Libya: Tripoli hit by heaviest blitz yet

WAVES of Nato aircraft hit Tripoli yesterday in the most sustained bombardment of the Libyan capital since allied forces began air strikes in March.As explosions rumbled across the city, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi called state television, and vowed to fight to the death.

By yesterday afternoon, war planes were striking different parts of the city several times an hour, hour after hour, rattling windows and sending clouds of smoke into the sky.

"We will not kneel!" Col Gaddafi shouted in the call. "We will not surrender: we only have one choice – to the end! Death, victory, it does not matter, we are not surrendering!"

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

As he spoke, the sound of low-flying military craft could be heard above Tripoli again, and the dictator quickly hung up.

The Libyan government attributed earlier blasts to Nato air strikes on military compounds in the capital. Bombs have been striking the city every few hours since Monday, at a steadily increasing pace.

Yesterday they began before 11am local time and were continuing five hours later. A Libyan government spokesman said there had been 60 air strikes and that 29 people had been killed.

Air strikes were previously rarer and usually at night.

"We only have one choice: we will stay in our land dead or alive," Col Gaddafi said in his fiery address, calling on his supporters to flock to his vast Bab al-Aziziya compound.

William Hague advises rebel leaders to prepare for government

• Raid lawsuit

He said he was ready to unleash between 250,000 and 500,00 armed Libyans to swarm across the country to cleanse it from "armed gangs", a reference to rebels controlling eastern Libya. The phone call appeared to take state television by surprise and the sound was hastily adjusted to make it louder.

Col Gaddafi was last seen on state television on 30 May.

Later yesterday, rebel officials said the country's labour minister, Al-Amin Manfour, had defected to their side, joining a stream of ministers and military figures who have split with the regime, as it becomes more isolated and centralised around Col Gaddafi's immediate family.

Major-General Nick Pope, Britain's Chief of the Defence Staff's strategic communications officer, said several operations carried out by British fighter aircraft had targeted Col Gaddafi's secret police headquarters and a military installation on Tripoli's south-western outskirts.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The bases were, he said, "engaged in the brutal repression of the civilian population and therefore a legitimate focus for Nato action".

A Nato official in Naples, headquarters of the alliance's Libya operation, confirmed the strikes were the heaviest so far.

"This is just to increase the pressure on the Gaddafi regime," he said. "The targets are the same: command and control, ammunition storage, vehicle storage."

Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency warned that an aid crisis is looming, as shortages of fuel and essentials grow in both rebel and government-held areas.

Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and mountains near the border with Tunisia. They have been unable to advance on the capital against Col Gaddafi's forces, despite Nato air strikes.

By last night, pro-Gaddafi forces had pulled back to high ground outside Yafran, 60 miles from Tripoli, after the rebels broke a siege of the town. There were heavy exchanges of fire, with anti-aircraft guns being used to hit ground targets.

Related topics: