during Gaddafi's rule, denied any role in the human rights abuses committed by the deposed Libyan leader.

"All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans," he said." I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone in my life."

Libyans ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule in August when rebel fighters stormed the capital. Gaddafi and several of his sons are still at large and his supporters hold Sirte and the town of Bani Walid, south of Tripoli.

Gaddafi's supporters are too weak to regain power, but their resistance is frustrating the new rulers' efforts to start building the post-Gaddafi Libya.

SIRTE HOSPITAL

At the western outskirts of the city, civilians who were able to get out of Sirte spoke of many other people unable to leave and facing deteriorating conditions.

Boshnab Khalifa drove out of the city with his family. A woman in the back seat of his car clutched a Koran.

"We were in our apartment and then the wall was blown in by a rocket," he said. "The situation is very bad. Our family and our friends are trapped inside. They cannot get out. There are many families trapped inside, some have no gas for their cars, other (cars) have been damaged or destroyed.

A city of about 75,000 people, Sirte holds symbolic importance. Gaddafi, known for his self-aggrandizing gestures, transformed his birthplace from a sleepy fishing town into Libya's second capital.

At his instigation, parliament often sat in Sirte and he hosted international summits at the Ouagadougou Hall, a marble-clad conference center he had built on a desert plot in the south of the city.

Concerns about the humanitarian crisis have focused on the city's Ibn Sina hospital. Medical workers who fled Sirte say patients were dying on the operating table because there was no oxygen and no fuel for the hospital's generators.

Medical staff outside Sirte who had treated wounded civilians fleeing the fighting Monday said they had been told the corridors were full of patients and that treatment was being given only to pro-Gaddafi fighters or members of Gaddafi's tribe.

"There is a section for civilians and a section for the (pro-Gaddafi) brigades. They are only treating the brigades and leaving the normal people," one member of an ambulance crew told Reuters. That account was repeated by a doctor at a field hospital near the city.

With Libya's rulers focusing on the battles for Sirte and Bani Walid, a power vacuum has emerged.

The interim government is nominally in charge, but real power on the ground is exercised by armed anti-Gaddafi militias who are jockeying for influence in the new Libya.

The chairman of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, announced a minor reshuffle of his team, but kept the crucial portfolios of oil and foreign affairs unchanged.

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Peter Millership)

View the original article here

Price on Gaddafi's head as fighting goes on (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya's new masters offered a million-dollar bounty for the fugitive Muammar Gaddafi on Wednesday, after he urged his men to carry on a battle that kept the capital in a state of fear.

A day after rebel forces overran his Tripoli headquarters and trashed the symbols of his 42-year dictatorship, rocket and machinegun fire from pockets of loyalists kept the irregular fighters at bay as they tried to hunt down Gaddafi and his sons.

Western leaders who backed the revolt with NATO air power remained wary of declaring outright victory while the 69-year-old Gaddafi is at large. He issued a rambling but defiant audio message overnight to remaining bastions of his supporters, some of whom may be tempted to mount an Iraq-style insurgency.

But the international powers and the rebel government-in-waiting in the eastern city of Benghazi lost no time in making arrangements for a handover of Libya's substantial foreign assets. Funds will be required to bring relief to war-battered towns and to develop oil reserves that can make Libya rich.

France was working with Britain and other allies to draft a new United Nations resolution intended to ease sanctions and asset freezes imposed on Libya when Gaddafi was in charge. Rebels also spoke of restarting oil export facilities soon.

Washington was about to submit a U.N. resolution to release an immediate $1.5 billion for humanitarian needs.

In Benghazi, the chairman of the National Council gave a sense of urgency to finding Gaddafi, who the rebels believe may still be in or around Tripoli, having left his Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capital before it fell on Tuesday.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who was himself one of Gaddafi's ministers before defecting in February, said the incoming administration would offer amnesty to any remaining member of Gaddafi's entourage who killed or captured him.

A local businessman, he added, was offering two million dinars -- or about $1.3 million -- to anyone who caught him.

"To any of his inner circle who kill Gaddafi or capture him, society will give amnesty or pardon for any crime he has committed," Abdel Jalil told a news conference in Benghazi.

Abdel Salam Jalloud, a close ally of Gaddafi who switched sides in the past week, told Al Jazeera that the veteran leader had had a plan to drop out of sight before launching a guerrilla campaign once NATO air forces had been called off.

"I believe he is in Tripoli," Jalloud said. "The rebels must open the roads, after they open the roads, he may dress in women's clothes and leave Tripoli to Algeria's borders or Chad.

"He is sick with power," he added. "He believes he can gather his supporters and carry out attacks ... He is delusional. He thinks he can return to power."

U.S. officials also believe Gaddafi is still in Libya.

GADDAFI BASTIONS

The rebels, conscious of divisions among the disparate anti-Gaddafi movements which pose a threat to hopes of a stable democracy, have stressed the wish to work with former Gaddafi loyalists and to avoid the purges of the ousted ruling elite which marked Iraq's descent into sectarian anarchy after 2003.

To promote unity, however, removing Gaddafi and his immediate family from any remaining influence is a priority.

One rebel commander in Tripoli said Gaddafi might be in an area in the south of the city where clashes were going on. Rebels in the center of the capital said they had come under rocket and mortar fire from Gaddafi supporters to the south.

Gaddafi's home town of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast between Tripoli and Benghazi, was still not in the hands of the new leadership. Nor was the southern desert city of Sabha, where the rebels reported fighting. A rebel military spokesman estimated that "95 percent of Libya is under rebel control."

Colonel Abdallah Abu Afra told Al Jazeera: "He who governs Libya is he who controls Bab al-Aziziya and that is the reality of the matter. For us, Gaddafi is over."

GADDAFI ADDRESS

In a poor-quality audio broadcast on a satellite channel, Gaddafi said the withdrawal from his headquarters in the heart of the capital was a tactical move after it had been hit by 64 NATO air strikes and he vowed "martyrdom" or victory .

Urging Libyans to cleanse the streets of traitorous "rats," he said he had secretly toured Tripoli: "I have been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly, without being seen by people, and ... I did not feel that Tripoli was in danger," he said.

Residents remained fearful, with empty streets, shuttered shops and piles of garbage testifying that life is still far from normal in the city of 2 million. Rebels manned checkpoints along the main thoroughfare into the city from the west. Food, water and medical supplies were running short in places.

On the streets of Tripoli, people were defacing or erasing Gaddafi portraits and other symbols in a city where they were once ubiquitous. They painted over street names and renamed them for rebel fighters who had become "martyrs."

One standoff was resolved when guards allowed some three dozen foreign journalists to leave a government-run hotel in Tripoli. They had been prevented from leaving for several days.

The continued shooting suggested the six-month popular insurgency against Gaddafi, a maverick Arab nationalist who defied the West and kept an iron hand on his oil-exporting, country for four decades, has not completely triumphed yet.

A spokesman for Gaddafi said the Libyan leader was ready to resist the rebels for months, or even years.

"We will turn Libya into a volcano of lava and fire under the feet of the invaders and their treacherous agents," Moussa Ibrahim said, speaking by telephone to pro-Gaddafi channels.

Rebel leaders would not enjoy peace if they carried out their plans to move to Tripoli from Benghazi, he said.

Gaddafi's family and a small circle of others accumulated great wealth and have most to lose. A woman saying she was his daughter Aisha urged Libyans to fight on in a phone call broadcast on a small satellite channel: "I tell the Libyan people to stand hand-in-hand against NATO," she said.

"The leader is in the right." It was unclear where she was.

DIPLOMACY

But Gaddafi was already history in the eyes of the rebels and their political leaders planned high-level talks in Qatar on Wednesday with envoys of the United States, Britain, France, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on the way ahead.

Another meeting was scheduled for Thursday in Istanbul.

China urged a "stable transition of power" in Libya and said on Wednesday it was in contact with the rebel council, the clearest sign yet that Beijing has effectively shifted recognition to forces poised to defeat Gaddafi.

China "respects the choice of the Libyan people," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement.

A senior representative for reconstruction in the rebel movement said a new government would honor all the oil contracts granted during the Gaddafi era, including those of Chinese companies.

"The contracts in the oil fields are absolutely sacrosanct," Ahmed Jehani told Reuters Insider TV.

"All lawful contracts will be honored whether they are in the oil and gas complex or in the contracting... We have contracts that were negotiated ... They were auctioned openly ... There's no question of revoking any contract."

A spokesman for rebel-run oil firm AGOCO had warned on Monday Chinese and Russian firms could lose out on oil contracts for failing to back the rebellion.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged Gaddafi and his foes to stop fighting and talk. "We want the Libyans to come to an agreement among themselves," he said, suggesting that Moscow could recognize the rebel government if it unites the country.

China and Russia, usually opposed to foreign intervention in sovereign states, did not veto a U.N. Security Council resolution in March that authorized NATO to use air power to protect Libyan civilians. But they criticized the scale of the air campaign and called for a negotiated solution.

The fall of Gaddafi, with the arresting images on Arab satellite TV of rebels stomping through his sanctum and laying waste to the props of his power, could invigorate other revolts in the Arab world, such as in Syria where President Bashar al-Assad has launched bloody military crackdowns on protesters.

(Reporting by Peter Graff, Ulf Laessing, Missy Ryan, Zohra Bensemra and Leon Malherbe in Tripoli, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Souhail Karam in Rabat, Richard Valdmanis, Christian Lowe and Giles Elgood in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Dina Zayed and Tom Pfeiffer in Cairo, Catherine Hornby in Rome, Denis Dyomkin in Sosnovy Bor and Chris Buckley in Beijing; Writing by Giles Elgood and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Angus MacSwan.)

View the original article here

Libya rebels fighting to capture eastern oil town (Reuters)

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebel forces on Sunday entered the oil town of Brega and fought street battles there with forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, a rebel spokesman said, in the biggest offensive in eastern Libya in weeks.

"The news coming from there is there is a street war going on between Gaddafi troops and the rebels, and 127 are wounded from our side," Abdulrahman Busm, an official in the rebel National Transitional Council, said by telephone.

Brega, about 750 km (465 miles) east of Tripoli, is the site of a strategic oil terminal. The attack could signal a new rebel push westwards from their main stronghold in the east of the country after weeks of stalemate.

NATO, which has been bombing Libya for nearly four months, said its warplanes had struck a military storage facility in Tajoura, an eastern suburb of Tripoli. It said the depot contained battle tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Gaddafi is refusing to step down despite a five-month-old rebellion against his rule, a campaign of NATO air strikes, and the defections of members of his inner circle.

The slow progress of the rebel military campaign has caused strains within NATO, with some member states pressing for a negotiated solution to bring a swift end to a conflict many thought would last only a few weeks.

GADDAFI DEFIANT

In a speech on Saturday, Gaddafi described the rebels as worthless traitors and rejected suggestions that he was about to leave the country. Reports have circulated that Gaddafi is seeking a negotiated way out of the crisis.

"They said Gaddafi will go to Honolulu," he said in a televised speech. "This is funny: To leave the graves of my forefathers and my people? Are you serious?"

His defiance came a day after Western and Arab powers, led by the United States, said the rebel leadership was the legitimate government of Libya and underscored their demand that Gaddafi and his family relinquish power.

Brega has changed hands several times in the back-and-forth fighting along Libya's Mediterranean coast since the rebellion began in February.

Rebels say taking it back will be a tipping point in the conflict on the eastern front. On Saturday they said a reconnaissance unit sent into the town in preparation for an attack had clashed with government forces.

Meanwhile, NATO warplanes have been targeting pro-Gaddafi forces near Brega. The alliance said targets hit on Friday included one tank, five armored fighting vehicles, and two rocket launchers near the town.

Libyan officials in Tripoli made no comment on any fighting in Brega, and it was not immediately possible to verify rebel accounts of what was happening there.

LIBYA THE NEXT SOMALIA?

Western governments and Libya's neighbors have expressed concern that the conflict could be exploited by Islamist militants, and especially by al Qaeda's North African wing.

"Niger's interest is that this crisis does not result in fundamentalists taking power (in Libya), that's our concern," said Mahamadou Issoufou, the president of Libya's southern neighbor Niger.

"Niger's interest is that the crisis resolves itself, that it does not drag on and that the Libyan state does not go the same way as Somalia," he said on state television late on Saturday.

On another front, in the Western Mountains region south-west of Tripoli, pro-Gaddafi forces exchanged artillery fire early on Sunday with rebels in the village of Al-Qawalish, a rebel fighter manning a checkpoint there told Reuters.

The fighter, called Ahmed, also said four rebels were injured on Saturday when their vehicle hit a land mine on the southeast edge of Al-Qawalish.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Peter Graff in Al-Qawalish, Libya, and Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

View the original article here