Gaddafi forces renew assault

• Nato to assume day-to-day military command in Libya • Fighting continues in Misrata, food running low • Obama says Gaddafi may wait out military assault • Gaddafi tells supporters: “We will not surrender” Follow our live Libya Q&A with a panel of experts 2.27pm: The Guardian has been told that text messages are being sent to people in Tripoli, claiming to be from rebels in Benghazi and the east, but actually sent by Gaddafi’s regime. A source in Libya said the texts say the country will be split in two. The texts also threaten that rebels from Benghazi are heading to the west of the country to rape and pillage in Tripoli, with the help of western powers. Separately, our source claims that state television in Tripoli is showing pictures of dead people which the reports say were killed in the coalition air strikes – however some of the dead have been recognised by viewers as relatives who disappeared during Gaddafi’s crackdown on Tripoli. The Guardian is unable to confirm the source’s account at this moment in time. 2.13pm: A resident in Misrata, who has asked not to be named, has told the Guardian that snipers are targeting the hospital in Misrata despite Gaddafi forces’s heavy artillery having been silenced. A coalition bombardment has silenced the cannon and tanks this morning, but snipers are targeting the hospital there. The resident said he had spoken to a contact in Zintan who said the town was being bombarded by Gaddafi’s forces and is now “facing the fate of Zawiyah” and “needs desperate help”. 1.44pm: A doctor in Misrata has told the BBC World Service that there are no pro-Gaddafi tanks in the city today – “because all the tanks have either escaped or been destroyed by the allied forces”. However the doctor said the hospital where he works is still surrounded by snipers loyal to Col Gaddafi. “They are shooting anybody going in or coming out of the hospital. Until now we have four civilian dead.” 1.00pm: Our live Libya Q&A with a panel of experts is about to begin. Post your questions, or read our experts’ answers, here . 12.42pm: Reuters have managed to get another telephone update from Misrata: Western air strikes early on Wednesday hit an air base south of Libya’s rebel-held Misrata where government forces are positioned, but snipers shot two people dead in the centre of the city, a resident said. “This morning, air strikes twice hit the airbase where Gaddafi’s brigades are based,” the resident, called Sami, told Reuters. “Two people were killed by snipers an hour ago in the centre of the town. Their bodies are now at the hospital, which I visited a while ago. Shooting is still going on there (in the city centre) now,” he said. 12.36pm: An image, below, from the under-siege rebel town of Ajdabiya – a rebel fighter at a checkpoint. – 12.34pm: A brief, and expected, update via the Associated Press – Nato commanders have confirmed that the alliance’s warships are now patrolling off Libya’s coast to enforce the arms embargo. 12.13pm: David Cameron has been speaking about Libya at the start of his pre-budget prime minister’s questions in the Commons (see Andrew Sparrow’s live politics live blog for full coverage . Cameron said the no-fly zone has had “an early and good effect” in terms of forcing Gaddafi’s forces back from Benghazi and protecting civilians. He added: Clearly there is great concern about what the regime is doing in Misrata, and any idea that their second ceasefire was any more meaningful than the first ceasefire we can see is complete nonsense. Asked by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, about Arab contributions to the military effort, Cameron said Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan were now involved but conceded that due to the speed of the response the Arab involvement was not as great “as perhaps would have been welcomed”. Quizzed by Miliband about whether or not Gaddafi himself was viewed as a possible target – the source of apparent differences earlier this week between the government and military – Cameron said that all actions would be in line with the UN resolution, adding: All targets should be in line with that, but I don’t propose to give a running commentary on targets, or frankly to say anything beyond that. 12.01pm: News of a renewed assault my Gaddafi loyalists on another rebel-held town, Zintan, about 50 miles south-west of Tripoli. Reuters spoke to a resident: Gaddafi’s brigades started bombardment from the northern area half an hour ago. The bombardment is taking place now. The town is completely surrounded. The situation is very bad… They are getting reinforcements. Troops backed with tanks and vehicles are coming. We appeal to the allied forces to come and protect civilians. 11.58am: Now briefly to Yemen . Brian Whitaker writes: After declaring a state of emergency in Yemen at the weekend, President Saleh won backing for it on Wednesday morning from the Yemeni parliament — though almost half the MPs absented themselves from the session. The text of the draft emergency law has been published (in Arabic) on al-Masdar’s website. It provisions are truly draconian, imposing restrictions on the media, travel and public meetings, even regulating the opening of shops and allowing for the “temporary takeover” of property. The state of emergency is supposed to last for just one month, though it’s worth recalling that a similar “emergency” declared in Egypt in 1967 has remained in place almost continuously since then. 11.42am: An interesting snippet from Reuters, who have spoken to an official at Agoco, a Libyan oil firm based in rebel-held Benghazi. Despite the surrounding chaos the company is still producing 95,000 barrels per day of oil, with two oil field working. This is around 25% of the normal level but they hope to resume full production in a couple of weeks. 11.38am: Tom Kington on the USS Kearsarge has another update from last night’s operations: Four US Harrier jump jets flew bombing missions from an Navy vessel off the Libyan coast on Tuesday night as coalition forces continued attempts to dislodge Libyan forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. The Harriers, armed with GPU 12 laser guided bombs, took off from the USS Kearsarge at 11pm local time, returning at 2am before aircraft refuelled and took of for a second sortie. The Kearsarge’s group of six Harriers attacked targets outside Benghazi on Sunday morning and near Ajdabiya on Sunday night, hitting tanks, artillery pieces and mobile missile launchers. Officials did not reveal Tuesday night’s targets, but Libyan government forces were reportedly continue to shell rebels in Ajdabiya, suggesting they remain a viable target for coalition aircraft. Marine Colonel Mark Desens, who commands the Harriers, said that flying the vertical take-off jets from the Kearsarge gave them an advantage over conventional jets flying from airbases further away from Libya. “With the Harriers we can turn them around very quickly and do two sorties a night,” he said. 11.30am: A reminder of our upcoming Q&A on Libya with a panel of experts (see 9.53am for details). It’ll be happening between 1pm and 2pm here . 11.28am: Here is a video of Gaddafi in full flow last night in front of fired-up crowds, vowing not to surrender against the west’s “crusade”. 11.21am: Tom Kington has emailed from the USS Kearsarge, from where Harrier jets bombed Gaddafi forces last night. This has shades of Joseph Heller’s absurdist Catch-22. US Navy vessels patrolling off the coast of Libya have been told to keep an eye out for Muammar Gaddafi’s least expected threat – his submarine. Documents pinned up on the bridge of one vessel list the sea-borne threats American sailors may encounter as they take on the colonel, including Gaddafi’s Soviet-era Foxtrot class submarine. But intelligence on the sub is reassuring, suggesting it has rusted into ineffectiveness alongside much of Gaddafi’s pre-embargo arsenal. “Operations rare to non-existent” states the document, adding the submarine is currently being overhauled and “operates primarily on the surface,” submerging “only for a few hours.” 11.07am: More than 335,600 people have fled Libya, mainly to Tunisia and Egypt, since the beginning of the crisis, according to the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA). The situation of civilians in and around Ajdabiya, Misrata and other locations where active fighting continues remains of grave concern. In addition to the risk of personal injury from the fighting, the population of these towns may also have humanitarian needs arising from the disruption of regular services and supply lines. The presence of assistance actors inside Libya remains very limited due to prevailing security conditions. 10.53am: A resident in Misrata, which has come under heavy shelling from Gaddafi’s forces, has told Reuters that coalition aircraft have launched two strikes in the area. “The allied planes bombed twice so far. At 12:45 this morning (2245 GMT last night) and then again less than two hours ago,” the resident, called Saadoun, told Reuters by telephone from Misrata. “They (pro-Gaddafi forces) haven’t fired a single artillery (round) since the air strike. 10.30am: Time magazine has a good piece on the difficulties – understandable enough – the rebels in Benghazi have in cobbling together an effective alternative government and fighting force at the same time. “The big problem here is that most of the revolutionary guys don’t trust the military people because a lot of military guys were with Gaddafi from the start,” says Najla Elmangoush, a criminal-law professor at Benghazi’s Garyounis University and an activist at council headquarters. “We welcomed them when they joined,” she adds. “But people are concerned that maybe they’ll try anytime to change sides.” The regime is trying to encourage that fear, spreading false rumors last weekend that rebel commander Younis had returned to the regime’s camp. 10.22am: It’s difficult to get updates from Misrata – we’re working on this and will hopefully have more as the day progresses – but here’s a worrying witness testimony as heard on ABC’s PM news programme. The rebels are trying their best to secure a perimeter around the hospital but it’s not safe because the rebels are holding just only light weapons. It’s not a battle, it’s a massacre what’s happening here in Misurata. Most of the citizens who were in the areas under the control of Gaddafi’s troops and army, they have moved down toward the sea looking for some safer places. They are stepping away and escaping from the gunfire. 10.06am: This Al-Jazeera video from the frontline on the outskirts of Ajdabiya shows rebels being fired at by Gaddafi forces. 9.53am: From 1pm we’ll have a panel of experts answering questions on the Libyan crisis: • Anthony Aust, former legal adviser at the Foreign Office who served at the UK mission to the United Nations and helped draft the resolution on Kuwait in 1990. • Paul Smyth, a RAF former wing commander and Tornado navigator. • Dr Laleh Khalili, a lecturer in Middle Eastern Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London . I’ll post a link to the live Q&A page later this morning. 9.45am: Nato warships will begin patrolling off Libya’s coast today to enforce the UN arms embargo on the country, a spokesman said. The allies agreed on Tuesday to organize the naval mission, which initially will consist of two Nato naval flotillas that routinely patrol the Mediterranean, AP said. The flotillas are made up of two frigates, six minesweepers and a supply ship. A Nato official said the mission will be commanded from Nato’s operational centre in Naples, Italy. He says more nations are likely to contribute warships to the task force. 9.26am: This video shows Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen outlining the details of an operation to enforce Libya’s arms embargo. 9.05am: Sweden has frozen around 10 billion kronor ($1.6 billion) of assets belonging to Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya, according to AP. Jonatan Holst at The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority says “it’s not impossible” there could be more hidden in the Scandinavian country. He would not give details of the public Libyan assets, but said Wednesday the information has been received by financial institutions in Sweden. The Stockholm-based watchdog ordered Swedish companies to start reporting any financial links to the Libyan regime on 2 March. Holst says the value of the assets began to grow as more people with ties to the Libyan regime were added to the asset search list. 8.58am: Chris McGreal is still on the outskirts of Ajdabiya, where he says the battle lines “remain as they were yesterday”. There continues to be a lot of incoming shelling from Gaddafi side against the rebels – if anything it is more intense this morning, suggesting Gaddafi forces, far from being broken by the airstrikes, might actually be being resupplied and reinforced. The situation is unclear but certainly at the moment it seems the rebels are on the back foot – they’re just sitting and waiting, taking the shelling. The bursts of artillery are not very accurate, but periodically the shells do kill or injure someone. The shells come in waves, around every 20-30 minutes, and the effect is to say the least very unnerving for the rebels, a lot of whom have pulled back from the frontline. There’s now a few hundred up at the front, but a few kilometres back are several thousand more. 8.41am: The Guardian’s Middle East editor Ian Black is in Tripoli, and has more on Gaddafi’s speech at his Bab al-Aziziya compound in the early hours of this morning. It was his first public appearance in a week, and there was nothing in it to suggest any lessening of his determination to sit out what he calls the “colonialist-crusader” attacks on Libya. The US may have intelligence about a weakening of Gaddafi’s resolve or plans to leave the country but the face he presents to his people is as defiant as ever. There would be “no surrender” to powers who belonged “on the dustheap of history” he pledged to the approving roar of the crowd. It seemed clear that he was aware of growing rumours about his whereabouts after two strikes on Bab al-Aziziya – with one opposition source reporting him at a hideout deep in the Sahara. “I am here, in my modest tent,” Gaddafi told them. “I am here.” 8.30am: Good morning, welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the continuing crisis in Libya. • Britain, France and the US have agreed that Nato will take over the military command of the no-fly zone over Libya . The move represents a setback for Nicolas Sarkozy, who had hoped to diminish the role of the alliance. Barack Obama agreed in separate phone calls with Sarkozy and David Cameron that political oversight would be handed to a separate body made up of members of the coalition, including Arab countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which are outside Nato. • Fighting is continuing in the rebel-held Misrata, with residents reporting shelling and sniper attacks with water and food running short. A doctor told Associated Press that tanks had opened fire on a peaceful protest Monday. “The number of dead are too many for our hospital to handle,” said the doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity. Regarding food, he said: “We share what we find and if we don’t find anything, which happens, we don’t know what to do.” • Barack Obama has said it may not be military might that ousts Gaddafi, rather belief among rebel Libyans that it is time for change. “Potentially what we may see is all the enthusiasm that the Libyan people had for a change in government that was occurring a few weeks ago,” and that had repressed by Gaddafi’s “brutal amplification of force” would now be reawakened, the president said. He added that Gaddafi may try to hang on to power rather than admit defeat. • Right on cue, Gaddafi has told supporters “we will not surrender”. “We will defeat them by any means … We are ready for the fight, whether it will be a short or a long one … We will be victorious in the end,” he said in a live television broadcast, his first public appearance for a week. “This assault … is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history,” Gaddafi said in a speech followed by fireworks in the Libyan capital as crowds cheered and supporters fired guns into the air. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Protest Adam Gabbatt Mark Tran Peter Walker guardian.co.uk

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