25 Mar 2011

Gaddafi ‘arming volunteers’ as NATO takes over

Pentagon says NATO attacks have reduced Gaddafi’s ability to control his ground forces and he is reportedly arming volunteers, as rebels enter Ajdabiya from the east.


A house hit by coalition force air strike according to a Libyan official

U.S. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said: “We have received reports today that he has taken to arming what he calls volunteers to fight the opposition.”

“I’m not sure if they are truly volunteers or not and I don’t know how many of these recruits he’s going to get, but I find it interesting that he may now feel it necessary to seek civilian reinforcements.”

Vice Admiral Gortney said American forces were preparing to hand off control of the no-fly zone over Libya to NATO command, but would remain responsible for air-to-ground attacks to protect civilians. This would change once agreement was reached on their handover.

Qatar has become the first Arab country to begin patrolling a U.N.-backed no-fly zone as it joined a French Air Force plane on a mission to prevent Gaddafi’s forces from attacking civilians.

British Tornado GR4 Aircraft have taken part in a co-ordinated missile strike against units of Colonel Gaddafi’s Libyan Military, which included launching guided missiles at armoured vehicles.

Prime minister David Cameron told journalists in Brussels that the coalition was right to move “quickly and decisively” over the past week.

He said the EU summit had agreed that “military action should continue until people are safe and secure and until UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is properly implemented”.

Moves to put NATO in charge of enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya were “an important step forward”, he added.

But he warned that the situation of civilians in Misrata and Zintan was grave.

Warplanes were heard flying over Ajdabiyah in eastern Libya followed by three explosions and rebel forces near the town said air strikes had hit Gaddafi’s forces there.

The battle for Ajdabiya is raging on but rebels have been reported to have made significant advances into the city late on Friday.

“I am waiting for the jets to finish bombing before going in,” said rebel fighter Ahmed al-Misrati.

Misrata is still under siege late on Friday with reports that Gaddafi has killed six people including three children, according to one rebel

“There was shelling this morning and almost all of the day; it targeted a residential area on the outskirts of Misrata called Al Jazeera. Six people were killed including three sisters aged 2, 5 and 12 years old,” rebel Saadoun said by telephone.

“This residential compound is northwest of Misrata and they attacked it with mortars and tanks” he continued

One local man told Channel 4 News that the coalition bombing had forced Gaddafi’s soldiers into Ajdabiyah city, where they knocked on people’s doors looking for cars to loot.

The man said that there were snipers in the town, and it still wasn’t safe.

In a blog on events in and around Ajdabiyah, Lindsey Hilsum said that everyone she met said they welcomed the coalition bombing, which had stopped Gaddafi’s planes from attacking

The coalition enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya fired 16 Tomahawk cruise missiles and flew 153 air sorties in the pastn 24 hours, a US military spokesperson said on Friday.

Channel 4 News’s Jonathan Miller has seen evidence of the Coalition bombings at a family home in Tujura and at military targets outside Tripoli.

“We passed a large military facility which had been bombed at which smoke still rose and was clearly still burning.

“On a coastal dune, a mobile truck-mounted radar had been hit and destroyed, but a small mobile SAM – surface to air missile and mobile battery was still upright and could be seen alight.”

Britain’s role in the latest strikes came as NATO assumed control of enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya, after leaders of the 28-nation alliance reached a compromise deal at the end of six days of discussions.

But NATO will not assume responsibility immediately, meaning that the current military operations in Libya – orchestrated by the US, Britain and France – will continue.

Read more: strike against Gaddafi 



Rebel fighters guard protesters at prayer

The African Union announced that is planning to encourage talks to help end the conflict in Libya between the government and rebel forces in its first statement since the start of air strikes.

The Union’s commission chairman, Jean Ping, told a meeting in Addis Ababa that the process should end with democratic election.

It is important that we agree on such an approach in order to ensure lasting peace, security and democracy in Libya,” Ping told the meeting, attended by representatives from Gaddafi’s government, the opposition, the United States, France and the United Nations among others.

“We have to be forward-looking in our meeting and not split hairs with controversies relating to differences that have ruined our relationship in the past.” he said.

The union had rejected any form of foreign intervention in the Libya crisis.

Speaking in Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that, after five days of bombardment by British, American and French forces, “a massacre in Benghazi has been prevented, Gaddafi’s air force and air defences have been rendered largely ineffective and the coalition is in control of the skies of Libya“.

The US military will continue to “provide support to our efforts to make sure that Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 are enforced”, she added.

This leaves the way clear for regular patrols of Libyan airspace to ensure that Gaddafi does not use aerial firepower to assault opposition cities.