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• Libyan envoy in Greece with message from Muammar Gaddafi • RAF air chief tells Guardian Libya op could last months • One Al-Jazeera reporter released by pro-Gaddafi forces • Follow live updates 4.49pm: New video has emerged of Abdul Fattah Younes , the former Libyan Interior Minister and now nominal rebel army leader, urging the rebels to obey orders and become more organised. Mona Mahmood provides a translated extract of his address delivered from the passenger seat of a car. You are defending your country against these filthy monsters. Before you used to say, ‘this man is my cousin, or someone else is my relative’. Now, the most important thing is that he is a Libyan fighter. We do not care whether he is from Obaidi tribe or any other tribe in Libya. This crisis has unified us. Please, my young men who are fighting independently, the stage needs organisation and order. When the armed forces tell you to stop, you have to stop. You are so precious to us and we do not want to lose you to the enemy’s fire. The army is opening a space for you to fight, but in an organised way, so that we do not go back to Ajdabiya and Benghazi. I envy you, you have guns with you and are fighting, I will be fighting with you too. Long live free Libya. _ 4.42pm: Here is an afternoon summary taking in William Hague’s update to MPs. • The British government is supplying telecommunications equipment to Libya’s opposition Transitional National Council but is not providing arms to rebel forces , said the Foreign Secretary. Moussa Koussa, the defecting Libyan foreign minister, is being urged to cooperate with all requests for interviews in relation to Lockerbie as well as other issues stemming from Libya’s past sponsorship of terrorism. Koussa is not in detention. • The Guardian has been told that in Misrata, some businesses are unable to open for fear of being shot by snipers . “[A] market, close to main street, is full of snipers and any shop keeper who tries to open his shop will be shot immediately,” Misrata resident Mahmood Sawissi said. Yesterday hundreds of injured and ill people from Misrata were evacuated by sea – the Turkish ship Ankara carrying around 250 and charity Medicins Sans Frontieres transporting 71. • Italy has recognised the opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as the country’s only legitimate voice . Italy is only the third country, after France and Qatar, to recognize the rebel-led Libyan National Transitional Council as Libya’s only legitimate governing body. After speaking with the council’s foreign envoy, Ali al-Essawi, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini announced the decision and reiterated that the only way to resolve the conflict in the former Italian colony is for Gaddafi to leave along with his sons. • The head of the RAF has told the Guardian that the air force is planning to continue operations in Libya for at least six months. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton said the service will need “genuine increases” in its budget over the coming years if it is to continue running the range of operations ministers demand. Dalton said his assumption is that planes will be needed “for a number of months rather than a number of days or weeks”. 4.20pm: Hague is asked whether it’s time to send a UN envoy to Yemen, where more protesters were killed today. The Foreign Secretary says there’s been a lot of mediation efforts already and he won’t dismiss the idea of an envoy. There are a lot of questions on Koussa, questioning why Britain is “supping with the devil”. Hague says it’s right to deal with someone who can provide information about the Gaddafi regime. The Foreign Secretary declines to give any time frame for British involvement . 4.16pm: Some laughs as Hague admits there are precedents for doing deals in the interest of saving lives but he says once again there is no deal with Koussa. 4.12pm: Hague says there is no viable future for Libya until Gaddafi goes and says other top officials to follow Koussa’s example and defect. Interestingly, Hague does not think the conflict is a civil war when asked whether there is a risk of Britain siding with the rebels. He reiterates that Britain is upholding UN resolutions. 4.09pm: Hague thanks the opposition for its support on Libya. He says he is not aware of any British military support for the rebels to help upgrade their weapons. On diplomatic discussions in Greece, Hague says any Libyan pledge of ceasefire will be judged on actions not words. He’s clearly sceptical, pointing out previous ceasefire pledges that were not followed through. 4.03pm: Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, starts off with with questions on the Ivory Coast and other countries before moving on to Libya. He wants to know whether opposition military forces are receiving any materiel from Britain and is asking about contacts between the west and Libyan officials. 3.58pm: Hague calls on President Saleh of Yemen to engage with the protesters and expresses concern at the situation in Bahrain and Syria. Again he calls on the authorities to engage in reform. 3.56pm: The Libyan regime is under pressure, what is required is a ceasefire, Hague continues. He insists that Gaddafi must go . Discussions are going on at the UN about further sanctions. 3.54pm: We are not engaged in arming the opposition, but we will supply non-lethal aid, says Hague. He reasserts that the defecting Libyan foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, will not be given immunity. He says his officials are talking to Scottish officials about questioning Koussa about the Lockerbie bombing. 3.51pm: The coalition has all but eliminated Gaddafi’s air force, he says. We have prevented a huge loss of life, but Gaddafi is deliberately attacking civilian populations, says Hague. 3.50pm: The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is giving an update on Libya. He begins by condemning the violence in Afghanistan that led to the death of several UN personnel. He also expresses concern over the situation in the Ivory Coast. 3pm: Here’s a summary of events so far today: • The Guardian has been told that in Misrata, some businesses are unable to open for fear of being shot by snipers . “[A] market, close to main street, is full of snipers and any shop keeper who tries to open his shop will be shot immediately,” Misrata resident Mahmood Sawissi said. Yesterday hundreds of injured and ill people from Misrata were evacuated by sea – the Turkish ship Ankara carrying around 250 and charity Medicins Sans Frontieres transporting 71. • Italy has recognized the opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as the country’s only legitimate voice . Italy is only the third country, after France and Qatar, to recognize the rebel-led Libyan National Transitional Council as Libya’s only legitimate governing body. After speaking with the council’s foreign envoy, Ali al-Essawi, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini announced the decision and reiterated that the only way to resolve the conflict in the former Italian colony is for Gaddafi to leave along with his sons. • The head of the RAF has told the Guardian that the air force is planning to continue operations in Libya for at least six months. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton said the service will need “genuine increases” in its budget over the coming years if it is to continue running the range of operations ministers demand. Dalton said his assumption is that planes will be needed “for a number of months rather than a number of days or weeks”. 2.43pm: Mona Mahmood, our Arabic-speaking colleague has been speaking to Mahmood Sawissi, a 46-year-old father of three, who is in Misrata. Misrata is quieter today though we hear sporadic shelling from time to time, Sawissi says. My eldest son is only 3-years-old and he was terrified by the fighting. So I have sent my family to their uncle’s house in Al-Ramila. It is a remote area faraway from the fighting and bombing. Nothing is working in Misrata: schools are shut down, teachers and students are at home; factories are closed and governmental buildings are not working either. People are concerned only for their security now. I run a electrical goods store in Misrata which has been shut since the war broke out. I used to import my goods from Egypt but now, the route is blocked. I have not sold anything for two months now, so I depend on my savings. Some fellow shop keepers have suffered big losses because their stories have been damaged in the fighting. My friend’s sugar store was completely destroyed. The main commercial market in the city is in ruins, and no one can open his shop. Another market, close to main street, is full of snipers and any shop keeper who tries to open his shop will be shot immediately. Gaddafi’s forces do not want to see any scenes of normal life in Misrata. Misrata’s Radio Broadcasting house has been a target of the government, but they haven’t managed to destroy it. The broadcasters are playing a good role in directing people and helping them through their daily problems. All the entrances to Misrata are blocked apart from the northern one, so we have to rely on stores of food supplies. Nothing is coming in but, our food stores are big enough to last for another three months. The main problem in Misrata is water but people are helping each other out. Wherever possible they are digging wells. No one likes war, but it is our fate. No revolution led by people can be defeated, it might be aborted, or looted, but it can not be defeated. We feel we are winners and will keep going till we liberate Libya. 2.17pm: More from Medecins Sans Frontieres on their evacuation of 71 Misrata patients by boat yesterday. “We managed to dock at Misrata on Sunday afternoon, despite intense fighting in the city over the past few days,” said Helmy Mekaoui, an MSF doctor who coordinated the medical evacuation. The violence caused an influx of wounded people and it was fortunate we could be there and get them onboard.” MSF said that among the evacuated patients were three people on life support, 11 people suffering from major trauma, and many others with abdominal wounds and open fractures. 1.51pm: Italy has recognized the opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as the country’s only legitimate voice. Italy is only the third country, after France and Qatar, to recognize the rebel-led Libyan National Transitional Council as Libya’s only legitimate governing body. After speaking with the council’s foreign envoy, Ali al-Essawi, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini announced the decision and reiterated that the only way to resolve the conflict in the former Italian colony is for Gaddafi to leave along with his sons. “Any solution for the future of Libya has a precondition: that Gaddafi’s regime leaves … That Gaddafi himself and the family leave the country,” Frattini said. 1.35pm: Below the line, reader usini is keeping us up to date with the evacuation of refugees from Libya to Lampedusa, a small Italian island over 100m south of Sicily. The sea has calmed down now and about another 1,300 refugees have arrived in Lampedusa. 25 even crossed to Sardinia and were disembarked among the subathers on a beach near Cagliari yesterday. usini, who works teaching English as a foreign language, earlier wrote : I teach quite a lot of Libyan teenagers in the summer. They are really nice kids. Most of them are quite rich so many of them probably come from the ruling elite close to Ghadaffi. Whatever I think about him personally, I am really worried about them and their families. 1.21pm: Twelve people were killed today in the second day of protests in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz, Tom Finn reports . The deaths have triggered other protests around the country in solidarity, he says. In the western city of Hudaydah there are clashes ongoing at the moment. It seems that the demonstrations in cities across the country are now more co-ordintated Taiz is a lynchpin. People say if that city goes it will trigger mass protests across the country. It is an incredibly important place. [But] there is less press there, so it gets less attention. Taiz is still overrun by loyal Yemeni military, but it definitely one of the most volatile cities in the country Each time there is violence like this it sets off an escalating pattern. Almost 100 people have been killed now in these protests in Yemen, according to Amnesty. The more deaths, the more violence then the bigger the protests get. 1.09pm: Reuters has filed a sobering report on conditions in the besieged city of Misrata. The news agency has spoken to evacuees from the city who have been transported to the Tunisian port of Sfax by charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. One of the 71 shipped to Tunisia by MSF told of bodies lying in the streets of Misrata, while its hospital overflows with injured people. Many of the 71 had bullet wounds and broken limbs, while one person’s face was “completely disfigured by burns”, Reuters said. “You have to visit Misrata to see the massacre by Gaddafi,” said Omar Boubaker, a 40-year-old engineer who was shot in the leg. “Corpses in the street… the hospital overflowing. Doctors taking care of people in the street. There’s no space left in the hospital,” he said. It is impossible to verify independent accounts from Misrata as Libyan authorities are not allowing journalists to report freely from the city. The port of Sfax “echoed to the sound of sirens as a stream of ambulances ferried the wounded to hospital”, Reuters said. Abdullah Lacheeb, who has serious injuries to his pelvis and stomach and a bullet wound in his leg, cried as he said: “Look what Gaddafi and his sons have done, just because we protested peacefully.” “I could live or die but I am thinking of my family and friends who are stranded in the hell of Misrata,” he said. “Imagine, they use tanks against civilians. [Gaddafi] is prepared to kill everyone there.” Libyan officials have previously denied attacking civilians in Misrata. 11.54am: In Tripoli, there is little evidence of the civil war that is raging further to the east, Harriet Sherwood writes . On the drive from the Tunisian border to the capital on Sunday, there were numerous Libyan army checkpoints manned by soldiers wearing the ubiquitous loyalist green bandanas and scarves, but almost nothing in the way of bomb-damaged buildings. Most striking were huge queues at gas stations, often stretching back several hundred metres, sometimes two or three cars wide. As well as motorists, Libyans are queuing on foot with jerry cans and plastic containers. The country has long been awash with fuel; now many gas stations are closed. Tripoli itself seems relatively normal, although foreign journalists are highly restricted in their movements it is hard to get a full picture. Yesterday a group was taken to visit the command centre of the Great Man-Made River Project (GMMRP), Libya’s 4,000-km underground network of water pipelines, which supplies 70% of the population with water for consumption and agriculture. Abdel Majid Ghaud, the chairman of the People’s Committee for the GMMRP, warned of a potential humanitarian and environmental catastrophe if the pipeline was hit by coalition airstrikes. But there has been no damage so far, and there is no indication that the coalition would target civilian water supplies. Asked if the pipelines were also at risk from Libyan military shelling, Ghaud insisted that only coalition attacks presented a danger. There have been no government briefings at the Rixos Hotel, the main base for the foreign media in Tripoli, since Friday. Journalists have been told to present their visas for inspection amid speculation that the authorities are keen to reduce the media presence in the capital. It’s almost impossible to leave the Rixos without a government minder, information is scarce, and the atmosphere is one of frustration fuelled by rumour and speculation. 11.40am: More on Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini. He said proposals by a Libyan envoy to end the crisis in Libya are “not credible” because nothing was said about the departure of Muammar Gaddafi. Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, an envoy of Gaddafi, told Greece’s prime minister on Sunday that the Libyan leader was seeking a way out of the crisis. But Frattini said this afternoon that the proposals were not credible because the departure of Gadhafi is a “pre-condition” to any settlement. 11.16am: The New York Times has an interesting piece today on how the rebel leadership in Libya is “showing strain” after the series of reverses they suffered last week. With the rebels’ battlefield fortunes sagging, the three men in charge of the Libyan opposition forces were summoned late last week by the ad-hoc leadership of their movement to a series of meetings here in the rebel capital. The rebel army’s nominal leader, Abdul Fattah Younes, a former interior minister and friend of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi whom many rebel leaders distrusted, could offer little explanation for the recent military stumbles, two people with knowledge of the meetings said. Making matters worse, the men could hardly stand one another. They included Khalifa Heftar, a former general who returned recently from exile in the United States and appointed himself as the rebel field commander, the movement’s leaders said, and Omar el-Hariri, a former political prisoner who occupied the largely ceremonial role of defense minister. “They behaved like children,” said Fathi Baja, a political science professor who heads the rebel political committee. Little was accomplished in the meetings, the participants said. When they concluded late last week, Mr. Younes was still the head of the army and Mr. Hariri remained as the defense minister. Only Mr. Heftar, who reportedly refused to work with Mr. Younes, was forced out. On Sunday, though, in a sign that divisions persisted, Mr. Heftar’s son said his father was still an army leader. 10.40am: The Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini, speaking at a press conference, has said the proposals made by Gaddafi’s envoy, Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, in Greece are “not credible”. We’ll have his full comments shortly. 10.09am: Will Gaddafi be ousted by a palace coup? asks Middle East analyst Daniel Serwer, from the US Institute of Peace, and Eric Davis from Rutgers University. Davis tells Bloggingheads TV : “We are looking at a very long drawn out conflict … The air power is not really going to be able put an end to Gaddafi’s armed forces. And the rebels aren’t going to be able to do that, so we are going to have stalemate for some time and that could lead to some messy problems.” Serwer, a former US envoy to Bosnia, says: “What we need is for the non-Gaddafi part of the regime, that is the non-Gaddifi family, to read him the riot act and tell him to get the hell out of there so they can save their own skins. That is actually preferable, it seems to me, to what they have been doing which is defecting here and there. Much better that they sort out the situation while they are still in the country.” 9.56am: Libyan rebels have pushed into the strategic oil town of Brega, Associated Press reports. Brega has been the site of fighting during weeks of back-and-forth battling along Libya’s eastern coast. “The rebels, backed by airstrikes, have been making incremental advances. On Monday, the town was under rebel control,” AP said. 9.27am: Here’s an image of injured Libyans on board the Turkish ship Ankara, which collected 250 wounded people from Misrata yesterday. 9.05am: Greece foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas’s full statement following Libyan envoy Abdulati Al-Obeidi’s arrival has been posted onto the Greek foreign ministry website . Here it is in full: We have had a series of meetings in recent days on the developments in Libya. Among other things, the Prime Minister spoke to his Libyan counterpart, and out of that conversation came the sending of a special envoy here to Athens, whom we received today within this framework, which we have stressed, as Greece, from the very outset: the efforts toward a political, diplomatic solution in Libya must be continued. This envoy, as I have been informed, will continue his meetings tomorrow in Turkey and then in Malta. We stressed – reiterated – the international community’s clear message: full respect for the implementation of the UN Resolutions, an immediate ceasefire and an end to the violence and hostilities, particularly against the civilian population in Libya. From what the Libyan envoy said, it appears that the regime is also seeking a solution. There needs to be a serious effort for peace and stability in the region. Greece will continue in this effort to offer its good offices. We are in contact with all our partners and allies and we will brief them on today’s meetings and on Greece’s thoughts and proposals. Thank you. 8.44am: LibyaFeb17.com has posted some photographs from inside the ship carrying Misrata wounded to Turkey. 8.28am: A Turkish ship rescued 250 wounded from the besieged Libyan city of Misrata on Sunday, but left behind thousands of people pleading to be evacuated, Reuters reports. Misrata is the last major rebel-held city in western Libya, and is surrounded by government troops after rising up against Gaddafi in mid-February. “It is very, very bad. In my street, Gaddafi bombed us,” Ibrahim al-Aradi, 26, who had wounds in his groin, told the press agency. “We have no water, no electricity. We don’t have medicine. There are snipers everywhere,” he said. Others spoke of Gaddafi’s forces bombing mosques and houses. “When Gaddafi’s men hear the NATO planes they hide in houses and mosques. When the planes are gone they destroy them,” said Mustafa Suleiman, a 30-year-old computer engineer. “Even the big supermarket was destroyed. Some of my friends were killed. We have no vegetables, no fruit, only bread. Gaddafi wants to kill Misrata by fighting and starvation,” Suleiman said. Guarded by heavily armed Turkish police special forces, wounded men of all ages lay on mattresses on one of the car decks of the ship, a white car ferry called the Ankara chartered by the Turkish government. They had wounds in all parts of their bodies, and were being attended by Turkish medics. Hamen, a Libyan doctor who was accompanying the men, said: “Misrata is terrible. I have seen terrible things. Thirty people killed in one day. These are my patients. I must stay with them but I want to go back.” 8.15am: Good morning, welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the ongoing situation in Libya. • Harriet Sherwood, Ian Black and Patrick Wintour: Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, flew to Greece yesterday, apparently with a message from the Libyan government seeking a way out of the crisis . After meeting Obeidi Greece’s foreign minister, Dimitris Droustas said: “From the Libyan envoy’s comments it appears that the regime is seeking a solution.” Droustas added that Greek officials had underlined the international community’s call for Gaddafi to end hostilities. The message, Droustas said, was: “Full respect and implementation of United Nations decisions, an immediate ceasefire, an end to violence and hostilities, particularly against the civilian population of Libya.” • Nick Hopkins: The head of the RAF has issued a blunt warning that the service will need “genuine increases” in its budget over the coming years if it is to continue running the range of operations ministers demand . In an interview with the Guardian, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton also said the RAF was planning to continue operations over Libya for at least six months. His assumption is that planes will be needed “for a number of months rather than a number of days or weeks”. • The Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera says one of the network’s four reporters who were captured in Libya last month by pro-Gaddafi forces has been released . Three others remain held. In a statement emailed to Associated Press on Monday, al-Jazeera says the journalist who has been released is Lotfi al-Massoudi of Tunisia. The four journalists from the Qatar-based network were captured in the western Libya 27 days ago, the statement says. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Muammar Gaddafi Defence policy Adam Gabbatt Matthew Weaver guardian.co.uk