News flops Maharishi in the World Today

How We Present
the News







  
Libya forces shell rebel-held city amid truce push
by Ben Hubbard

The Associated Press    Translate This Article
11 April 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) - Libyan government forces battered the rebel-held city of Misrata with artillery fire on Monday despite an announcement by African mediators hours earlier that Moammar Gadhafi had accepted their cease-fire proposal. The shelling killed six people, one of them a 3-year-old girl, a doctor said.

The African Union delegation took its proposal to the rebels' eastern stronghold and was met with protests by crowds opposed to any peace until the country's longtime leader gives up power.

More than 1,000 people waved the pre-Gadhafi flags that have come to symbolize the rebel movement and chanted slogans against Gadhafi outside a Benghazi hotel. They said they had little faith in the visiting African Union mediators, most of them allies of Gadhafi who are preaching democracy for Libya but don't practice it at home.

The African negotiators met with Gadhafi late Sunday in the capital, Tripoli, and said he accepted their proposal for a cease-fire with the rebels that would also include a halt to the three-week-old international campaign of airstrikes. However, an Algerian representative of the delegation was vague on whether the proposal includes a demand for Gadhafi to give up power and would only say that the option was discussed.

The protesters in Benghazi and the opposition leadership based in the city are demanding that Gadhafi step down immediately.

'On the issue of Gadhafi and his sons, there is no negotiation,' said Ahmed al-Adbor, a member of the opposition's transitional ruling council.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini supported that position.

'The sons and the family of Gadhafi cannot participate in the political future of Libya,' he said Monday on France's Europe-1 radio. He said Gadhafi's departure would have to happen 'in parallel' with any cease-fire.

He said he was lobbying allies to arm the rebels but that he was against expanding the international operation to include ground forces.

A few hours after the AU announcement in Tripoli, Gadhafi's forces began bombarding the port in the Mediterranean city of Misrata, the only major city in the western half of Libya that remains under partial rebel control. Fierce fighting has raged there for weeks.

A doctor who lives in the city said the shelling began overnight and continued intermittently throughout the day Monday. He said six people were killed by missiles that slammed into residential areas. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation if he was discovered by Gadhafi's forces.

Gadhafi hasn't abided by a cease-fire he immediately declared after international airstrikes were authorized last month. He has also rejected demands from the rebels, the United States and its European allies that he relinquish power immediately.

After the talks with Gadhafi late Sunday, the AU delegation said he accepted their 'road map' for a cease-fire.

The secretary general of NATO, which took over control of the air operation from the U.S., said Monday that any cease-fire must be credible and verifiable.

'There can be no solely military solution to the crisis in Libya,' Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. 'NATO welcomes all contributions to the broad international effort to stop the violence against the civilian population.'

British Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman Steve Field told reporters Monday that NATO's action would not be halted without proof of a genuine cease-fire.

'Whether or not there is a cease-fire, that is in Gadhafi's hands. We have to judge him by what he does, not what he says,' Field said.

NATO airstrikes on Sunday battered Gadhafi tanks, helping the rebels push back government troops who had been advancing toward Benghazi on an east-west highway along the country's northern Mediterranean coast.

The airstrikes largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya—a critical gateway to Benghazi, the opposition's de facto capital and Libya's second largest city.

On Monday, rebels held positions at the western gates of the city, on the fringes of desert littered with bullet casings, scraps of metal and more than a dozen blackened or overturned vehicles, including tanks and pickup trucks outfitted with anti-aircraft guns.

The area was also scattered with twisted cooking pots, torn blankets and a shredded green helmet smeared with blood.

A rebel scout sent down the highway to the west said he encountered Gadhafi forces and was drawn into a brief gunbattle before falling back to Ajdabiya, but there were no major battles on that front Monday.

With some breathing room around Ajdabiya, the rebels could mount another attempt to retake and hold the oil ports of Ras Lanouf and Brega farther west, which have changed hands repeatedly throughout the fighting.

That would bring them a step closer to the key city of Sirte, a Gadhafi stronghold and home to the Libyan leader's tribe. Several rebel advances toward the city have been driven back.

NATO is operating under a U.N. resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians.

The AU's draft calls for an immediate cease-fire, cooperation in opening channels for humanitarian aid, protection of foreign nationals and the start of a dialogue between rebels and the government. AU officials, however, made no mention of any requirement for Gadhafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.

'We have completed our mission with the brother leader, and the brother leader's delegation has accepted the road map as presented by us,' South African President Jacob Zuma said Sunday, referring to Gadhafi by his preferred title. He traveled to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Gadhafi, whose more than 40-year rule has been threatened by the uprising that began nearly two months ago.

Zuma called on NATO to end airstrikes to 'give the cease-fire a chance.'

Gadhafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya's oil wealth.

Though the AU has condemned attacks on civilians, last week its current leader, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, decried foreign intervention in Libya's nearly two-month-old uprising, which he declared to be an internal problem.

Concern about civilian casualties is centered on the city of Misrata. Residents of the city say Gadhafi's forces have shelled the city from its outskirts for weeks and lined a main street with snipers.

In Geneva, the U.N. children's agency said Monday that at least 20 children have been killed and many more have been injured in the city over the past three weeks. Children as young as 9 months were among the victims and the majority were under 10 years of age, UNICEF said.

They died of shrapnel from mortar shells and tank fire, and bullet wounds, it said.

Last week, the agency said children there were among those being targeted by snipers.

___

Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Ajdabiya, Libya, Diaa Hadid in Cairo, Angela Charlton in Paris, Don Melvin in Brussels, and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Global Good News comment:

For Maharishi's Vedic Approach to solving the problems of today's news, please visit:
http://maharishi-programmes.globalgoodnews.com

For the good news about Maharishi's seven-point programme to create a healthy, happy, prosperous society, and a peaceful world, please visit: Global Financial Capital of New York



Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)
world peace more

World News | Genetic Engineering | Education | Business | Health News

Search | Global News | Agriculture and Environmental News | Business News
Culture News | Education News | Government News | Health News
Science and Technology News | World Peace | Maharishi Programmes
Press Conferences | Transcendental Meditation | Celebration Calendars | Gifts
News by Country | News in Pictures | What's New | Modem/High Speed | RSS/XML