Friday 20 May 2011

libya, the Battle rages on.

The Regime is in tatters, it is hardly, the Officials could avoid, the hits by Nato. The Military, that fighting for Qaddafi, should come back to their Senses, and rethink, that, destroying the Country just to keep, a Dictator, who kept them under the LINE of poverty, for forty years, is not worth the Fight.Tthink about your rising Generations, and their bright Peaceful Future.


Ministries ablaze after Tripoli strikes
Security services building and anti-corruption agency hit in overnight strikes
as NATO bombing campaign continues.
Last Modified: 17 May 2011 06:54
NATO airstrikes hit a security services building and an anti-corruption compound, government officials said [AFP]
A security services building and the headquarters of Libya's anti-corruption agency in Tripoli
have been set ablaze after being hit by apparent NATO air strikes.

The two buildings on Al-Jumhuriya Avenue are close to the residence of leader
Muammar Gaddafi, in an area where two explosions were heard at around 1.30am
on Tuesday (1130 GMT).

By 3am firefighters were battling to control flames that were tearing through the two
facing buildings, according to an AFP correspondent brought to the area by
Libyan authorities.

The head of Libya's Ministry for Inspection and Popular Control, the anti-corruption agency,
was at the scene and said that some ministry employees had been injured,
but provided no further details.

Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim later said that the rebel National Transitional
Council (NTC), based in eastern city of Benghazi, had directed NATO to attack
the agency in a bid to destroy files related to former regime officials who
have joined the rebellion.

"We believe that NATO has been misled to destroy files on their
corruption cases," he told reporters.

Three explosions had also been heard earlier in the same area.

Parts of Tripoli have been targeted almost daily by NATO-led strikes carried out
since a March 19 UN resolution called for the protection of civilians from Gaddafi's regime.

The assertion that Gaddafi is authorising the killing of civilians in a crackdown on
anti-government rebels has prompted the International Criminal Court (ICC) to
seek arrest warrants on Monday for the Libyan leader, his son and the country's
intelligence chief.

Arrest warrants
Click here for more of Al Jazeera's special coverage
Gaddafi's government denied the allegations.

The call for the inquest was the first such action in the Netherlands-based court linked to the Arab uprisings.

The international warrants could further isolate Gaddafi and his inner circle and potentially complicate the options for a negotiated settlement.
But they could also harden his resolve to stand and fight, since the legal action has been seen in Libya as giving NATO more justification to go after him.

Because the United Nations Security Council ordered the ICC investigation, UN member states would be obliged to arrest him if he ventured into their territory.

Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said he was seeking warrants against Gaddafi,
his son, Saif al-Islam, and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi for ordering,
planning and participating in illegal attacks.

Moreno-Ocampo said he had evidence that Gaddafi's forces attacked civilians in their
homes, shot at demonstrators with live ammunition, shelled funeral processions
and deployed snipers to kill people leaving mosques.

Judges must now evaluate the evidence before deciding whether to confirm the charges
 and issue international arrest warrants.

Still, an earlier case where the ICC did step in at the request of the UN did not
result in the desired arrest.

Although Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has been indicted for crimes
including genocide in the Darfur
region of Sudan, at least three countries have allowed him to visit without
detaining him.

Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters in Tripoli that the government
would pay no attention to the arrest warrants, saying the prosecutor had relied on
faulty media reports and reached "incoherent conclusions".

In the eastern city of Benghazi, headquarters for the opposition movement, rebel
spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga said the rebels welcomed the ICC case.

"It is these three individuals who are primarily running the campaign for genocide of the
Libyan people and the criminal activities that have taken place so far," he said at a
news conference.

He said, however, that the opposition would like to see Gaddafi tried first in Libya,
then before the world body.

During Gaddafi's more than four decades in power, the regime had "committed many
crimes against the Libyan people, and the Libyan people want to see him
punished for that,'' Ghoga said.

In Brussels, NATO said Moreno-Ocampo's announcement was "further proof that
the international isolation of the Gadhafi regime is growing every day".


NATO destroys 8 Libyan warships

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 20, 2011 -- Updated 1447 GMT (2247 HKT)
Smoke rises from a fire on a boat on Thursday in Tripoli after NATO air strikes targeted the port of the Libyan capital.
Smoke rises from a fire on a boat on Thursday in Tripoli after NATO air strikes targeted the port of the Libyan capital.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Overnight airstrikes target ships in three Libyan ports
  • NATO says Moammar Gadhafi was using naval assets to attack civilians
  • Fighting is reported in several border areas
  • A missing South African photographer is now believed dead
(CNN) -- NATO jets pounded Libyan ports overnight,
destroying eight of Moammar Gadhafi's warships,
an alliance spokesman said Friday.
NATO targeted the ships in Tripoli, Al-Khums and
Sirte after it was apparent that Gadhafi's forces
 were increasingly using naval vessels to launch
attacks on civilians, said Mike Bracken, NATO's
 military spokesman. He said Gadhafi was
indiscriminately mining waters in Misrata and
 hampering the flow of humanitarian aid.
"He was using maritime forces to lay mines.
These were legal targets," Bracken said at a
briefing in Brussels, Belgium.
Bracken did not say whether crew members
 were aboard when the ships were hit.
Bracken said the NATO campaign was progressing
and that Gadhafi's combat power had been
severely curtailed.
Battle in Libya rages on
Libya troops using rape as a weapon?
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But the Libyan leader's forces continued
their heavy shelling of Dehiba, on the
Tunisian border, where thousands of
refugees have amassed in recent weeks.
The border crossing, through which
humanitarian aid is often trucked in, was
closed Friday.
Earlier in the week, rebel forces in the Nafusa
Mountains of western Libya were under such
 heavy attack that they issued a call for help,
the National Transitional Council in Benghazi said.
They were faring better along southern
borders, according to a report by the International Medical Corps, which has teams in various
 locations in Libya and Tunisia. The report
said rebels gained control of the border
crossings between Libya and Sudan, and
Libya and Chad, and regained control of
Kufra in the southeast.
The global medical organization said rebel
 control along the Chad border was significant because
of material supplies that flow through there to Gadhafi's forces.
"While control of the entire border will be difficult, the
 rebels are reported to have a large force in the
region," it said. "The Niger and Morocco border
crossings remain under Gadhafi control."
The International Medical Corps also reported constant
shelling by pro-Gadhafi forces in Zintan, where at least
 one person was killed and six others were brought to
hospital. The group also reported heavy fighting in the
besieged city of Yefren, where the group said the
situation was deteriorating with food and medical
supplies in short supply.
In another development, the family of South African
freelance photojournalist Anton Hammerl, who has been
 missing in Libya since April, said late Thursday they now
 believe he was killed by Libyan government forces.
The statement was posted on the "Free photographer
 Anton Hammerl" Facebook page and follows interviews
given in The New York Times, Global Post and The Atlantic by two journalists who say they were with him at the time he was shot.
"On 5 April 2011, Anton was shot by Gaddafi's forces in an extremely remote location in the Libyan desert. According to eyewitnesses, his injuries were such that he could not have survived without medical attention," according to the Facebook statement.
Hammerl was last reportedly seen in a remote region of the Libyan desert. He was reportedly captured by Gadhafi's forces near the town of al-Brega, a key oil town in eastern Libya, that has been the site of intense fighting.



Battle of Libya Rages on.

ICC to investigate institutionalized gang-rape of women in Libya

By the CNN Wire Staff
May 17, 2011 -- Updated 0710 GMT (1510 HKT)
A woman looks over at an anti-Gadhafi mural as she walks past it with a friend in the rebel-held eastern port city of Benghazi on April 12, 2011.
A woman looks over at an anti-Gadhafi mural as she walks past it with a friend in the rebel-held eastern port city of Benghazi on April 12, 2011.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • "There are rapes. The issue is who organized them," says Luis Moreno-Ocampo
  • He says information says women were taken from checkpoints and raped by police
  • Moreno-Ocampo: "Viagra is a tool of massive rape"
  • He did not say how many women may have been raped since the start of the war
The Hague, Netherlands (CNN) -- Security forces in Libya are allegedly using sexual enhancement drugs as a "machete" and gang-raping women they stop at checkpoints, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo told CNN Monday that the court in The Hague will investigate allegations of institutionalized rape in the war-torn country.
"There are rapes. The issue is who organized them," Luis Moreno-Ocampo told CNN's Nic Robertson. "They were committed in some police barracks. Were the policemen prosecuted? What happened?" he asked.
Moreno-Ocampo said the criminal court has information about women who were stopped at checkpoints and, because they were carrying the flag of the rebels, were taken by police and gang raped.







NATO airstrikes target downtown Tripoli
He also said there were reports of the use of male sexual enhancement drugs, which he called a "tool of massive rape."
"There's some information with Viagra. So, it's like a machete," he said. "It's new. Viagra is a tool of massive rape.
"So we are investigating. We are not ready to present the case yet, but I hope in the coming month, we'll add charges or review the charges for rapes."
In late April, various media organizations -- including Foreign Policy magazine -- reported that Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told a closed-door U.N. Security Council hearing that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has been distributing Viagra pills to his troops "so they go out and rape."
The magazine, which attributed the information to a U.N. diplomat in the room, said Rice did not offer any evidence to support her claim.
Pfizer, the maker of the drug, could not be reached early Tuesday morning for comment.
It was also not clear whether Moreno-Ocampo used the term "Viagra" as a catch-all for male sexual enhancement drugs in general.
Perhaps the best-known alleged rape case in Libya is that of Eman al-Obeidy.
Al-Obeidy received worldwide attention on March 26, when she burst into the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli while journalists staying there were having breakfast.
She told reporters she had been taken from a checkpoint east of Tripoli and held against her will for two days while beaten and raped by 15 men loyal to Gadhafi.
While notable for the international attention it received, al-Obeidy's case may not be an exception.
Moreno-Ocampo did not say how many women might have been raped in Libya since the start of the civil war.
"The shooting is in the public space. The arresting people is so massive, so pervasive," said Moreno-Ocampo. "(But) what happens inside the barracks with women is more difficult to know."
Also Monday, the ICC sought the arrest of Gadhafi and two relatives, linking them to "widespread and systematic" attacks on civilians as they struggle to hold power in Libya.




Obeidi the woman had been Assaulted.

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