LIVE Libyan Unrest: 30 dead and 60 wounded in Misrata on Monday

We are tracking the latest developments to keep you updated on the situation on the ground. There are interactive maps located in the Protest map page to keep up with the latest movements. Also check out the featured twitters on the sidebar. On the Go? Follow us on Twitter @Feb17Libya for the Live updates and discussion.

You can now watch Libya al-Ahrar TV broadcasting from Doha Qatar on Live Station. Watch Live Stream here. Or set your satellite to NileSat frequency 10930 Horizontal
Listen to Benghazi Free Radio here

All updates are in Libyan local time (GMT+2)

12:57am: Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the frontline in Misratah Libya.

12:06am: As observers warn of stalemate between the rebel forces and dictator Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, expert Tarik Yousef says the United States has a responsibility to aid the cause of democracy in the region, and can speak with greater authority in North Africa than the former colonial powers of Europe. Yousef, a Libyan-born scholar, discusses the surprising spirit with which the rebels have launched their revolt after 42 years of iron rule:

11:37pm: Libyan rapper and dissident Ibn Thabit released a new single today titled “Shukrun”, meaning thank you in Arabic.


11:29pm:  These are the last few seconds of what Libyan State TV was broadcasting live before Nato bombed Bab Al-Azizaya, Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, last night. You see people running before broadcasting suddenly ceases and the screen goes black.

11:19pm: Al-Jazeera Arabic reporter: heavy clashes in Nalut around the electric station in alHawamil area, 3 rebels killed by Gaddafi forces. 50 Gaddafi forces were killed, and many others surrendered in Nalut. Gaddafi forces used workers from Bangladesh as human shields during fighting in Nalut. Rebels in Nalut captured 4 Grad-mounted vehicles, large number of other vehicles (via Feb17Voices).

11:12pm: Residents of Misrata said bodies lay scattered in the streets of the city and medics struggled to cope with the wounded on Monday after some of the bloodiest fighting of a two-month-old siege. People emerged from homes after daybreak to scenes of devastation after Muammar Gaddafi’s forces pulled back from the city under cover of blistering rocket and tank fire, said witnesses contacted by phone. Nearly 60 people have been killed in clashes in the last three days including at least 10 on Monday, residents said. Mohammed Ibrahim, a local resident who visited the city’s hospital, told Reuters by telephone that seven of those killed on Monday were civilians and three were rebel fighters.

10:40pm: AP - italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi says Italy will take part in strategic bombing raids over Libya.

Berlusconi’s office issued a statement, after he spoke to US president Barack Obama, saying Italy had decided to increase its military action to better contribute to protecting civilians.

Italy had previously said it would nottake part in air strikes against Libyan targets, given its 40-year colonial rule over the country.

10:35pm: Explosions were just heard towards the east of Tripoli. The NATO strikes targeted an area called Qast Alakhyar with 3 missiles, where Gaddafi forces and vehicles are reportedly based.

9:50pm: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates around 30,000 Libyans have fled to southern Tunisia since early this month, some being cared for in camps, but most finding hospitality wherever they can in private homes and community halls. With another 1,500 or so arriving every day, UNHCr is trying to triple the size of a camp already housing nearly 3,000 people to cope with the steady influx.

9:31pm: A live caller from Yefren tells Feb17voices that Gaddafi forces damaged ancient heritage sites near Yefren:

Listen!

9:06pm: Opposition fighters in the besieged city of Misrata warned on Monday that Gaddafi has withdrawn from the town in a new strategy to obliterate it with a blitz of artillery shelling.

8:46pm: Muammar Gaddafi was unhurt in a NATO airstrike on his Bab al-Aziziyah compound early on Monday that left three people dead, a government spokesman said, calling it an assassination attempt. Spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said it appeared to have been an attempt on Gaddafi’s life, but those who died were office workers and security guards while 45 people were wounded. He said the building housed political offices. He said Gaddafi was not in hiding, but was in a safe place. Libyan state television showed pictures of Gaddafi meeting people in a tent. It said the pictures had been taken on Monday.

8:41pm: Italy says it will allow its air force to bomb military targets in Libya.  Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has approved the use of his country’s air force in Nato’s Libya mission.

8:36pm: The first free public opinion poll ever conducted in Libya shows that Eastern Libyans trust the Transitional National Council, firmly believe in national unity and don’t see the African Union or Turkey as neutral mediators. The survey was conducted among 1,758 residents in the liberated east of Libya by the Research and Consultation Center of Garyounis University in Benghazi. Read about it here.

8:30pm: Al Jazeera’s Omar al Saleh reports on a NATO strike that hit Muammar Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli

7:11pm:On MondayNato said that it was maintaining a “high operational tempo” against Gaddafi’s forces

7:09pm:Britain and the US will on Tuesday examine fresh ways to undermine Muammer Gaddafi’s forces inside Libya, looking to see whether action can be taken to cut fuel supplies to the Libyan leader’s armed forces on the ground. An official said:”The meeting will look, in particular, at what more needs to be done to cut fuel supply lines to Gaddafi’s forces. We definitely need to do more work restricting tankers arriving in Tripoli. “

7:05pm:Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford, who has travelled into Misratah, said the rebels claim it is no longer “a rebellion, but a battle for survival”.

6:54pm:John McCain tells why he Is optimistic about Libya. Read the story here.

5:10pm:Libya’s foreign minister Abdelati Obeidi and two representatives of the opposition’s Interim National Council were met with African Union officials to discuss a possible solution to the Libyan conflict, the AU said on Monday. The meetings with each part were separate.

5:05pm:Dr.Tarik Yousef, a fellow at the Brookings Institute, discusses the U.S. Role in Supporting the Libyan Opposition

4:15pm:Britain has decided against inviting a Libyan representative to the wedding this week of Prince William and Kate Middleton. An invitation to Libya’s ambassador was prepared before the conflict in the country intensified in March but was not delivered. The decision not to issue the invitation to the wedding on Friday was made by the Foreign Office which is dealing with the issue of which foreign dignitaries should attend.

3:14pm: Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from the besieged city of Misurata, said that fighting has increased in intensity.

“There seems to be a policy to attack civilians with mortar fire. A residential district here has recieved 16 hits, which took out two schools, and we don’t know the exact casualty figures in these schools,” he said.

“What we do know is it may be quite high, considering that pro-Gaddafi forces are using what is termed as indirect fire – essentially lobbying shells and tank rounds to terrorise the population.”

1:45pm: The Feb17.Info crew is working on something exciting we hope to share VERY soon. Stay tuned to find out whats in store!

1:20pm: In Brussels, a NATO spokesman said the alliance is increasingly targeting facilities linked to Gaddafi’s regime with government advances stalled on the battlefield.

“We have moved on to those command and control facilities that are used to coordinate such attacks by regime forces,” the spokesman said of the strike on Bab al-Azizya.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military briefing regulations.

1:15pm: Theodore Karasik, defence analyst at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military analysis, speaks to Al Jazeera. You can watch it here.

12:55pm: AFP reports that four people were killed as Gaddafi’s forces blasted the town of Zintan in western Libya with Grad rockets, residents said on Monday.

They said four people died and nine were wounded late on Sunday when government troops fired between six and nine Grads which crashed into homes.

The mountainous area of Zintan, which borders Tunisia, was one of the first to rise up against Gaddafi’s regime in March.

12:22pm: According to AFP, a Kazakh man who tried to hijack a Paris-Rome flight and divert it to the Libyan capital Tripoli suffers from depression and has no links to terrorism, Italy’s ANSA news agency reported on Monday.

Police questioned Valery Tolmashev, 48, for five hours after he threatened a flight attendant with a small knife or nail file on the Alitalia flight at around 1930 GMT on Sunday

12:39pm: Alex Crawford goes into Misrata war zone. Watch the video here.

12:20pm: Al Jazeera English has uploaded some photos of the “Frontline hair salon” to their Flickr.

12:16pm: Rocket attacks on Misrata on Monday killed at least 30 people and wounded 60, a Libyan witness told Al Arabiya television.

“There is very intense and random shelling on residential areas. Burned bodies are being brought into the hospital,” Ahmed al-Qadi, an engineer who works for a dissident radio station in Misrata said.

“The number of wounded is 60 and the there were 30 martyrs. This is the toll for the past 12 hours,” he added.

12:09pm: Here is an update by Al Jazeera’s correspondent, Mike Hanna, from Benghazi

12:00pm:“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. “You, Nato, are waging a losing battle because you are backed by traitors and spies. History has proved that no state can rely on them to win.”–Saif Gaddafi in response to last nights Nato’s attacks on his fathers compound BabAlAzizya in Tripoli

11:34am:The Guardian’s correspondent, in Tripoli, has written an account of the bombing of Gaddafi’s compound Bab AlAzizya by Nato forces last night.

8:43am: Moving to the front line in the fighting, is the western city of Misurata. There has been a barrage of heavy shelling by Gaddafi’s forces against opposition fighters in the city.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons has the latest.

8:15am: A number of tales recounting the bravery of protesters speaking out against the rule of Muammar Gaddafi are emerging.

Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton spoke to one man whose life was saved by a woman who joined his demonstration.

7:33am: The Libyan government says it is keeping to its commitment to stand down its troops – but will retaliate if attacked.

7:14am: A Reuters photo of the man (C) from Kazakhstan, who tried to hijack an Alitalia flight from Paris to Rome on Sunday night, demanding it be flown to Libya, is escorted by police as he leaves Fiumicino airport, northeast Rome April 25, 2011. Witnesses said the man put a small knife to the throat of a female flight attendant and held her for a few minutes. But he was quickly overpowered and arrested when the plane landed, officials and witnesses said.

7:00am: With both administrations claiming authority over two different areas in Libya, some are suggesting a formal partition of the country to end the conflict.

But this idea has been rejected by those living in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reports from south of there, Ajdabiya. You can watch it here.

6:35am: Libya’s opposition council says it has been given $180m by Kuwait to help pay salaries. Leaders say they have also received weapons from “friends and allies”. But they did not say which countries or organisations had donated them. Kuwait is the second Arab state after Qatar to officially recognise the Libyan rebel forces.

6:09am: Misurata received a much needed supply of aid with the arrival of a ship chartered by the World Food Programme. Humanitarian supplies, including food, medical supplies and three fully working ambulances, were lifted off the WFP ship on Saturday, upon its arrival at the port of the battle-torn, opposition-held city. One of the ambulances was given courtesy of the Maltese government and the additional two were bought from the UK by the Libyan Non-governmental organisation called ‘I-go’.

3:37am: Despite it being the wee hours in Libya, officials are taking journalists on tour of the Gaddafi compound damaged by NATO strikes a few hours ago. The AFP reports:

A Libyan official accompanying journalists at the scene said 45 people were wounded, 15 seriously, in the bombing.

He added that he did not know whether there were victims under the rubble.

“It was an attempt to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi,” he affirmed.

3:25am: AFP also seems to confirm that Gaddafi’s compound has been hit:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s office in his immense Tripoli residence was destroyed in an air strike early Monday, said a Libyan official accompanying journalists at the scene.

2:57am: Witnesses tell Reuters that a NATO airstrike has struck (actually, they say “flattens”) a building inside Muammar Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compount in Tripoli.

2:17am: Abdelati Obeidi, Libya’s foreign minister is heading to Ethiopia to “discuss a peace plan with the African Union”, quoth Reuters.

Libya’s government accepted a peace proposal put forward by the Addis Ababa-based AU earlier this month, but the rebels immediately rejected.

1:38am: Reuters now reports that Libyan state TV channels are now back on the air.

12:50am: Reuters reprts that three state Libyan TV stations went off air after explosionswere heard in Tripoli.

12:22am: AFP reports: Heavy explosions late Sunday shook the centre of Tripoli as warplanes overflew the Libyan capital.

The blasts, the strongest to have hit the city so far, shook the hotel in which foreign correspondents here are staying not far from downtown.

The explosions came at 2210 GMT Sunday in several districts of Tripoli, which has been the target since Friday of intensive NATO raids.

12:00am: Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught, reporting from Tatouine, Tunisia (at the Libyan border) said that the Libyan towns at the Tunisian border have been raging their own battles, but with fewer journalists there, the images of the fighting and destruction have not yet been seen.

She said that the rebel success in opening the border crossing is a “slap” in the face of pro-Gaddafi forces.

 

This entry was posted in Articles & News, Live: Libya Unrest. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to LIVE Libyan Unrest: 30 dead and 60 wounded in Misrata on Monday

  1. Pingback: LIVE LIbyan Unrest: April 25, 2011 | « Yahyasheikho786's Blog

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>