ICC warrant for Gaddafi

Libya hits back at ICC warrant for Gaddafi

     

     International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes against the Libyan leader Gaddafi. Government has hit back on charging the tribunal tool of European powers.

          Rebel fighters on ground yesterday captured a large arms depot from pro-Gaddafi forces in the desert near their mountain of Tripoli in big boost to their resupply, an AFP correspondent said.

          Human rights bodies and the West, meanwhile, hailed the ICC's move on Nato bombing campaign.

          Libya rejected the warrants issued for Gaddafi, 69, his son Seif al-Islam, 39, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, 62, for atrocities committed in a bloody uprising that began mid-February.

          The ruling is a "cover for Nato which is still trying to assassinate Gaddafi", said Libya's justice minister, Mohammed al-Gamudi.

          Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim said the ICC "functions as a European foreign policy vehicle.

          ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo sought the warrants as thousands died in fighting and an estimated 650,000 people fled the country 

          The submissions forces carried out a systematic campaign of arrest and detention of alleged dissidents.

          The Libyan strongman ordered the shooting of civilians leaving mosques after evening prayers.

‘We want a free Libya, in peace and democracy without Gaddafi,’

‘We want a free Libya, in peace and democracy without Gaddafi,’

Rebels ‘tricked’ by Gaddafi troops

In Addis Ababa, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on Monday pressed all African states to demand Gaddafi step down and take tougher action against his regime.

          Hillary also urged African countries to expel Gaddafi’s diplomats and increase their support for the opposition, saying their words and actions can help bring peace to Libya.

          Rebels said they suffered heavy losses in eastern Libya after being ‘tricked’ by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces, as the US pressed Africa to take tougher action against the strongman’s regime.

The rebels meanwhile gained another diplomatic boost when Germany recognised their National Transitional Council as the ‘legitimate representative’ of the Libyan people.

          ‘Our men were tricked. Gaddafi’s soldiers pretended to surrender, coming with a white flag, and then they fired on us,’ Mussa al-Mograbi said.

Mograbi added that four of his men were killed and 30 wounded in a skirmish the previous day.

Senegal and Gambia are the only African states to have recognised the NTC as the legitimate interlocutor of the Libyan people.

 Rebels said ‘We want a free Libya, in peace and democracy without Gaddafi,’ he added.

          ‘Such political gains are key to the revolt and prove that Gaddafi’s regime has finished,’ he said.

Libya’s foreign ministry however denounced the visit as a ‘violation’ of Tripoli’s sovereignty.

Gaddafi amid deadly clashes

Gaddafi offered way out amid deadly clashes

                        Moamer Gaddafi guarantees to leave Libya but has yet to receive a reply, while rebel forces say his forces have killed 20 people in a fierce assault on Misrata. Fresh NATO-led strikes on Friday sent up plumes of smoke in Tripoli, where Gaddafi has his residence, but US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned the air war on the strongman's forces could be in peril because of military shortcomings. 

                       The British defence ministry said its fighters had destroyed four tanks "hidden in an orchard" near the town of Al-Aziziyah, southwest of Tripoli. Tornado and Typhoon jets also bombed a military base at Al-Mayah on the western outskirts of the capital, it said. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government had offered exit "guarantees" to the embattled 

                      Gaddafi "has no other option than to leave Libya-with a guarantee to be given to him," Erdogan said on NTV television. "We have given him this guarantee. We have told him we will help him to be sent wherever he wants to go," he added, without elaborating. "Depending on the reply we will get from him, we will take up the issue with our (NATO) allies, but unfortunately we have received no reply so far." His comments came after a day of deadly fighting near the port city of Misrata, the rebels' most significant enclave in western Libya, some 200 kilometers from Tripoli. Gaddafi's forces had bombarded the Dafnia area on Misrata's outskirts with Grad rockets, heavy artillery and tank shells, a rebel said. 

                                "Twenty people, both civilians and rebels, were killed and more than 80 wounded," in the sector, 35 kilometres from Misrata city centre, he added. But they had beaten back an attack by loyalist troops, leaving "dead and wounded among the Gaddafi forces," he said. In Tripoli, residents reported several waves of blasts had rocked the city on Friday. 

                            Mikhail Margelov said he would visit Tripoli to try to find a solution to the conflict, having met the opposition in their Benghazi stronghold.

Gaddafi defiant as Nato intensifies strikes

31 killed in bombing

Loud explosions rocked Tripoli early on Wednesday as Nato kept up its heaviest bombing of the Libyan capital since air strikes began in March, but Muammar Gaddafi vowed to fight to the end.
Attacks continued through Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning with warplanes hitting the city several times an hour. The Libyan leader's government said bombs had killed 31 people.
Saying planes were overhead and bombs were falling around him, Gaddafi spoke defiantly after strikes on his Bab al-Aziziya compound.
"We only have one choice: we will stay in our land dead or alive," he said in a fiery audio address on state television.
It later showed images of what it said was a meeting between Gaddafi and tribal leaders on Tuesday.
President Barack Obama said in Washington there was significant progress in the operation and it was "just a matter of time before Gaddafi goes".
At least 31 people were killed in 60 strikes on Tripoli, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters. His account could not be independently verified.
"How could the world sleep tonight knowing that armies of such evil are willingly and knowingly attacking a peaceful capital with 60 rockets and killing people ... while there is a way out of this. To sit down, talk and negotiate," Ibrahim said.
A British defense official said several operations carried out by fighter aircraft had targeted Gaddafi's secret police headquarters and a military installation on Tripoli's southwestern outskirts.
Gaddafi's troops and the rebels have been deadlocked for weeks, with neither side able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah in the east, which Gaddafi's forces shelled on Monday, and the Gaddafi-held oil town of Brega further west.
DIPLOMATIC MOVES
Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and the range of mountains near the border with Tunisia. They have been unable to advance on the capital against Gaddafi's better-equipped fighters.
Gaddafi's forces pulled back to high ground in the Western Mountains outside Yafran, 130 km (80 miles) southwest of Tripoli. The rebels broke a long government siege of the town on Monday.
But a rebel commander in Zintan, in the same region, said Gaddafi's forces were massing on Tuesday in their biggest numbers in the area since the start of the conflict.
Diplomatic overtures were being made to the rebels by world powers, including Russia and China, despite their misgivings about interference in Libya's affairs.
A Russian special envoy for Africa said in the rebel capital of Benghazi on Tuesday that Gaddafi could no longer represent Libya and that Russia was ready to help in any way possible.
In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said an Egypt-based Chinese diplomat had visited Benghazi for talks with the rebel-led National Transitional Council.
The Libya contact group of Western and Arab countries agreed in May to provide millions of dollars in non-military aid to help the rebels keep services and the economy running.
They meet on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates to discuss rebel plans and financing for them.
Al-Saedi Gaddafi, one of Gaddafi's sons, said in comments broadcast on state television that the fighting in Libya was an attempt by Islamists to seize power.
"(Muslim) Brotherhood members, Jihadists and Takfiris (other Islamist fundamentalists) should not dream to return to Libya to take charge of it," he said.
"This is a battle of principles. The leader (Muammar Gaddafi) and the Libyan people have nothing to do with it," he said in remarks by telephone to Jamahiriya television.