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)

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Syrian siege of Hama raises humanitarian concerns (AP)

BEIRUT – Gunmen in plainclothes are randomly shooting people in the streets of the besieged Syrian city of Hama and families are burying their loved ones in gardens at home for fear of being killed themselves if they venture out to cemeteries, a resident said Thursday.

Military forces on Sunday launched an offensive against anti-government dissent in Hama and at least 100 people have been killed since, according to human rights groups. Phones, Internet and electricity have been cut or severely hampered for days. The resident told The Associated Press people are being forced to ration food and share bread to get by during the holy month of Ramadan, when many Muslims fast from dawn to dusk then celebrate with large, festive meals after sundown.

"People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street," said the resident, who spoke by phone on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank." He said he left Hama briefly through side roads to smuggle in food supplies.

The resident said around 250 people have been killed since Sunday. Hozan Ibrahim, of the Local Coordination Committees which tracks the crackdown on protesters, said up to 30 people may have been killed in Hama Wednesday only based on reports from fleeing residents. But neither of those numbers could be immediately verified.

Families have resorted to burying their loved ones in home gardens or roadside pits "because we fear that if we go to the cemetery, we will end up buried along with them," the resident said.

He said the army and pro-government gunmen known as "shabiha" have been shooting randomly at people and keeping food supplies from entering the city. He said he knew they are allied with the military because they sometimes walk behind soldiers and talk to them.

Activists have expressed concern about worsening humanitarian conditions in Hama, saying medical supplies and bread were in short supply even before the latest siege. Phones and Internet in Hama have been cut or severely hampered for at least two days. Electricity has been out or sporadic since Sunday.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the London-based Observatory for Human Rights, said some 1,000 families have fled Hama in the past two days, most of them to the village of Mashtal Hilu west of Hama and al-Salamieh to the east.

The siege of Hama is part of a new government offensive to put down the country's uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule. Now in its fifth month, the protests have been gaining momentum in defiance of the military crackdown.

Hama, a city of 800,000 with a history of dissent, had fallen largely out of government control since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against encroaching tanks. But Syrian security forces backed by tanks and snipers launched a ferocious military offensive that left corpses in streets Sunday and sent residents fleeing for their lives, according to residents.

In 1982, Assad's father, Hafez Assad, ordered the military to quell a rebellion by Syrian members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood movement there. Hama was sealed off and bombs dropped from above smashed swaths of the city and killed between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.

In other parts of Syria, security forces killed at least seven protesters overnight when they went out to demonstrate after special nighttime prayers for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, activists said.

Assad has sought to deal with the extraordinary revolt against his family's 40-year-dynasty through deadly force, but has also acknowledged the need for reform.

On Thursday, he issued two legislative decrees that will allow the formation of political parties alongside the Baath Party and enable newly formed parties to run for parliament and local councils. Both draft bills were endorsed by Cabinet last month, and were key demands of the opposition movement. But opposition figures now dismiss the moves as maneuvering tactics and insist they want regime change.

On Wednesday, Syrian tanks stormed Hama under heavy shelling, taking over a main city square. Activists said authorities have effectively imposed a news blackout on the city by cutting cellular and land lines and Internet.

Phone calls by the Associated Press to the city on Thursday were not going through. Abdul-Karim Rihawi, Damascus-based chief of the Syrian Human Rights League, said there was no information coming out from Hama on Thursday.

"A high number of casualties is expected from such a massive military operation," he said.

Rihawi said that elsewhere in Syria, seven people were killed by security forces Wednesday night. Two protesters were shot dead in the Damascus central neighborhood of Midan, three in the southern village of Nawa and one in the ancient city of Palmyra. An 11-year-old boy was also killed when security forces opened fire on a protest in Talbiseh, near Homs, he said.

He said more than 60 Syrian children have died since the start of the protests in March.

The Local Coordination Committees confirmed the deaths.

Since Ramadan started on Monday, Muslims have been thronging mosques for the special nightly prayers after breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast. The gatherings have turned into large anti-government protests that draw fierce military force to try to break them up.

Abdul-Rahman said military operations were also under way in the central city of Homs, where heavy machine guns and automatic gunfire was heard throughout the night in the Bab Sbaa and Qalaa districts. At least 27 people have been arrested in security raids, he said.

Amateur videos posted by activists online showed dozens of people in Damascus' district of Midan clapping their hands and shouting: "We don't love you, Bashar!" and "Bashar, leave!" after emerging from the city's Daqaq Mosque. The footage, which activists said was taken Wednesday night, then shows chaos breaking out as gunfire is heard, and the camera zooms onto vehicles with bullet holes and smashed windows.

Another video also posted overnight showed a large group of people in Hama's Kfarzita district marching and shouting: "The people want to topple the regime."

The military offensive against Hama, 130 miles (210 kilometers) north of the capital Damascus, prompted the U.N. Security Council to act after months of deadlock.

A Council statement late Wednesday condemned Assad's forces for attacking civilians and committing human rights violations. It called on Syrian authorities to immediately end all violence and launch an inclusive political process that will allow the Syrian people to fully exercise "fundamental freedoms ... including that of expression and peaceful assembly."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the statement "demonstrates the rising international concern at the unacceptable behavior of the regime and shows that President Assad is increasingly isolated."

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe called the statement "a turning point in the attitude of the international community" and said Syria must now halt the attacks and implement reforms.

About 1,700 civilians have been killed since the uprising began in mid-March, according to tallies by activists.

Authorities in Syria blame the unrest on a foreign conspiracy and armed extremists seeking to destabilize Syria, as opposed to true reform-seekers.

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Zeina Karam can be reached on http://twitter.com/zkaram

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