/ 26 April 2011

Gaddafi safe and ‘very healthy’

Gaddafi Safe And 'very Healthy'

Muammar Gaddafi is in a safe place and his morale is high, a spokesperson said on Monday after an overnight Nato air strike on the Libyan leader’s compound wrecked his office.

“The leader is working from Tripoli. The leader is well, is very healthy, is leading the battle for peace and democracy in Libya,” Mussa Ibrahim told reporters outside the destroyed building at Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya residence.

“The leader is in a safe place. He is leading a battle … he works every day. He led the battle to provide people with services, with food, medicine, fuel,” Ibrahim told a news conference in the presence of several ambassadors.

He called the Nato raid “an attempt to assassinate the leader and other political leaders of this country” and “an act of terrorism”.

Ibrahim said three people were killed and 45 wounded — 15 seriously — in the air strike.

He also accused the Nato alliance and the Libyan rebels battling his regime of being afraid of peace.

“The rebels are scared of peace, Nato is scared of peace. They know that in peace they will be kicked out of this country,” Ibrahim said.

“Why don’t you come in on the ground and test our honesty, our transparency? We said yes to elections, yes to a referendum, yes to a transitional period, yes to negotiations.”

Heavy fighting in Misrata
Meanwhile the rebel-held city of Misrata won no respite from two months of bitter siege as Gaddafi’s forces bombarded the city and battled rebel fighters, despite pulling out of the city centre.

Gaddafi’s forces were also pounding Berber towns in Libya’s Western Mountains with artillery, rebels and refugees said, in a remote region far from the view of international media.

Italy said its warplanes would join the British and French bombing of Libyan targets for the first time.

Late on Monday, the “crusader aggressors” bombed civilian and military sites in Bir al Ghanam, 100km south of Tripoli, and the Ayn Zara area of the capital, causing casualties, Libyan television said, without giving details. A Reuters correspondent heard explosions in Tripoli.

The report said foreign ships had also attacked and severed the al-Alyaf cable off Libya’s coast, cutting communications to the towns of Sirte, Ras Lanuf and Brega.

But more than a month of air strikes did not appear to be tipping the balance decisively in a conflict increasingly described as a stalemate.

People in Misrata emerged from homes after daybreak on Monday to scenes of devastation after Gaddafi’s forces pulled back from the city under cover of blistering rocket and tank fire, said witnesses contacted by phone.

Nearly 60 people had been killed in clashes in the city in the last three days, residents told Reuters by phone.

‘Bodies everywhere’
Although rebels’ celebrations of “victory” on Saturday turned out to be very premature, it was clear they had inflicted significant losses on government forces in Misrata.

“Bodies of Gaddafi’s troops are everywhere in the streets and in the buildings. We can’t tell how many. Some have been there for days,” said rebel Ibrahim.

Rebel spokesperson Abdelsalam, speaking late on Monday, said Gaddafi’s forces were trying to re-enter the Nakl Thaqeel Road, which leads to Misrata’s port, its lifeline to the outside.

“Battles continue there. We can hear explosions,” he said by phone. He said Gaddafi’s forces positioned on the western outskirts of the city had also shelled the road from there.

Another rebel spokesperson, Sami, said the humanitarian situation was worsening rapidly.

“It is indescribable. The hospital is very small. It is full of wounded people, most of them are in critical condition,” he told Reuters by phone.

US officials said relief groups were rotating doctors into Misrata and evacuating migrant workers.

Mark Bartolini, director of foreign disaster assistance at the US Agency for International Development, said aid organisations were aiming to create stocks of food in the region in case Libyan supply chains began breaking down.

Among the places in particular need of food aid were isolated towns in the Western Mountains, from where tens of thousands of people have fled to Tunisia from the fighting.

Refugees flee mountains
“Our town is under constant bombardment by Gaddafi’s troops. They are using all means. Everyone is fleeing,” said one refugee, Imad, bringing his family out of the mountains.

Nato said its attack on the building in the Gaddafi compound was on a communications headquarters used to coordinate attacks on civilians.

Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam said the Libyan government would not be cowed.

“The bombing which targeted Muammar Gaddafi’s office today … will only scare children. It’s impossible that it will make us afraid or give up or raise the white flag,” he was quoted as saying by the state news agency, Jana.

The African Union held separate talks on Monday with Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi and rebel representatives in Addis Ababa to discuss a ceasefire plan.

The rebels had earlier rebuffed an AU plan because it did not entail Gaddafi’s departure, while the United States, Britain and France say there can be no political solution until the Libyan leader leaves power. – Reuters, AFP