Libya: the battle for Tripoli – live updates

• Defiant Saif al-Islam Gaddafi appears in Tripoli • Hunt for Muammar Gaddafi continues • UN says more than 2,200 people killed in Syria crackdown 11.19am: Repressive regimes don’t all stick together – Bahrain has declared its recognition of Libya’s National Transitional Council. The kingdom’s state news agency said: In light of recent developments in Libya, the Kingdom of Bahrain reiterates its recognition of Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) as the sole legitimate representative of the brotherly Libyan people, wishes Libya to achieve prosperity, progress and stability, development and reconstruction. 11.08am: Sky News Alex Crawford describes “fierce fighting” outside Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound, in this Audioboo clip. _ 10.55am: The international criminal court now denies that it ever confirmed Saif al-Islam had been arrested. A live blog by the Libyan activists Feb 17, quoted spokesman Fadi el-Abdallah, telling the BBC: What we said yesterday is that we received information about the arrest of Saif al-Islam and we were trying to confirm that by contacting the National Transitional Council in Libya, but Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was not under the custody of the ICC. The media was reporting about his arrest. We tried to contact different persons of the National Transitional Council and there were different opinions and different answers. That’s why we said there was no official confirmation about his arrest. The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Julian Borger tweets: Seif al-Islam episode is enormously embarrassing for the ICC . Still not clear what happened. #ICC #Libya 10.49am: Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Nato campaign should continue until security full security is established. Speaking at a press conference in Benghazi he also said frozen Libya assets should be release soon to the Libyan opposition, Reuters reports. 10.38am: After chairing a meeting of the government’s National Security Council, Nick Clegg said the reappearance of Saif al-Islam was “not the sign of some great comeback” for the regime. Clegg said it was “only a matter of time” before Gaddafi’s regime in Libya was defeated. He said rebels controlled “much but not all of Tripoli”. The deputy prime minister chaired the meeting as David Cameron resumed his holiday in Cornwall . 10.27am: A boat charted by the International Organisation for Migrants to rescue 300 people stranded in Tripoli can’t dock because of the security situation. In phone interview IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said: “We had been hoping to carry out the evacuation today. Unfortunately it [the boat] no longer has the security and safety guarantee it was given earlier. So as a result we will not dock the boat because it will not be safe for either our staff or the migrant to carry out the operation. What IOM will do however is keep the boat at sea until conditions improve. It is going to be an extremely difficult operation but we remain committed to carrying out.” Pandya said the IOM was keen to avoid _ 10.07am: Sky News’ Tripoli correspondent Alex Crawford confirms Luke’s reports of heavy fighting. Speaking to camera crouched behind a car, she described many casualties arriving at a hospital in central Tripoli. She also said supplies at the hospital were running low. Sky correspondent: Many casualties arriving at hospital in central Tripoli following intense fighting @AlexCrawfordSky Doctors seriously stretched in Tripoli’s only working hospital. Very few staff, piles of rubbish everywhere. 2 young children among wounded Sound of gunfire and shelling continues. Docs appeal for pressure on both sides to stop attacking the hospital. Horrendous conditions here 9.50am: After being interrupted by shelling Luke Harding in Tripoli resumes describing the battle for the city. Since we spoke more than 200 rebel vehicles have made a sedate cavalcade looping round the harbour and the old city, shooting and crying ‘God is great’ [heading] for the coastal road out west. It is not clear this is a retreat or a show of force. It is very hard to make sense of what is going on, but the battle is still going on as you can hear. I’m in the Corinthia hotel and it’s a bit like being in a reverberating amphitheatre. _ 9.28am: “I’ve got a front row stall seat on the battle,” Luke Harding reports above the crump of mortar shells in Tripoli. To my left is the old city which is in rebel hands – the rebels have got the harbour, the corniche, they’ve got Green Square. But to my right, where the fighting is going on, there are a series of tall government buildings where the rebels have taken up positions and they are now duking it out with Gaddafi forces in Bab al-Azizya, which is Gaddafi’s compound and the area where the Rixos hotel is situated. There is just a big battle going on [sound of shelling] that’s a big mortar. It is clear that the city is not in rebel hands, nor is it entirely in government hands. What we are looking at now is a Beirut-style situation. The west of city – the opposition have taken control of that – and the mood there is much calmer. But here in the heart of Tripoli there is this just this almighty fight. On the reappearance of Saif al-Islam, Luke said the it provided a psychological boost to loyalist fighters. But he added: “There isn’t anywhere for them to go from here. I can’t really see them recapturing the city. What I can envisage is them hanging on for some time, they have got a lot of ammunition, they’ve been expecting this, they’ve got heavy weaponry. Plus they’ve got all these captive journalists [in the Rixos hotel] …” At that point Luke had to cut the call short and take cover. _ 8.50am: Welcome to Middle East Live. It was reports of the arrest of Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam on Sunday night, confirmed by the international criminal court, which illustrated how close to collapse the Libyan regime had come. Saif’s defiant reappearance overnight suggests that the battle for Tripoli is far from over. “We are going to win” he said and asked about his indictment for war crimes he said: “Screw the criminal court.” _ Was Saif released as part of some kind of deal or did he escape? Waheed Burshan, a member of the National Transitional Council, told al-Jazeera: “We had confirmation Saif al-Islam was arrested, but we have no idea how he escaped.” Here are the other main developments: Libya • Opposition figure Ibrahim Sahad condemned the handling of another of Gaddafi’s sons, Mohammad, who also escaped on Monday. In an interview with the Australian broadcaster ABC, Sahad said: The way they dealt with Mohammed last night was not adequate… they wanted to show him the civilisation of this revolution. So they left him at home and they put some guards around the house, and the information now that he escaped. I mean this should not be done. It should be everybody from the Gaddafi family should be brought under arrest. • The head of the opposition National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil cautioned that “the real moment of victory is when Gaddafi is captured” . The Libyan leader’s whereabouts are still unknown, but US officials said they believed he was still in Libya. • Nato jets bombed Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli early on Tuesday, according to reports. Earlier, Nato said pro-Gaddafi forces fired at least three Scud missiles from the city of Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace. • Libyan state TV is off the air after its headquarters was stormed by rebels. Rebel forces also claimed to have detained Hala Misrati, the Libyan state TV prestenter who famously vowed to die a martyr for Gaddafi while waving a gun on air on Sunday. • Some international journalists remain trapped in Tripoli’s five-star Rixos hotel, in a part of the city controlled by Gaddafi’s forces. The hotel is subject to frequent power cuts. One of those reporters, the BBC’s Matthew Price, tweets: #Rixos Journos have little Internet access and trying to conserve power/sat phones etc. But all ok, feel safer this am, no power though. • The New York Times provides a detailed account of the rebel offensive on Tripoli which was combined with an uprising of residents. They were aided by steady supplies of weapons, fuel, medicine and food from British, French and Qatari troops and an escalated bombing campaign by NATO jets and American Predator drones. Hundreds of rebels took part in secret military training inside Qatar. Rebel forces even advanced on Tripoli by boat, arranging a flotilla from the town of Misurata in an operation the rebels called Mermaid Dawn … The western offensive by the rebels galvanized opposition fighters in other parts of the country. American and NATO officials described a carefully coordinated three-pronged push on Tripoli, to drive fighters loyal to Colonel Qaddafi on the roads back toward the capital where NATO planes could bomb them. That push, concentrated to the west of Tripoli, was coordinated with the uprising on Saturday within Tripoli itself. • The hard part starts now , Martin Chulov, the Guardian’s former Baghdad correspondent, warns in an analysis of what the various rebels factions do now. The lessons of what becomes of a Middle East state that suddenly loses its strongman are recent and raw. More than eight years after Baghdad fell with the same ignominious haste as Tripoli, it remains a basket case of competing agendas, a disengaged political class and citizens left with the reality that the state neither has the capacity or the will to look after them. • The speed of the collapse of the Gaddafi regime presents serious problems, agues Daniel Serwer from the Johns Hopkins School of Advance International Studies. Speaking on Bloggingheads TV, Serwer said: “Had I been an active diplomat in this I would have worked very hard to try to get a formal turnover of power, because that’s what prevents the kind of stay-behind rebellion that we suffered in Iraq.” Syria • More than 2,200 people have been killed in the Syrian government’s crackdown on protests , the UN’s human rights commissioner Navi Pillay said as she condemned a shoot-to-kill policy by the regime. While demonstrations have been largely peaceful, the military and security forces have resorted to an apparent “shoot-to-kill” policy. Snipers on rooftops have targeted protesters, bystanders who were trying to help the wounded, and ambulances … As of today, over 2200 people have been killed since mass protests began in mid-March, with more than 350 people reportedly killed across Syria since the beginning of Ramadan. The military and security forces continue to employ excessive force, including heavy artillery, to quell peaceful demonstrations and regain control over the residents of various cities, particularly in Hama, Homs, Latakia and Deir Ezzor. The heavy shelling of al-Ramel Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia last week resulted in at least 4 people killed and the displacement of the 7,500 inhabitants of the camp. Despite assurances from President Assad to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday that military operations had finished, I regret to note that at least five people were killed around the country on Thursday and 34 more on Friday by Syrian military and security forces. • The Syrian government’s attempts to whitewash evidence of a brutal crackdown on the country’s five-month uprising appeared to backfire on Monday after a visiting UN humanitarian delegation was met by protesters waving SOS signs . Hundreds of demonstrators in Homs surrounded the UN car in the central New Clock square, shouting for the overthrow of the regime. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Syria Bashar Al-Assad Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 23, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.