First came the roar of fighter jets, then a bright flash on the horizon, and then the impact.

It happened at least a dozen times in Tripoli early Tuesday, starting about 1 a.m. The successive concussions stunned a capital that had been struck before during the Western-led bombing campaign, but never this hard.

Before long, an angry crowd had gathered outside the hotel where foreign journalists were staying, waving green flags and shouting in defiance of the bombardment.

Journalists were taken in a bus to Tripoli Central Hospital, where, officials said, many of the 150 wounded were treated. The three confirmed dead--martyrs, the government spokesman called them--were laid out on gurneys in a small room.

All three victims appeared to be men in their 20s or 30s. Photographers filed in and out to photograph them. Each one had massive head wounds. Blood oozed onto the floor. Their clothes were covered with dust from the rubble.

Doctors endeavored to treat patients amid the chaos. One man who was wheeled by had a deep gash in his head. Physicians tried to revive an unconscious teenager.

The Communications Ministry provided extra security for the journalists. In Iraq and elsewhere, angry family members of the dead or injured have been known to lash out at Western media representatives.

An enraged resident, Fathallah Salem, a father of seven, confronted the news crews and reporters. He said he had brought his mother, 75, to the hospital. She was suffering from shock, he said.

“I thought it was judgment day,” Salem 45, said of the bombing barrage. “We have our problems in Libya, but we can work them out ourselves.”

He veered off into politics, saying the bombing would increase support for Moammar Kadafi. More wounded were wheeled in. Hospital staffers chanted nationalist slogans. It was time to go. The bombing seemed to have stopped.

Later, NATO issued a news release from Naples, Italy, from where many of its warplanes take off.

The alliance said NATO aircraft “using a number of precision-guided weapons” had struck “a regime vehicle storage facility” next to Kadafi’s fortified Bab Azizia compound. The storage site, NATO said, had been used to resupply regime forces “that have been conducting attacks against innocent civilians.”

A Libyan government spokesman said the bombs struck a “popular guard,” or reservist, facility. No one was on site, the spokesman said, since an attack had been expected. The casualties, he said, lived in nearby buildings.

“NATO aircraft,” the alliance said, strike with precision and care to minimise [sic] the risk of collateral damage to the fullest extent possible.”

-- Patrick J. McDonnell in Tripoli, Libya

A young Syrian boy whose grandfather and relatives were killed and dumped into a mass grave vows revenge, in the latest sign that the weeks-long uprising against the rule of Bashar Assad and his family will continue. 

A young man described as the grandchild of Abdulrazaq Abdulaziz Abazeid was shown in a video posted online promising to avenge the death of his family, dug out of a mass grave last week.

The bodies of two generations of Abazeid men, a father and his four sons, were all found in one mass grave with an additional 35 bodies belonging to pro-democracy protesters. 

Radwan Ziadeh, director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, said he believed that many more mass graves will be found in the coming weeks, as the wrath of the Baath regime descends on many other towns. 

In the video above, Abazeid's pre-adolescent grandchild stands, blood boiling, leading a crowd chanting "God is great," and warning Assad, "Fear God, you oppressor."

-- Roula Hajjar in Beirut

Video: A young child swears revenge for the death of his grandfather, father and uncles at the hands of the Assad regime. Credit: YouTube

A criminal court in Cairo sentenced a police officer to death Sunday for killing protesters, the first death penalty imposed since the revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian state TV (link in Arabic) reported Monday.

The court sentenced Mohammed Mahmud Abdul Mun'em in absentia for killing 20 protesters and wounding 15 more on Jan. 28, a day when hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Egypt.

The court found Mun'em had fired randomly at demonstrators, Nile TV said. Authorities have been unable to locate Mun'em, and it was not immediately clear what evidence had been presented against him.

Former Interior Minister Habib Adly was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption and faces a separate trial for his alleged role in ordering the killings of protesters. The trial of Adly and four aides was postponed Sunday until June 26 after families of the victims attempted to force their way into the courtroom north of Cairo, shouting of "Butcher!"

In a report issued earlier this month, the nonprofit advocacy organization Amnesty International estimated that at least 840 people were killed and more than 6,000 wounded during protests that led Mubarak to step down Feb. 11. Officials of the organization reported they found evidence that Egyptian security forces used excessive force against protesters, many of whom died from gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Cairo

Photos, from top: An armored vehicle carries  former Interior Minister Habib Adly away from court. Adly, already convicted of corruption, faces trial for his alleged role in ordering the killings of protesters. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency. Bottom: Still in power, Adly arrives at a regional meeting of interior ministers in Bahrain in September. Credit: Mazen Mahdi / European Pressphoto Agency

Saudi Arabian authorities have clamped down on women's rights activists after a bold call by a group of women in the ultra-conservative kingdom on social media sites on the Internet to break a ban on women driving.

Saudi police arrested at least two people linked to the campaign and shut down a Facebook page meant to promote civil disobedience, according to the Abu Dhabi-based English-language newspaper the National.

Saudi security forces loyal to King Abdullah, whose family has ruled the kingdom for 80 years, arrested Manal Sharif, a 32-year-old computer security consultant, and her brother, the National reported.

On Facebook and Twitter, activists had launched a campaign calling on women in Saudi Arabia who hold international drivers' licenses to get behind the wheel on Friday, June 17, and drive their cars to protest the country's ban on women driving.

Their call is a daring initiative. Women who have defied the ban in the past have lost their jobs, been banned from travel and denounced by members of the country's powerful extremist religious establishment.

The women say their planned move is not a protest nor an attempt to break the law, but rather a bid to claim basic rights as human beings.

"We women in Saudi Arabia, from all nationalities, will start driving our cars by ourselves," read a statement posted on the group's Facebook site, I will Drive Starting June 17, before Saudi censors took it down. "We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities. We are here to claim one of our simplest rights. We have driver's licenses and we will abide by traffic laws."

Their Facebook group had garnered more than 11,000 supporters and around 3,000 people follow the group's account on Twitter.

Critics say Saudi, a staunch U.S. ally and largest exporter of oil in the world, has a horrific record on human rights and women's liberties. In addition, it's said to be pumping cash into global Islamic organizations that promote extremist Islamic thinking across the Islamic world, including the nascent democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.  

But some Saudis themselves are trying to challenge the conservativism of their own country.

Moroccan police beat dozens of protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations and took to the streets of the capital Rabat and Casablanca on Sunday, according to news reports.

Months of protests in the north African nation have led its monarch, Mohammed VI, to make some concessions, but not enough to please protesters. They appeared more defiant Sunday, although their numbers have failed to match the scale of demonstrations in Egypt, Tunisia other countries that saw "Arab Spring" uprisings.

Babylon & Beyond spoke Monday with Metsa Rahimi, an intelligence analyst with London-based Janusian Risk Consultancy who specializes in North Africa, about the Moroccan protests.

B&B: Why are people protesting in Morocco?

M.R.: The protests have been going on for three months now, so it’s not necessarily new. It was inspired by other events in other countries in the region back in February, the 20th of February protest movement.

The economy is one of the poorest in the region, dependent on tourism, with a younger population.

In terms of the other monarchies, it’s the same thing we’re seeing in all of them — it’s the monarchies not being as effective as the republics.

Q: How have Morocco's leaders and security forces responded to the protests?

A: Until now, we haven’t seen a lot of violence in Morocco. It’s all been very moderate. What we’ve seen in the last fortnight, not only has the 20th of February movement become more radical, but the police have begun to use more force.

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

An Egyptian newspaper is reporting that former President Hosni Mubarak, held at a hospital in connection with an investigation into corruption and the deaths of anti-government protesters, could be transferred soon to criminal court.

Al Shorouk newspaper reported (link in Arabic), citing unidentified judicial sources, that Mubarak would be transferred within 72 hours to criminal court to face charges that he ordered the killing of demonstrators.

Protesters have been clamoring for Mubarak's transfer, detention and trial. Thousands gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, hoisting signs that showed Mubarak in convict's stripes and behind bars. Many threatened to return for an even larger "Friday of Anger" this week if Mubarak and his associates were not tried for alleged crimes, and the campaign has been gathering steam on Facebook and other online forums.

Last week, Al Shorouk caused a stir when military prosecutors called an editor and two reporters in for questioning after they reported on an alleged government deal to offer Mubarak amnesty.

At least 300 Tunisians died during the monthlong uprising that culminated in the overthrow of the regime of Zine el Abedine ben Ali, reported Juan Mendez, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, after completing his first mission to the country since the establishment of the interim government. 

The death toll in the country of 10 million, signficantly higher than previous figures, came as a surprise to those who considered the revolution to have been a smooth and peaceful transition. 

"Another 700 were injured," said the special rapporteur citing information provided by the interim Tunisian administration. 

Politically charged funeral marches were held in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, as activists upped the death toll for the latest round of political unrest in the country to 76, most of them gunned down by ruler Bashar Assad's security forces. 

In Homs residents of the districts of Khaldiyah and Bayada joined together Sunday in a march to the Tal Nasser cemetary to mourn those killed in funeral marches a day earlier, according to an account by activists. 

According to activist Najati Taiara, prisoners at a jail in Homs smuggled out a distress call about the circumstances under which they were being held. Several hundreds prisoners have allegedly been stuffed into a basement storage room of about 1,000 square feet flooded with wastewater from a leaking pipe. Most of them were detained for protesting against the Assad clan's decades-long rule. 

Gunfire rattled the city all day Saturday, according to witnesses cited by activists. "Security forces not only fired directly on the mourners of yesterday's martyrs, but also they fired and targeted deliberately and flagrantly the cars that tried to transport the injured," said a statement issued by activists.

In the restive suburbs of Damascus ...

Government officials were among those netted in an Iranian counterespionage operation that Tehran's intelligence ministry touted this weekend, a news website reported Sunday. 

The semi-official Fars news agency (link in Persian) reported "a number of Iranian government managers" were among the 30 arrested on suspicion of having ties with the CIA. 

Fars quoted "an informed source" as saying a manager of one of Iran's ministries and a number of other officials employed by government bodies were arrested.  

One official had worked at one of Iran's ministries for 25 years and was allegedly gathering information for U.S. intelligence with the aim of immigrating to the West and keeping his son out of military service, the source told Fars.  

The man allegedly had prepared "a very important package about the activities of this body, which included information on ways to sabotage it." But he was foiled by intelligence officers "minutes" before he sent it off, the source claimed to Fars. 

Another official gathered information about "how to blow up and conduct espionage activities" at his employer but was arrested before dispatching the information, Fars said.

Of particular interest to the spy network was information about how Iran was dealing with international economic sanctions and how it was obtaining X-ray machines, the report said. 

-- Los Angeles Times

An extraordinary piece of video footage that surfaced on the Internet in the last 24 hours appears to show uniformed Syrian security forces loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad and his family opening fire on protesters in the city of Hama on Friday.

At one point, even the amateur cameraman filming the scene with his cellphone camera comes under direct fire.

The video paints a picture of scenes of pandemonium on the streets of Hama, which was the site of a brutal 1982 massacre ordered by Assad's father, Hafez Assad.

Thousands, possibly tens of thousands, were killed in an attempt to quell an uprising against the Assads and instill fear in people living in what human rights activist then described as one of the most brutal and corrupt police states on the planet.  

Still, the people of Hama have been taking to the streets, demanding the downfall of Assad's regime. Spokespeople for Assad claim that unidentified "armed groups"are responsible for the violence, a claim rebuffed by independent observers and flatly contradicted by video footage circulating online.

The incident above took place near the city's passport office.

-- Los Angeles Times

Video: Cellphone video appears to show uniformed Syrian security forces opening fire on protesters in Hama. Credit: YouTube

Egyptian Christians have officially ended a sit-in in the capital nearly two weeks after they took to the streets to protest sectarian violence, according to Egyptian state television and Coptic leaders.

The decision to end the protest came after the country's military leaders promised to meet some of the protesters' demands.

Orthodox priest Father Metyas Nasr announced late Friday that he had agreed to a government offer to free five Christian men detained Thursday after clashes outside a church in the eastern Cairo suburb of Ain Shams.

Tensions have increased in recent weeks between Muslims and Christians, who account for about 10% of Egypt's 80 million people.

Authorities were expected to meet Saturday with Christian and Muslim clergy to discuss the fate of two Coptic churches that had been closed in Ain Shams, according to the state news agency.

Some protesters immediately agreed to leave the sit-in late Friday while others vowed to stay, saying they would leave only when authorities guaranteed equality for Christians, the reopening of all closed Coptic churches and fair trials for suspects in previous church attacks.

As of Saturday, local Egyptian media reported dozens of protesters remained in front of the state television building near downtown, but most had left and the streets had been reopened to traffic.

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Mayy el Sheikh in Cairo

Photo: Egyptians remove tents from the site of a protest in support of Coptic Christians in front of the state television building near downtown Cairo Thursday as protesters prepared to leave. The nearly two-week protest officially ended Friday after leaders said the military government had agreed to meet some of their demands. Credit: Khaled Elfiqi / EPA

Iran claimed a major intelligence victory over the United States on Saturday, saying it uncovered and dismantled what it called a "complex espionage and sabotage network" and arrested 30 people allegedly spying for the CIA.

It claimed that it also arrested 42 others in connection to the alleged spy network, the website of Iran's state-owned Press TV website reported.

According to a statement by the Intelligence Ministry published on the website of the semi-official Mehr news agency (link in Persian), the network was run by CIA agents via U.S. embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Malaysia. 

"Due to the massive intelligence and counterintelligence work by Iranian intelligence agents, a complex espionage and sabotage network linked to America's spy organization was uncovered and dismantled," said a statement from the Intelligence Ministry read on state TV.

There was no immediate response by U.S. officials.

In the Iranian regime's shadowy worldview, foreign "agents" and "spies" are constantly working to undermine the country's goals. But the detailed nature of Saturday's announcement was unusual.