Libyan officials claim weapons from Qatar

Image by Abode of Chaos via Flickr
Libyan officials are claiming to have intercepted two boats carrying a cache of weapons from Qatar, reportedly intended for rebels fighting forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

On Monday, Moussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, said 11 rebels were captured from the boats close to shore near the town of Janzour, just west of Tripoli.

"In the early hours of this morning around 4 o'clock our security forces intercepted the submission of many weapons from a ship that raises the Tunisian flag to two small Libyan boats with some Libyan rebels on board the boats," he said.

"I was told that this was the load of one major container, so this would be something like one out of ten or something like that," Ibrahim added.

Foreign reporters were later taken to Tripoli's port where they were shown a cache of rifles and ammunition displayed in a tent, but not the captured boats.


The weapons included about 100 Belgian-made FN assault rifles, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition of the same calibre used in the guns.

Several of the ammunition boxes were marked in English as coming from the armed forces of Qatar.

Qatar has emerged as one of the main supporters of the rebels. And its involvement in the country's civil war has enraged Libyan officials.

Mahmoud Jibril, of Libya's Transitional National Council, said on Thursday that foreign deliveries of military hardware would give the rebels a chance to win the battle against Gaddafi quickly and with the least amount of blood spilt.

Related articles

• Libyan official: Talks with rebels stretch back 2 months (ctv.ca)
• Libya:Gaddafi urges supporters to seize French weapons supplied to rebels (laaska.wordpress.com)
• France provided weapons, food to Libya rebels (bigbluerock.wordpress.com)

Has Gadaffi's wife deserted him?

The wife and daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi crossed over the border into Tunisia several days ago, a Tunisian security source told Reuters on Wednesday.

Gadhafi's wife Safia and his daughter Aisha came to Tunisia with a Libyan delegation on May 14 and are on the island of Djerba in the south, the source said.

"It was expected that they would leave yesterday but they are still at Djerba," the source added.

It did not appear that the two women had been travelling with Shokri Ghanem, Libya's top oil official, who is believed to have also crossed into Tunisia and appears to have defected.

Libyan officials in Tripoli were not immediately available for comment.

A Holy week in Libya

So what's happened this week:

* hundreds have been killed
* thousands of refugees have been created
* western "military advisers" are on the ground
* drones are flying
* Gaddaffi's compound has been bombarded
* the Pope asks for a diplomatic solution
* the relentless fighting continues in Misrata
* and more...

You could say, as some invariably do (probably because they like the sound of the words) that "mission creep" is taking place. But what is happening is war. And unless anyone successfully takes up the Pope's advice, war is being fought with all its terrible consequences.

What NATO and the UN must do now is choose between loosing this war and loosing the diplomatic road as well. It would appear that the present strategy does not allow success in either of these ways.

There needs to be a radical revision: either total full out war and get Gadaffi, his supporters and hold them to account, or declare a pause in all military activity to allow diplomatic discussions to take place with all parties without the threat of violence.

Status for NATO and Libya

Since 31 March 2011 NATO has been in charge of implementing UN Security Council resolution 1973 which demands:

"an immediate ceasefire" and authorizes the international community to establish a no-fly zone over Libya and to use all means necessary short of foreign occupation to protect civilians

Information about the casualties in this war is understandably very unreliable, but prior to NATO's involvement there were these assessments of the number deaths caused by Gadaffi Loyalist forces:

• On February 22, the International Coalition Against War Criminals gave an estimate that 519 people had died, 3,980 were wounded and over 1,500 were missing.
• Human Rights Watch have estimated that at least 233 people had been killed by February 22.
• On February 23, Italy's Minister of Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini stated that according to his information 1,000 people had died so far.
• On February 24, the IFHR said that 130 soldiers had been executed in Benghazi and al-Baida, after they mutinied and sided with the protesters.
• On February 25, Navi Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, said that reports indicated that "thousands may have been killed or injured".
• On March 20, Abdul Hafiz Ghoga, spokesman for the National Transitional Council, stated that "more than 8,000" people are killed as a result of the uprising.

NATO's response has been the following missions:

1. 1 April 2011 - A coalition air strike near Brega killed at least thirteen people after a rebel convoy was fired upon. An A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft was believed to attacked after an anti-aircraft gun was fired from the convoy. In the same region, up to seven civilians were reported to have been killed and 25 injured after an attack on an ammunition truck triggered an explosion that destroyed several buildings. French patrol Mirage 2000D and Super Etendard a strike on a car was conducted in the Al Khums, located west of Misrata.
2. 2 April 2011 - French Navy Rafale fighter jets destroyed five tanks in Sirte.
3. 3 April 2011 - French Air Force destroyed several armoured vehicles in Ras Lanuf.
4. 4 April 2011 - A US Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier and a US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II flew missions near Serta and Brega respectively. 4 April also marked the last day of US armed forces taking an active role in military action, as all American forces were placed in reserve that evening, to be used only if requested by NATO.
5. 5 April 2011 - Fighter jets from Jordan flew missions from an unidentified European airbase to escort transport aircraft delivering humanitarian aid in eastern Libya. NATO aircraft flew fourteen sorties near Misrata, attacking anti-aircraft installations and ground vehicles.
6. 6 April 2011 - RAF Tornados flew missions around rebel-held Misrata and Sirte. The targets were six armoured fighting vehicles and six battle tanks. Two Typhoon aircraft had flown from Gioia del Colle air base, southern Italy, to police the no-fly zone, while two RAF VC10 aircraft provided air-to-air refuelling. The RAF announced four Typhoon jets will join 16 RAF ground-attack aircraft already under NATO command.
7. 8 April 2011 - NATO aircraft attack a column of rebel tanks, killing five rebels. Earlier the same week in another incident, a NATO air-strike killed 13 rebel fighters.
8. 9 April - NATO war-planes force a rebel MiG-23 to land. The fighter jet took off from an airfield east of Benghazi and was detected by an airborne early-warning air-plane. This is the first no-fly zone violation by any aircraft since NATO took command. Also, an anonymous NATO official claimed that they had destroyed 17 and damaged nine loyalist tanks in and around Misrata and Brega in the previous two days, of which five were destroyed by British planes. However, there was no independent confirmation of the claims, though footage of three tanks destroyed had surfaced.
9. 10 April - NATO claimed to have hit 11 tanks or armoured vehicles in the early part of the day outside Ajdabiya. A Reuters correspondent saw 15 charred corpses of Gaddafi's forces near several destroyed armoured vehicles.
10. 15 April - NATO has launched three new air-strikes in and around Tripoli. They struck a missile battery and two other targets.

But there is disagreement within NATO about the nature and degree of operations. This also extends to the amount of effort and resources made available by the individual countries.

So where do NATO countries stand?

Would escalate military action

UK

France

Conducting air-strikes

US

Canada

Belgium

Norway

Denmark

Reconnaissance missions only

Italy

Spain

Netherlands

Offering some military support

Albania

Bulgaria

Greece

Romania

No military support

Croatia

Czech Rep

Estonia

Germany

Hungary

Iceland

Latvia

Lithuania

Luxembourg

Poland

Portugal

Slovakia

Slovenia

Turkey

Source: NATO, news agencies, BBC Analysis and Research 

Meanwhile...

Many evacuees fleeing the fighting along Libya's coast have been left without access to all the medical facilities and support they desperately need
Misurata remains besieged, with Gaddafi's forces shelling the city in western Libya overnight, battling their way into the centre of town. More than 100 rockets pounded the city yesterday.

Moussa Koussa's reward

Tut, tut.

3.24pm: Libyan state TV is reporting casualties from the air strikes in Tripoli, according to Reuters.


Meanwhile, in Britain the Treasury has removed former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa from an EU sanctions list, removing a freeze on his assets.


Far be it from me to allege any connection.