Libya: the hunt for Gaddafi – live blog

• Fighting continues in areas of Tripoli • Harrowing accounts from abandoned hospital • Hunt for toppled dictator and his sons • UN general secretary urges stable transition • Rebels mass for assault on Sirte • Read how yesterday’s events unfolded 12.44pm: My colleage Gregory Callus flags up the discussion taking place in our comments section (below) about today’s Independent story on the reported settling of scores in Tripoli: TrueBrit1066 comments : There are too many stories of black people being killed by the anti Gadaffi brigade to be ignored. This appears to be ethnic cleansing. The NATO resolution called for the protection of all civilians (presumably including black ones) and the fact is that many black civilians are now being killed. Lagrange1945 comments : Everything the rebels do is presented in the media as freedom fighters against a nasty dictator. When innocent black people came to Libya to find a job are killed then they must be mercenaries and therefore to be killed. All those dead bodies on the streets of Libya are probabily been blamed on Gaddaffi loyalist. PaulLambert comments It isn’t genocide, but if, as seems likely from various credible reports, black people are being targeted purely because they’re black, then that may well amount to Persecution – which is a crime against humanity under the ICC statute. 12.41pm: Neal Mann (aka @fieldproducer ) of Sky News tweets from Libya: Deputy Commander of Rebel forces told @Kileysky they are considering going round Sirte & surrounding it to stop Gaddafi splitting Libya in 2 12.33pm: David Smith in Tripoli passes on an interesting email from a resident there, Mustafa Jelban: When talk started on the final fight in Tripoli, everyone had dark thoughts of a long and bloody fight that will see tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed and displaced. However what happened proved, thank god, otherwise. Talk of Tripoli uprising was first started with talk relating to the Opening of Mecca, people in Tripoli, all over Libya thought that the fall of Tripoli is similar to the opening of Mecca to Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan. The rebels had their way of connecting with each other, and opposition TV channels advertised for this day and said that Tripolitans should uprise on this day and revolt on Gaddafi. Of course this happened in coordination with some Gaddafi supporters in the regime that dealt with check-points all over Tripoli. The uprising started in those places that had already seen uprisings at the beginning of the revolution, such as Tajoura and Soug Aljuma, places that had been repressed, but they were working together with rebels in other Libyan cities to coordinate a move towards Tripoli. 12.07pm: Back at the NTC press conference in Tripoli, a spokesperson has been responding to questions about how state institiutions will be reformed. In particular, how will the rebels avoid difficulties such as those which emerged from the rapid ‘De-Ba’athification’ of Iraq, when much-needed civil servants and police were excluded from running the state? “We had a regime which controlled Libya for 40 years. Ninety-nine percent of the people worked with the regime because they had no choice. We are not going to use everybody who was committed [and were] killing people, or torturing people,” said a spokesman. “But other people are welcome. We have a plan. The Minister for the Interior is working on a plan for what we will be doing on these institutions,” he added. He added that the rebels are following Gaddafi and are “going to find him” but would continue to focus on their priorities in other areas as well. 12.01pm: Following claims yesterday by the Italian government that it has proof that Muammar Gaddafi planned to turn the tiny island of Lampedusa into an “inferno” by sending thousands of desperate African migrants there by boat, Maltese journalist Karl Stagno-Navarra tweets: #Italy #Lampedusa mayor says he will claim damages from #Gaddafi over exodus of thousands of migrants from #Libya to island 11.50am: The National Transitional Council (NTC) has been holding a press conference in Tripoli. Some of main point to emerge so far from it include : • From tomorrow diesel fuel is going to be arriving in the city. From it, power will be provided to ensure that water supplies can be re-established on a more stable basis. Petrol is being distributed today. • Oil workers are needed to return to ensure that the sector’s facilities are once again up and running. • Television and radio stations will be operating again. “Basic most basic services are the ones we are concentrating on right now, such as health,” said a spokesperson. 11.10am: Syrian security forces have been fanning out today in flashpoint cities across the country to crush protests against President Bashar Assad, whose regime is facing a 5-month-old uprising. The Associated Press reports: The security presence was largest in Damascus suburbs, the eastern city of Deir el-Zour and the coastal city of Latakia, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist group that helps organize the protests. Sporadic shooting also was reported. The military operations come a day after Syrian security forces killed at least two people as tens of thousands of anti-government protesters flooded the streets on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The conflict has descended into a bloody stalemate with both sides showing no sign of giving in. Human rights groups say Assad’s forces have killed more than 2,000 people since the uprising erupted in March, touched off by the wave of revolts sweeping the Arab world. Friday has become the main day for protests, despite the near-certainty that tanks and snipers will respond with deadly force. 11.07am: Rebels have claimed a suburb near Tripoli’s airport after overnight fighting and a field commander said the capital was free of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, according to the Associated Press. Residents of Qasr bin Ghashir celebrated by firing guns and anti-aircraft weapons into the air and beating portraits of the toppled leader with their shoes. The scene in the impoverished rural area 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the capital was a sign of rebels’ optimism after days of fierce fighting sent Gadhafi underground. Residents of Tripoli also have celebrated and the capital appears largely under rebel control. Omar al-Ghuzayl, a 45-year-old rebel field commander, says his force has been able to push Gadhafi fighters “completely outside Tripoli.” Elsewhere, fuel is scarce in Libya’s capital after days of fighting that sent Muammar Gaddafi underground, but that didn’t stop residents from using gas to set fire to a giant portrait of the toppled leader earlier today The burning billboard near Gaddafi”s Bab al-Azizya compound, the heart of his regime seized by rebels on Tuesday, was just part of the celebrations. 11.06am: International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said that the British government would be raising Yvonne Fletcher’s case with the Libyan National Transitional Council. “This is an investigation which is 27 years old now,” he told the BBC. “No-one has been brought for justice for this appalling crime on the streets of London.” 10.52am: Harrowing reports continue to emerge about what happened at the abandoned Abu Salim hospital in Tripoli – where dozens of decomposing bodies were piled up, including 21 bodies in one room – and at other locations in the city during recent days. National Public radio have posted online an interview with Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons about what was found at the hospital, where dozens of corpses of men and women were discovered. Doctors and nurses reportedly fled after clashes erupted nearby between rebel forces and pro-Gaddafi forces. The New York Times reports that 40 bodies were piled up in the hospital, adding: Most of the fighters were darker skinned than most Libyans, a sign, rebels there said, that they may have been recruited from sub-Saharan Africa. The rebels have frequently accused the Qaddafi government of using mercenaries but have not offered convincing proof. The halls of the hospital were a chaos of beds and unplugged machines, and its floors were painted with blood. A medical technician said that three doctors had been on duty during the fighting in recent days, and that they had been unable to cope. It was difficult to ascertain the fates of the dead men, who were lying on gurneys nested by maggots in a hospital room and the morgue. The relatives of one victim, Abdul Raouf Al Rashdi, a 33-year-old police officer, said he had been killed by a sniper several days earlier in the Hay Andalus neighborhood. 10.44am: A convoy of six Mercedes cars have crossed from Libya into Algeria, Egypt’s state MENA news agency reported on Saturday, quoting a rebel source. According to Reuters, it was impossible to verify the report and it was not immediately clear who might have been in any convoy, but MENA quoted the source as speculating that senior Libyan officials or Muammar Gaddafi himself and his sons may have fled the country. “It is believed that these vehicles were carrying senior Libyan officials, and possibly Gaddafi and his sons,” MENA quoted the source as saying. 10.34am: David Smith, the Guardian’s Africa Correspondent, is in Tripoli after spending last night in the western mountains. He told me there was no sign of trouble on the road there, although he passed lots of rebel checkpoints, some with concrete barriers, often guarded by armed young men in t-shirts and shorts. “There are big piles of bin-liners and other rubbish along the streets, as well as revolutionary graffiti and cartoons of Gaddafi on the walls, including one depicting him as a dog,” added David “Likewise, one rebel who owned a dog could be heard shouting at it: ‘Muammar!’ ” 10.19am: Following the naming of a former Libyan diplomat as the alleged killer of a British policewoman 27 years ago, a British government minister said today it will pursue the case “in every way we can” to ensure that justice is done. Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary was speaking to the BBC after a report in the Daily Telegraph said that a report has been drawn up for the Crown Prosecution Service which includes a witness account claiming junior diplomat Abdulmagid Salah Ameri was seen firing a gun that day. No one has ever been charged over the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, 25, (left) who died when Libyan officials opened fire on a demonstration outside the building in central London in 1984. The Telegraph said that painter and decorator David Robertson watched events unfold and quoted the CPS report as saying: “The man was holding the stock of the gun in his right hand, while his left hand was near the trigger area, as if he was about to fire. There were other men with him, with one to his left and at least two others standing behind him. “Mr Robertson made a comment to someone to his left about the gun and, as he did so, he heard the gun being fired from the direction of the bureau, a ‘rapid rat-a-tat-tat’ lasting for two or three seconds.” 10.06am: Medical support funded by the British Government will help thousands of patients injured during the conflict in Libya, as well as those with serious diseases, the International Committee of the Red Cross said today. Amid fears of an escalating humanitarian crisis, assistance will be provided by the ICRC with support from the Department for International Development, the Press Association reports Surgical teams and medicines will be laid on to help up to 5,000 wounded, as well as food and household essentials for almost 690,000. Steven Anderson, a spokesman for the ICRC, said: “Medical supplies are one of the main problems that will help people on the ground out there. 9.44am: Good morning and welcome to Middle East Live. In Libya, rebels have begun to transfer government to Tripoli while fighting and the hunt for Muammar Gaddafi and his family goes on. You can follow me on twitter at BenQuinn75 Here is a summary of the latest developments: • Rebel units have been massing for an attack on Sirte, Muammar Gaddafi’s birthplace after Nato warplanes conducted intensive bombing raids to weaken one of the last major redoubts controlled by the ousted regime. As the National Transitional Council (NTC) attempts to establish itself in Tripoli, its claims to have complete authority were undermined by skirmishes with Gaddafi loyalists and the failure to find the ousted Libyan leader or his sons. • The UN general secretary, Ban Ki-moon, has said that events in Libya had entered a “new and decisive phase” and said the emphasis must now be on ensuring there was a smooth transition of leadership. He said that African, Arab and European organizations agreed on the urgent need to end the fighting in Libya and restore order with help from international police if the new government requests security assistance. • The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva has expressed concern about treatment of detainees on both sides. Dozens of decomposing bodies were piled up in and near an abandoned hospital next to the Gaddafi compound in Tripoli, revealing some of the war’s brutality. One hospital room had 21 bodies lying on gurneys. • In Britain, it has emerged that new light has been shed in the 27-year hunt for the killer of a policewoman who was shot dead at the Libyan embassy in London as a result of eyewitness reports. No one has ever been charged over the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, 25, who died when Libyan officials opened fire on a demonstration outside the building in central London in 1984. Middle East Muammar Gaddafi Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Military Libya Nato Syria Ben Quinn guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 27, 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.