Libyan Forces Seize Key Locations in Sirte After Intense Battles

Libyan forces from Misrata said they wrested control of key buildings in Muammar Qaddafi's hometown of Sirte from his supporters, after several days of intense street fighting that left scores dead and ...

Libya NTC forces expect to take Sirte in 48 hours

Smoke is seen rising over the city of Sirte on October 4, 2011, during clashes between anti-Gaddafi fighters and Gaddafi forces.

Forces with Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) now control more than half of Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte and believe they will have the city under their complete control within two days, a local NTC commander told Reuters today.

“More than half of the city is under the control of the rebels,” said the commander, Adel Al-Hasi. “In two days, God willing, Sirte will be free.”

Gaddafi determined to avoid Saddam Hussein’s fate

When Muammar Gaddafi ponders his future from his hideout somewhere in Libya, he will probably recall the fate of another fallen Arab autocrat, Saddam Hussein, pulled bedraggled from a hole in the ground.

With that precedent in mind, Gaddafi will be adamant, say people who know him, about two things: he will not give up the fight against Libya’s new rulers and, if the end comes, he will not allow himself to be captured alive.

“Gaddafi will not stop fighting,” said Fathi Ben Shatwan, who served under the former Libyan leader as minister for energy and industry until five years ago. “He will not stop unless he is stopped.”

Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), almost certainly with help from Western intelligence services, has mounted a manhunt to find Gaddafi that is focusing on the Sahara desert near the borders with Niger and Algeria.



The outcome of the hunt for Gaddafi also depends, at least in part, on the state of mind of the prey, and what he chooses to do with the dwindling options in front of him.

No surrender?

For the moment, all the signs suggest that, despite the odds stacked against him, he still believes he can take back power.

The last time the outside world heard from him, in a speech broadcast on September 20 on a Syria-based television station, he said his system of rule was based on the will of the people and it was “impossible that this system be removed.”

That confidence is unsurprising in a man who ruled Libya for 42 years and crushed several coup attempts and uprisings, though none ever on the scale of this rebellion.

“He will not give up and he will not lay down his weapons until the end,” said Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, who was Gaddafi’s prime minister until a few weeks ago and is now in neighbouring Tunisia.

That view was echoed by Soad Salem, a Libyan writer. “Gaddafi will continue believing the illusion that he is still in power and can defeat the NTC forces. He will never acknowledge that he lost power,” she said.

Salem has an explanation for this. “He is crazy,” she said.

For all his eccentricity, Gaddafi is a pragmatist. He may believe he has identified a way back to power: a targeted insurgent campaign that would undermine the new government by hitting it at its weakest spot.

Libya depends on crude exports for its survival and this in turn needs foreign oil executives and engineers to operate the oil fields. A few carefully chosen kidnappings or bomb attacks would keep the foreigners away and dent oil production.

It is a strategy that does not require control of territory or major military resources, just money — which Gaddafi is thought to have in large quantities — a few weapons and some organisation.

“It is vital for the NTC: they need the foreign specialists,” said Alan Fraser, Middle East analyst with AKE, a security and risk consultancy.

“One way for the Gaddafi loyalists to prevent that is to carry out a couple of attacks. It’s about the propaganda coup that would give them in terms of preventing foreign companies from coming back in,” he said.

“I am sure there will be Gaddafi elements that will evade capture and attempt to disrupt development, particularly in the oil sector.”

Holding his nerve

An important question is whether Gaddafi, who was born in 1942, will have the nerve and physical stamina to stay on the run for a long time. If cornered, he may in the end choose to surrender quietly.

Asked about his state of mind, a former colonel in the External Security Organisation, Gaddafi’s foreign intelligence service, said: “He will be afraid.

“In fact he’s always been a bit afraid. He mistrusts his own people. You look at the tunnels he built under our country and our city (Tripoli). He did this to enable him to escape and hide,” said the source, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitive nature of his past work.

However, Gaddafi is on familiar ground. His early years were spent leading a Bedouin existence, living in tents in the desert.

Even once in power he stuck to a spartan lifestyle, preferring to pitch a tent when visiting foreign capitals instead of staying in a hotel or the Libyan embassy.

“You should know that Gaddafi is used to living in tough conditions,” said Ben Shatwan, the former energy minister.

“He is accustomed, since his childhood, to living in hot areas, cold areas, going hungry. He is used to that ... He is able to stay hiding unless he is discovered.”

End game

What though will Gaddafi do if his pursuers are closing in on him and there is no longer any prospect of carrying on the fight?

Fleeing to a neighbouring country is not an attractive option for him. One of his sons, Saadi, escaped across the border into Niger, where the authorities say they are keeping him under surveillance.

Possibly anticipating where he will end up next, Saadi has retained as his lawyer Nick Kaufman. He specialises in international tribunal cases and past clients have included a Cambodian Khmer Rouge prison commander and the Rwandan leader of a group accused of mass rapes and killings.

Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, said Gaddafi will not opt for that fate, but will instead want to leave the stage on his own terms.

“It seems to me he would he would have very clearly in his mind what happened to Saddam Hussein, being caught in a hole, wearing a dirty shirt,” said Miles.

After he was found hiding underground on a farm in northern Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein was put on trial and executed by hanging.

“I have a kind of personal hunch if you like, which is not more than that, and that is the best way to preserve his (Gaddafi’s) legacy is just to disappear.”

Miles said Gaddafi could do that by putting on a disguise, smuggling himself into a neighbouring country and then going to ground for the rest of his life. The risk of detection though, would be high.

“Another way would be to retreat into some army bunker and blow himself up,” said Miles. —

Cameron, Sarkozy hailed in Libya, offer help

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy (left), National Transitional Council (NTC) head Mustafa Abdul Jalil (centre) and Prime Minister David Cameron (right) join hands in Benghazi on September 15, 2011.

Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron landed in Libya to a heroes’ welcome yesterday, promising help for the new rulers that French and British air power helped to install and being told the favour may be repaid in business contracts.

Just three weeks after rebels backed by Nato bombers overran the capital, French President Sarkozy and the British prime minister promised in Tripoli to help hunt down Muammar Gaddafi and to hand his frozen assets to his successors.

The forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) later said they had stormed Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, one of three main urban areas still beyond the interim government’s control.

NTC fighters were facing strong resistance from loyalist fighters, especially snipers, a military spokesman said.

In Benghazi, seat of the uprising which early intervention by French and British jets helped to save from Gaddafi’s army in March, Sarkozy and Cameron were treated to a rowdy welcome on “Freedom Square,” shouting to be heard over a cheering crowd of hundreds — many in the city were unaware of their arrival.



“It’s great to be here in free Benghazi and in free Libya,” said Cameron as he strained, rock-star hoarse, above the chants in televised scenes both men will hope play well back home.

The French president, struggling for re-election next year, beamed at grateful chants of “One, two, three; Merci Sarkozy!” while the two leaders, flanking NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, held his arms aloft like a victorious boxer.

“France, Great Britain, Europe, will always stand by the side of the Libyan people,” said Sarkozy, whom many Libyans credit with making a decisive gamble, pulling in a hesitant United States and securing UN backing for Nato air strikes to halt Gaddafi’s tanks as they closed in to crush Benghazi.

“Your city was an inspiration to the world as you threw off a dictator and chose freedom,” Cameron said, clearly enjoying the relative security to speak outdoors in Benghazi after a tight lockdown in tense Tripoli. “Colonel Gaddafi said he would hunt you down like rats but you showed the courage of lions.”

Hajja, a 70-year-old swathed in the rebel tricolour, watched the two leaders with a rapture they rarely experience at home: “If we could give them anything, we would — our lives, our souls ... But for them, we would be history.”

Support offered

In Tripoli, Libyan interim premier Mahmoud Jibril spoke at a news conference of “our thanks for this historic stance” taken by France and Britain to launch the West into a war that did not always look set to end well for the rebels.

Both countries offered continued military support against Gaddafi loyalists holding substantial parts of Libya as well as in hunting the former strongman and others wanted for crimes against humanity. Sarkozy said he would raise the issue with neighbouring Niger, a former French colony where some of Gaddafi’s senior aides and one of his sons have sought refuge.

“This is not over,” Cameron said. “There are still parts of Libya that are under Gaddafi’s control. Gaddafi is still at large and we must make sure that this work is completed.”

In a sign of progress for the NTC, a spokesman said its forces had entered Sirte, Gaddafi’s sprawling home town between Tripoli and Benghazi. But like in other loyalist cities, Libyan fighters were met with strong resistance.

“They have now entered the city. There was a coordinated push from the south, east and west and from along the coast,” NTC military spokesman Abdulrahman Busin told Reuters.

“They are coming under heavy fire. There is a particular problem with snipers.”

Inland, at Bani Walid, residents were still trying to leave the besieged loyalist stronghold, and reported that others were trapped by gunmen. Deep in the desert, the southern city of Sabha is also still controlled by forces loyal to Gaddafi.

Cameron said a Franco-British move at the United Nations today could mean London alone unfreezing US$19 billon (RM57 billion) of assets, while help with healthcare and disarmament was also ready.

With an eye on public opinion at home, he drew attention to the case of a boy wounded by a grenade at his school who would be treated by British specialists, while Sarkozy rebuffed suggestions of self-interest in the war, declaring: “We did what we did because we thought it was just.”

Remembering “friends”

Although Sarkozy hotly denied talk among Arabs of “under the table deals for Libya’s riches,” interim Libyan leader Abdel Jalil said key allies could expect preferential treatment in return for their help in ending 42 years of Gaddafi’s rule.

“As a faithful Muslim people,” he told reporters in Tripoli, “we will appreciate these efforts and they will have priority within a framework of transparency.”

Other states which did business with Gaddafi, notably China and Russia, have been concerned that their lukewarm attitude to the NTC may cost them economically. While Abdel Jalil stressed a desire to allocate contracts on the best terms for Libya, and to honour existing contracts, he said some could be reviewed.

Those deals signed by Gaddafi which were skewed by personal corruption could be cancelled, he said, noting that he had served as a minister under the old regime and knew its secrets.

Cameron appeared keen to avoid public triumphalism. “I’m proud of our role,” he said. “But this was your revolution, not our revolution.” And with an eye on events in Syria and elsewhere, he said Libyans could inspire others: “This is a moment when the Arab Spring could become a summer and we see democracy advance in other countries too.”

The need for Sarkozy and Cameron to visit Benghazi as well as Tripoli is a sign of the obstacles Libya still faces in transforming itself into a peaceful, unified democracy. The NTC has not yet been able to establish a government safely in a capital still bristling with militiamen from disparate groups.

Cameron offered Jibril and Abdel Jalil a personal vote of confidence, saying they “continually proved the sceptics wrong.” But the country is deeply divided. Many of its new rulers hail from Benghazi in the east, while the fighters who won the battle for Tripoli mostly come the west.

Sarkozy got a big cheer in Benghazi when he called for a “united Libya” and “a new courage, that of forgiveness.”

Anti-Gaddafi forces storm desert stronghold

Anti-Gaddafi fighters head to the front line, north of the besieged city of Bani Walid September 16, 2011. Columns of anti-Gaddafi forces sped towards Bani Walid on Friday after their position came under attack and one of their number said they were planning to take the town, one of the last bastions of support for the ousted Libyan leader.

Forces loyal to Libya’s new rulers surged into the desert town of Bani Walid today in a fierce attack on one of the last strongholds still in the hands of Muammar Gaddafi loyalists that could prove a major turning point in the war.

Explosions and gunfire echoed over the hills surrounding the town, which has been under siege for two weeks, with hundreds of die-hard supporters of the country’s fugitive former ruler concentrated around its centre.







There was also a report, on Al-Jazeera television, of fierce fighting at Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte on the coast, a day after interim government forces announced a breakthrough.

Turkey’s prime minister was expected in Tripoli, a day after the French and British leaders won a hero’s welcome there for helping to overthrow Gaddafi. Turkish TV said Tayyip Erdogan had arrived in mid-morning.

Erdogan, on a North African tour to assert Ankara’s regional influence, will be hoping to reap political and economic dividends from Libya’s new rulers for his country’s help in their struggle to end Gaddafi’s 42-year grip on power.

After nearly seven months of fighting, anti-Gaddafi forces backed by NATO air power control most of Libya, including oil-producing centres and the capital, which they seized last month.

But they have met fierce resistance in a handful of pro-Gaddafi bastions such as the desert town of Bani Walid, the southern outpost of Sabha and Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace 450km east of Tripoli.

Today, truckloads of anti-Gaddafi troops shouting “Let’s go! Bani Walid!” and columns of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns hurtled towards the town, 180km south of Tripoli, kicking up clouds of dust in the desert.

“We are going in. We finally have the orders. God is greatest. God willing, Bani Walid will be free today,” fighter Mohammed Ahmed said, his rifle sticking out of his car window.

A short time later, the sound of heavy fighting could be heard from within the town.

Fighters loyal to the National Transitional Council (NTC) were also said to have moved into Sirte yesterday.

“They have now entered the city. There was a coordinated push from the south, east and west and from along the coast. I’m not sure how far they have been able to enter,” Abdulrahman Busin, a military spokesman for the NTC, said yesterday.

“They are coming under heavy fire. There is a particular problem with snipers.”

Gaddafi’s spokesman said he had thousands of supporters.

“We are telling you that as of tomorrow there will be atrocious attacks by NATO and their agents on the ground on the resisting towns of Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha,” Moussa Ibrahim told Syrian-based Arrai television late yesterday.

The television said 16 people had been killed in Sirte, including women and children, as a result of NATO bombing, and that Gaddafi forces had destroyed a NATO warship and several vehicles. None of the reports could be independently verified.

France and Britain spearheaded the air campaign that ousted Gaddafi, but Turkey – which had contracts worth US$15 billion in Libya – backed it reluctantly and was slow to recognise those now leading the oil-rich north African state.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron were told their support may be repaid in business contracts with the oil-rich North African state.

A Turkish ship did play a key role in evacuating civilians from the coastal town of Misrata while it was besieged by Gaddafi forces, and Ankara has recently been vocal in supporting the NTC and provided it with US$300 million in cash, loans and other aid.

Turkish companies with business in Libya are hoping the Council will honour pending payments once assets are unfrozen, and Energy Minister Taner Yildiz has said he wants state-owned oil and gas exploration company TPAO to resume oil exploration and production work in Libya if security is established.

That depends to a large extent on the fate of Gaddafi who, wanted by the International Criminal Court, is rumoured to be hiding in one of the loyalist strongholds.

In Benghazi, seat of the uprising which early intervention by French and British jets helped to save from Gaddafi’s army in March, Sarkozy and Cameron were treated to a rowdy welcome yesterday, shouting over a cheering crowd.

“It’s great to be here in free Benghazi and in free Libya,” said Cameron as he strained to be heard above the chants in scenes from the former rebel stronghold televised live across the globe.

The French president, struggling for re-election next year, beamed at grateful chants of “One, two, three; Merci Sarkozy!” while the two leaders, flanking NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil, held his arms aloft like a victorious boxer.

Although Sarkozy denied talk among Arabs of “under the table deals for Libya’s riches”, Jalil said key allies could expect preferential treatment in return for their help in ending Gaddafi’s rule.

Erdogan, who has visited Egypt and Tunisia this week, has been holding up Turkey’s blend of Islam and democracy as a model for the movements that have toppled longtime Arab rulers in Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli.

He has already won plaudits from Libya’s new rulers.

“We expect the world community to follow the wonderful support of Turkey, its leading role and effort. Turkey has done an amazing job,” Aref al-Nayed, a leading figure in the NTC, told a recent international summit on Libya in Istanbul.

Clinton urges Africa to drop Gaddafi, embrace rebels

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today urged African leaders to abandon Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, saying it was time to live up to their pledges to promote democracy across the continent.

Clinton, the first US secretary of state ever to address the 53-member African Union, said unreformed African leaders were themselves at risk from the same tide of democracy sweeping the Middle East, proclaiming “the status quo is broken and the old ways of governing are no longer acceptable.”

“It is true that Gaddafi has played a major role in providing financial support for many African nations and institutions, including the AU,” Clinton said in her speech at the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa.

“But it has become clear that we are long past the time when he can remain in power.”



Clinton urged African states — many with longtime diplomatic and financial ties to the oil-rich Libyan strongman — to join the international coalition demanding his exit as the condition for a ceasefire.

She also urged them to close pro-Gaddafi Libyan embassies, expel his diplomats and to build ties with the Benghazi-based rebel National Transitional Council which the United States and its European and Arab allies are promoting as a future interim government for the country.

“Your words and your actions could make the difference in building this situation to finally close and allowing the people of Libya to get to work writing a constitution and rebuilding their country,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s AU speech came at the end of a three-nation Africa tour during which she sought to highlight the Obama administration’s drive to boost trade ties with Africa and encourage better political and economic governance.

Sudan talks

She praised many African countries for implementing reforms and moving away from a tradition of strongman rule. But on a continent where autocrats still rule from Equatorial Guinea to Zimbabwe, Clinton said more needed to be done.

“We know that too many people in Africa live under long-standing rulers — men who care too much about the longevity of their reign and too little about the legacy that should be built for their country’s future,” she said.

Clinton won applause for advocating women’s rights, and for speaking gamely on even as the lights flickered briefly out in the AU’s main meeting hall, leaving delegates in the dark.

US officials say the African Union has played a more constructive role in regional affairs including the political deadlock in Ivory Coast and mustering peacekeepers for other regional crises.

On Libya, US officials have praised several African nations including Senegal and Mauritania for publicly declaring that Gaddafi must go.

But the AU’s position has been murkier and the organisation — long itself the beneficiary of Gaddafi’s largesse — has declined to join calls for Gaddafi’s ouster, instead accusing Western nations of undermining its own efforts to find a solution to the conflict.

Diplomats say the lack of a clear African voice on the Libyan conflict has complicated the Libyan crisis, where Nato has unleashed air strikes to support Libyan rebels demanding Gaddafi’s exit.

Clinton is scheduled to hold meetings in Addis Ababa today on Sudan, where diplomats said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed Sunday to pull troops out of the disputed border region of Abyei before the south secedes — a move which could help reduce tensions.

The two sides have yet to agree on sensitive issues such as where to draw the common border and how to share oil revenues, leaving the potential for further conflict as the South prepares for formal independence on July 9.

Clinton, speaking before her arrival in Addis Ababa during a stop in Tanzania, said the United States supported a proposal to put Ethiopian peacekeepers in the disputed Abyei region and called on Khartoum to withdraw its troops from the area.

At the AU, she repeated her call for both sides to redouble their efforts to resolve the situation “peacefully through negotiations, not violence.”

Long Libya mission to stretch UK force, says navy chief

An extended military campaign in Libya will be challenging for British naval resources and the government may need to prioritise where its assets are focused, the UK’s navy chief said today.

British aircraft and navy ships are playing a leading role in striking at Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces. Britain also has about 10,000 troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, the second most after the United States.

Admiral Mark Stanhope said he was “comfortable” within Nato’s new 90-day Libya mission mandate, which runs out at the end of September.

“Beyond that ... we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about what priorities they want,” he told reporters at a joint briefing with the head of the US navy in London.

“We have a small scale commitment in Libya ... if we do it for longer than 6 months then we have to reprioritise our forces across the piece — that does not mean we won’t be doing it.”

UK defence chiefs said in May extending the Libya campaign beyond six months would be a challenge for its armed forces.



“If there was a continuation of the need for maritime interdiction operations off Libya, then the government will have a choice as to where they chose to take the platform from — it could be from around home waters,” Stanhope said.

“I am not going to prejudge what that decision would be,” said Stanhope, who is the UK’s First Sea Lord.

British defence chiefs had said last month an aircraft carrier and surveillance planes scrapped as part of defence cuts last year would have helped in the Libya campaign.

Their views are embarrassing for the year-old coalition government which ordered British forces to help in Libya only months after ordering an eight-per cent real-terms cut in defence spending over four years to rein in a budget deficit.

“If we had Ark Royal and the Harriers in the February timeframe, I feel relatively reassured that we would have deployed that capability off Libya to conduct the ground support piece,” Stanhope said today, referring to scrapped assets.

“There is far too much of what could have been as opposed to what is,” he said. “We have got to look forward.”

The United States accused some Nato allies on Friday of failing to pull their weight in the Libyan operation.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the alliance, prosecuting an air campaign against Libyan forces, risked “collective military irrelevance” unless European partners deepened their commitment and spending.

“We in the military I believe are fairly self-critical, so there will be a very good examination of the operations in Libya and we do the same thing regardless of where we are operating,” US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead told reporters at the briefing.

Libyan rebels face setback after refinery hit

Workers inspect a damaged power generator of the oil refinery which was hit by a grad rocket of the forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi at western Libyan city of Misrata on June 13, 2011.


Libyan rebels faced new obstacles in their campaign to march on Tripoli after shelling from Muammar Gaddafi’s forces damaged an oil refinery in the insurgent stronghold of Misrata, disrupting fuel supply lines.

A Reuters photographer in Misrata joined rebel units as they pushed their front several kilometres west yesterday to the outskirts of Zlitan, a town controlled by Gaddafi’s forces.

Any fighting over Zlitan would bring the rebellion closer to the capital Tripoli, the Libyan leader’s stronghold which lies 200km west of Misrata.

A doctor in a field hospital to the west of Libya’s third largest city said two rebels had been killed and a dozen wounded after the two sides traded heavy artillery fire.

Rebels from Misrata say tribal sensitivities prevent them from attacking Zlitan, and they are instead waiting for local inhabitants to rise up.

Late yesterday, six rockets hit generators at the refinery near Misrata port leaving them heavily damaged. An engineer on site said it was unclear how long it would take to repair.

Nato said it struck an armoured vehicle armed with anti-aircraft guns east of Tripoli today as well as a multiple rocket launcher and another anti-aircraft system.



A Nato statement said the alliance also struck an armed pickup truck, a tank, a multiple rocket launcher and an armoured vehicle in Misrata last night.

“These types of equipment have been used to indiscriminately target the civilian population throughout Libya,” the commander of the Nato mission, Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, said.

“Nato will maintain the pressure on the Gaddafi regime and continue to take action to protect civilians wherever they are under threat of attack.”

The fighting east of Tripoli came during an apparent lull in Nato bombardment of the Libyan capital, a lull which continued through today, although state television reported the alliance had bombarded targets in Al Jufrah in the centre of the country.

Nato defence chiefs were due to meet in Belgrade today to discuss the mission, after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates accused some European allies of failing to pull their weight in a mission he feared could run out of steam.

Libyan troops fired Grad rockets from positions controlled by Gaddafi’s forces over the border into Tunisia today, witnesses said, in an assault likely to raise already high tensions between the two countries.

The explosions, close to rebel territory along the border in Libya’s Western Mountains, caused no damage or injuries.

The last time Libyan forces fired rockets into Tunisia, on May 17, the Tunisian government threatened to report Libya to the UN Security Council for committing “enemy actions.”

Fighting flared at the weekend in the town of Zawiyah, 50km west of the capital — clashes the rebel leadership said were a sign that the momentum in the four-month-old conflict was shifting their way.

But a Zawiyah resident, who could only be identified as Mohamed, told Reuters by phone today that it had since gone quiet, with neither side having advanced much from their original positions.

“Things are now calm in Zawiyah. Gaddafi’s forces are still in their place in town and on the main road,” he said.

The main highway west from Tripoli to Tunisia, which had been closed because of the fighting, appeared to have re-opened.

“Violation of sovereignty”

A rebel spokesman in Zintan, in the rebel-held Western Mountains range southwest of Tripoli, said the town had been quiet yesterday after being subjected to its heaviest bombardment by pro-Gaddafi forces in several weeks on Sunday.

Gaddafi has said the rebels are criminals and al Qaeda militants. He has described the Nato military intervention as an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya’s oil.

Western governments say they believe it is only a matter of time before Gaddafi’s 41-year rule ends under the weight of Nato military intervention, sanctions and defections.

Nato member Germany became the latest country to recognise the rebel council based in the second city of Benghazi as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, giving heavyweight support to rebels poised to run the country.

France, Qatar, Italy and the United Arab Emirates have already recognised the Transitional National Council.

“We share the same goal — Libya without Gaddafi,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Benghazi.

Libya’s foreign ministry in a statement condemned the visit as an “irresponsible step by the German state.”

“The visit by the foreign minister of ... Germany to Benghazi is a blatant violation of national sovereignty and ... international laws,” it said, adding that Germany was “recognising an imaginary council that only represents itself.”

Adding to diplomatic pressure on Gaddafi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged African leaders to abandon him.

Gaddafi has styled himself the African “king of kings” and over the years won support from many African states in exchange for financial help and generous gifts. Most countries on the continent have been lukewarm towards the rebels.

“Your words and your actions could make the difference... (in ending this situation) ...and allowing the people of Libya to get to work writing a constitution and rebuilding their country,” Clinton said in a speech to the African Union in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

US helps Libyan rebels, fighting rages in west

Sign of stalemate: A Gaddafi forces tank, destroyed by Nato air strikes, on the road between Ajdabiyah and Brega near the western gate of Ajdabiyah, April 26, 2011, impotent to do much about this rebel appeal to stop the killings.


The United States took steps to throw a financial lifeline to rebels controlling eastern Libya while forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi focused their firepower on pockets of resistance in the west.

Rebels said Gaddafi’s forces fired Russian-made Grad rockets, which rights groups say should not be used in civilian areas, at the rebel-held western towns of Misrata and Zintan following Nato strikes to free Misrata’s port.



In Zintan, the rebels struck back.

“Rebels attacked posts belonging to Gaddafi forces east of Zintan in the early evening,” spokesman Abdulrahman told Reuters. “The posts have been used to fire rockets into Zintan.

“The rebels destroyed at least three tanks and captured two others.”

Remoter areas of western Libya also came under fire from forces loyal to Gaddafi, trying to break an uprising against his four-decade rule that has put most of the east in rebel hands since it began in mid-February.

“Many in the Western Mountains in towns such as Yefrin, Zintan and Kabau are being killed by this indiscriminate shelling,” senior rebel National Council spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told a news conference in Benghazi in the east.

The United States voiced confidence in the Benghazi-based main opposition council yesterday as the US Treasury moved to permit oil deals with the group, which is struggling to provide funding for the battle-scarred areas under its control.

The order by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control may help to clear up concerns among potential buyers over legal complications related to ownership of Libyan oil and the impact of international sanctions.

The first major oil shipment from rebel-held east Libya, reported to be 80,000 tonnes of crude, was expected to arrive in Singapore today for refuelling but oil traders told Reuters finding a buyer was not straightforward, with many of the usual traders still worried about legal complications.

A tanker booked for Italian oil company Eni to carry crude to Italy from Gaddafi-held territory in Libya never arrived in port and left empty last week because the sanctions meant the government would not have got paid, trade sources said.

“They didn’t want the crude to go, because they wouldn’t have gotten any money for it,” an industry source said yesterday, adding, “they could use it to refine into gasoline.”

Fighting out of sight

Residents say pro-Gaddafi forces have been surrounding mountain-top towns in western Libya, cutting them off from food, water and fuel supplies and unleashing indiscriminate bombardments on their homes with rockets and mortars.

Libyan officials deny targeting civilians, saying they are fighting armed gangs and al Qaeda sympathisers who are terrorising the local population.

Rebels who seized a remote post on the western border with Tunisia hurriedly dug trenches after hearing that forces loyal to Gaddafi were on their way to retake the crossing.

The sound of distant explosions could occasionally be heard coming from the Libyan side of the border, signs of a battle that has been going on for weeks in the Western Mountains region, largely out of sight of the outside world.

The rebel spokesman in the Western Mountains town of Zintan, scene of some of the region’s most intense fighting, said there was heavy bombardment there yesterday, that at least 15 people were wounded and five houses destroyed.

Misrata also came under fire from Grad missiles, the rebels said, after Nato air strikes forced Gaddafi’s troops away from the port, the only connection the besieged city has with the outside world.

Both the rebels and the European Union said the shelling of the Misrata port threatened a vital supply and rescue route.

“We are receiving reports of hospitals being overwhelmed by a growing number of wounded,” EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement.

An aid ship took advantage of a brief lull in the fighting to rescue Libyans and a French journalist wounded in the fighting in Misrata, along with migrant workers, from the western rebel enclave and headed for Benghazi, centre of the rebel heartland in the east.

“Despite heavy shelling of the port area . . . about 935 migrants and Libyans have been rescued and are now safely en route to Benghazi,” the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.

A UN human rights group is in Libya to investigate accusations pro-Gaddafi forces have violated human rights and attacked civilians

Libyan forces pound Misrata as 1,000 evacuated by sea

A chartered ship evacuated nearly 1,000 foreign workers and wounded Libyans from Misrata today as government artillery bombarded the besieged city that has come to symbolise the struggle against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule.

“We wanted to be able to take more people out but it was not possible,” said Jeremy Haslam, who led the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) rescue mission.

“Although the exchange of fire subsided while we were boarding ... we had a very limited time to get the migrants and Libyans on board the ship and then leave.”

A rebel spokesman said bombardments pounded Misrata for a fifth day today after shelling killed 17 people and wounded about 100, mostly civilians, yesterday.





Libya’s third-largest city, Misrata is the rebels’ main stronghold in the west and has been under siege by pro-Gaddafi forces for the past seven weeks. Evacuees say conditions there are becoming increasingly desperate and hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed.

“The Gaddafi forces are shelling Misrata now. They are firing rockets and artillery rounds on the eastern side — the Nakl el Theqeel (road) and the residential areas around it,” Abdubasset Abu Mzeireq said this morning.

The Ionian Spirit steamed out of Misrata carrying 971 people, most of them weak and dehydrated migrants mainly from Ghana, the Philippines and Ukraine, heading for the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya.

It was second vessel chartered by the IOM, which took out nearly 1,200 migrants from Misrata last Friday.

Among the rescued group were 100 Libyans, including a child shot in the face, the IOM said in a statement.

“We have a very, very small window to get everyone out. We do not have the luxury of having days, but hours,” said IOM Middle East representative, Pasquale Lupoli.

“Every hour counts and the migrants still in Misrata cannot survive much longer like this.”

Pro-Gaddafi forces have also kept up an offensive on the rebels’ eastern frontline outpost of Ajdabiyah, which rebels want to use as a staging post to retake the oil port of Brega, 80km to the west.

One witness said he saw around a dozen rockets land near the western entrance to Ajdabiyah yesterday and many fighters fled as explosions boomed across the town.

Yesterday marked a month since the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorising force to protect civilians in Libya, leading to an international air campaign.

But despite Nato air strikes against Gaddafi’s armour, rebels have been unable to hold gains in weeks of back-and-forth fighting over the coastal towns in eastern Libya.

With Nato troops bogged down in Afghanistan, Western countries have ruled out sending ground troops, a position reinforced by the British prime minister yesterday.

“What we’ve said is there is no question of invasion or an occupation — this is not about Britain putting boots on the ground,” David Cameron told Sky News in an interview.

Scores of volunteer fighters and civilian cars carrying men, women and children yesterday streamed east from Ajdabiyah up the coast road towards Benghazi, where the popular revolt against Gaddafi’s 41-year rule began in earnest on February 17.

The United States, France and Britain said last week they would not stop bombing Gaddafi’s forces until he left power, although when or if that would happen was unclear.

The rebels pushed hundreds of kilometres towards the capital Tripoli in late March after foreign warplanes began bombing Gaddafi’s positions to protect civilians, but proved unable to hold territory and were pushed back as far as Ajdabiyah.

Just like Iraq?

In Tripoli, Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, said in an interview that the world had gone to war with Libya based on nothing more than rumour and propaganda.

“The biggest issue is the terrorists and the armed militia,” Saif Gaddafi told the Washington Post. “Once we get rid of them, everything will be solved.”

Government forces were hunting down “terrorists” in Misrata just as American forces did in Fallujah in Iraq.

“It’s exactly the same thing. I am not going to accept it, that the Libyan army killed civilians. This didn’t happen. It will never happen,” he said.

Once they were beaten, it would be time to talk of national reconciliation and democracy under a new constitution that would reduce his father’s role to a symbolic one, the Post quoted Saif Gaddafi as saying.

The London-educated son was once seen as a potential reformer but his comments indicated the Gaddafi was in no mood to compromise despite the international pressure. The rebels have rejected any solution that does not remove Gaddafi or his family from power.

The UN humanitarian affairs chief, Valerie Amos, speaking in Benghazi following a visit to Tripoli, said the government had given her no guarantees regarding her call for an overall cessation of hostilities to help the relief effort.

She also said she was extremely worried about the situation in Misrata.

“No-one has any sense of the depth and scale of what is happening there,” she said.” — Reuters

Gbagbo's Capture May Set Ivory Coast's Economy on Long Road to Recovery

Ivory Coast's former president is calling for an end to fighting after he was captured on Monday by forces backing the country's president-elect.

African Union: Gaddafi ‘accepts peace roadmap’

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaffi (right) in talks with African Union delegation, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma (left), and Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso (second left).

Muammar Gaddafi has accepted a roadmap for ending the civil war in Libya including an immediate ceasefire, the African Union said today, adding that the issue of his stepping down had also been discussed.

South African President Jacob Zuma, who led a delegation of African leaders at talks in Tripoli, earlier called on Nato to stop air strikes on Libyan government targets to “give ceasefire a chance”.
Nato officials were not immediately available for comment.

Rebels have said they will accept nothing less than an end to Gaddafi’s four decades in power, but Libyan officials say he will not quit.

Ramtane Lamamra, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, said the issue had come up in the talks but declined to give details. “There was some discussion on this but I cannot report on this. It has to remain confidential.

“It’s up to the Libyan people to choose their leaders democratically,” Lamara said at a news conference in Tripoli.



Zuma met Gaddafi for several hours at the Libyan leader’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound with four other African head of state.

“The brother leader delegation has accepted the roadmap as presented by us. We have to give ceasefire a chance,” Zuma said, adding that the African delegation would now travel to the eastern city of Benghazi for talks with anti-Gaddafi rebels.

Nato stepped up attacks on Gaddafi’s armour yesterday to weaken the bitter siege of Misrata in the west and disrupt a dangerous advance by Gaddafi’s troops in the east.

The alliance said it destroyed 11 tanks on the outskirts of the eastern rebel town of Ajdabiyah, which looked in danger of being overrun yesterday, and 14 near Misrata, a lone insurgent bastion in the west that has been under siege for six weeks.

There was no sign of any let-up in the fighting and despite the African leaders’ hopes of roadmap to peace, a negotiated settlement looked slim.

A rebel spokesman rejected a deal with Gaddafi to end the conflict, bloodiest in a series of pro-democracy revolts across the Arab world that have ousted the autocratic leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

“There is no other solution than the military solution, because this dictator’s language is annihilation, and people who speak this language only understand this language,” spokesman Ahmad Bani told al Jazeera television.

Attack on Ajdabiyah

Nato said it had increased the tempo of its air operations over the weekend, after rebels accused it of responding too slowly to government attacks.

The insurgents hailed the more muscular approach.

The Nato strikes outside Ajdabiyah yesterday helped break the biggest assault by Gaddafi’s forces on the eastern front for at least a week.

The town is the gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, 150km north up the Mediterranean coast.

A Reuters reporter saw six burning hulks surrounded by 15 charred and dismembered bodies in two sites 300 metres apart on Ajdabiyah’s western approaches which rebels said were hit by air strikes. “NATO has to do this to help us every single day. That is the only way we are going to win this war,” said 25-year-old rebel Tarek Obeidy, standing over the bodies.

The government attack, which began on Saturday, included a fierce artillery and rocket bombardment, while some of Gaddafi’s forces, including snipers, penetrated Ajdabiyah. Rebels cowered in alleys for several hours under the bombardment.

The corpses of four rebels were found dumped on a roadside.

“Their throats were slit,” said rebel Muhammad Saad. “They were all shot a few times in the chest as well. I just could not stop crying when I saw them. This is becoming tougher and tougher.”

But by afternoon rebels looked back in control of Ajdabiyah, commanding key intersections, and the artillery and small-arms fire had died down.

Ajdabiyah had been the launch point for insurgents during a week-long fight for the oil port of Brega, 70km further west, and its fall would be a serious loss.

Gaddafi appears

Gaddafi, making his first appearance in front of the foreign media in weeks, joined the visiting African leaders at his Bab al-Aziziyah compound.

He then climbed into a sports utility vehicle and was driven about 50 metres where he waved through the sunroof and made the “V” for victory sign to a crowd of cheering supporters.

It was Gaddafi’s second appearance in two days after he received an ecstatic welcome at a Tripoli school on Saturday.

The appearances, and Gaddafi’s upbeat demeanour, confirmed the impression among analysts that his circle has emerged from a period of paralysis and is hunkering down for a long campaign, another sign that mediation will be difficult.

Analysts predict a drawn-out, low-level conflict possibly leading to partition between east and west in the sprawling North African Arab state, a major oil and natural gas producer.

Nato’s commander of Libyan operations said the alliance, which took over air strikes against Gaddafi from three Western powers on March 31, had destroyed “a significant percentage” of Gaddafi’s armour and ammunition stockpiles east of Tripoli.

Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard said after yesterday’s air attacks: “The situation in Ajdabiyah, and Misrata in particular, is desperate for those Libyans who are being brutally shelled by the (Gaddafi) regime.”

Ouattara isolates Gbagbo, seeks Ivorian recovery

Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara sought to assert his grip on power after weeks of fighting, leaving his rival Laurent Gbagbo isolated behind a military cordon in his bunker.

In a sign of how difficult restoring security will be, the United Nations human rights office said today that it found 100 more corpses in western Ivory Coast in the past 24 hours, adding to the 800 dead reported by aid groups last week.

Ouattara said his forces had blockaded Gbagbo in the presidential residence in Abidjan — an ironic twist after Ouattara suffered months in a hotel under siege by Gbagbo’s troops following last November’s disputed presidential election.

In a speech late yesterday, Ouattara said he would seek to restore security and basic public services in the country following fierce fighting between his forces and Gbagbo’s defenders, and would also try to revive the country’s cocoa industry, the world’s largest.

Prisoners held by forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, seen here in Abidjan,.A UN MI-24 helicopter flies in Abidjan April 7, 2011. UN peacekeepers have surrounded the “last defenders” of Laurent Gbagbo. Prisoners held by forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara, seen here in Abidjan

Ouattara won the November presidential poll by eight percentage points, according to UN certified results, but Gbagbo rejected the outcome citing fraud, and accused the United Nations of meddling in Ivorian affairs.

The poll was meant to draw a line under Ivory Coast’s 2002-03 civil war, but the dispute over results rekindled it, turning Abidjan — once known as the “Paris of West Africa” — once again into a war zone.

“I was born here, but I am leaving and I am never coming back,” said Imad Zarour, 40, who was waiting today to be evacuated at a French military base. “Even if there’s peace, even if they give me a billion dollars, I will never come back to this country. I hate it.”

A commander for the French military force in Ivory Coast, Licorne (Unicorn), said today that its troops would carry out mixed patrols with police and gendarmes loyal to Ouattara to restore security and rebuild infrastructure.

Ouattara said he hoped to revive the cocoa sector, the country’s main economic engine, which has been paralysed by European Union shipping restrictions since January.

“I have asked that European Union sanctions on the ports of Abidjan and San Pedro and certain public entities, be lifted,” Ouattara said in the speech broadcast on French television.

“I have also asked the central bank BCEAO to reopen its branches in Ivory Coast, to ensure a resumption of operations in all banks so as to enable the payment of salaries and arrears in the shortest possible time,” he said on television channel LCI.

In Brussels, the European Commission said it hoped to be able to begin easing sanctions soon. A European diplomatic source said an agreement was possible as early as Tuesday.


Diplomatic and military efforts to oust Gbagbo this week were met with fierce resistance and Ouattara said his rival’s residence had been sealed off to protect the area.

“As for the outgoing President Mr Laurent Gbagbo, who has entrenched himself at the presidential residence in Cocody with heavy weapons and mercenaries, a blockade has been established around the perimeter to secure the inhabitants of the district,” Ouattara said.

Crimes to be investigated

A week of fighting for control of Abidjan has driven terrified residents to scramble to find food and water, with frequent power cuts and hospitals overwhelmed with wounded.

Ouattara said steps would be taken to shed light on all crimes committed during the conflict and would collaborate with international organisations to investigate human rights abuses and punish those found guilty.

“We have established a national commission of inquiry whose findings will be made public and the perpetrators of crimes will be severely punished,” Ouattara said.

A Gbagbo ally bristled at the comments.

“Ouattara has no right to call for reconciliation,” the head of Gbagbo’s political party, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, said today in an interview with Radio France International. “He is precisely the one who is responsible for all the suffering of the Ivorian people.”

Ouattara’s camp has denied its soldiers were involved in the Duekoue killings, but human rights groups have said there is evidence his forces have killed and pillaged during their offensive.

At a Ouattara military base camp north of Abidjan, Zacaria Kone, a senior commander, warned about 100 of his soldiers today against killing and looting.

“Don’t go killing someone. If there is a problem see one of your chiefs here. They (the pro-Gbagbo militias) have massacred our families, but they will answer for that,” he said.

Asked by Reuters after the speech whether he was referring to specific abuses by his troops, Kone said simply: “I will think about that question.”

France, the former colonial power, has taken a leading role in talks to persuade Gbagbo to hand over to Ouattara and end the standoff, and its Defence Minister said he believed Gbagbo had about 1,000 men, 200 of whom were defending his residence.

Helicopters from French forces and the United Nations peacekeeping mission bombarded Gbagbo’s heavy weapons stockpiles earlier this week, including those near the residence.

Gbagbo has ruled Ivory Coast since 2000 and blames Paris for supporting the north of the country in the civil war of 2002-03.

Gbagbo digs in as Abidjan siege intensifies - France Flexing Military Muscles in Libya, Former Colony Ivory Coast

For four long months Ivory Coast's internationally recognized president was confined to a besieged Abidjan hotel, at the mercy of United Nations troops for protection.

Waste in US Afghan aid seen at billions of dollars

File photo of a US. soldier from 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion during an early morning patrol in Zhari district in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on November 22, 2010.


Waste and fraud in US efforts to rebuild Afghanistan while fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban may have cost taxpayers billions of dollars, a special investigator said yesterday.

Arnold Fields, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said the cost of US assistance funding diverted or squandered since 2002 could reach “well into the millions, if not billions, of dollars.”

“There are no controls in place sufficient enough to ensure taxpayers’ money is used for the (intended) purpose,” said Fields, whose independent office was created in 2008 to energize oversight of what US auditors have described as a giant, poorly coordinated aid effort that has sunk some US$56 billion (RM180 billion) into Afghanistan since 2002.

Of that sum, some US$29 billion has gone to building up Afghanistan’s nascent security forces, many of whose members cannot read and are just learning to shoot.




Another US$16 billion has gone to trying to develop this poor country, where life expectancy is just 45 years and only 28 per cent of people are literate, and to strengthening governance, said Fields, a retired Marine Corps major general.

Experts believe it will take years to build an effective government that can provide basic services in Afghanistan, where corruption and the lack a functional justice system have driven many villagers into the arms of the Taliban.

Efforts to bolster Afghanistan’s weak central government and in many cases its dysfunctional local leadership took centre stage last week when a White House review of the nine-year-old war reported some military success but cautioned there was more to be done on improving governance and curbing corruption.

President Barack Obama is under pressure to show results in Afghanistan in the first half of 2011 so he can start bringing US troops home in July.

US and Nato partners hope Afghan forces will be able to take control by the end of 2014 as the West looks to curtail its involvement after nine years that at the present level of effort costs US taxpayers at least US$113 billion a year.

More than 700 foreign troops have been killed in 2010, the most violent year since the Taliban was toppled in 2001. Afghan casualties are far higher.

US reconstruction activities are a major component in an even bigger outside assistance effort involving dozens of donor countries and hundreds of aid groups large and small.

Field’s office, known as Sigar, described in a report issued this fall a ‘confusing labyrinth’ of agencies and contractors in that aid effort.

North Korea threatens to launch two retaliatory strikes over further planned artillery drills on disputed island

Tense: South Korean marines patrol on Yeongpyeong Island as the country announced it would stage further artillery drills over the weekend

Stand off: South Korean Navy vessels lie off the disputed island. North Korea has threatened to launch two retaliatory strikes if the drills go ahead

North Korea has again warned its southern neighbour to stop planned artillery drills on disputed islands and said it would launch two retaliatory strikes if it failed to comply.

South Korea has said it plans to carry out a 24-hour live-fire drill on Yeonpyeong Island sometime between Saturday and Tuesday, depending on weather.

Pyongyang, which claims ownership of nearby waters and has said it considers the drills an infringement of its territory, responded to similar firing exercises last month by shelling the tiny island.

Patrol: Police officers walk past a shelter on the island. Artillery drills last month saw the north shell Yeonpyeong, killing four people

Envoy: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson arrives in Pyongyang in a bid to ease the tension between the two countries

That attack killed four people on the island, including two civilians, which is home to a fishing community and military bases.

An unnamed senior North Korean military official told the Korean Central News Agency that if the south carried out more drills 'despite our military's prior warnings, second and third unpredictable self-defensive strikes will be made'.

A notice sent to the South Korean military today added that the retaliation would be made 'to safeguard our republic's sacred territorial waters' and that the 'intensity and scope of the strike will be more serious than the November 23 shelling'.

Seoul has said its planned drills are part of 'routine, justified' exercises and has warned that it is prepared to deal with any North Korean attack.

Representatives of the American-led UN Command, which oversees the armistice which ended the Korean War, will observe the drills.

The stand off comes as a high-profile U.S. state governor visited North Korea today in a bid to ease tensions.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who has been a frequent unofficial envoy for the north, said he wanted to visit the country's main nuclear complex and meet with senior officials during his four-day trip.

He said ahead of his visit that he expected to get some sort of message from North Korea.

'My objective is to see if we can reduce the tension in the Korean peninsula.'

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the drills posed no threat.

'North Korea should not see these South Korean actions as a provocation,' he added.

Were Afghan schoolgirls who collapsed in classroom the victims of Taliban nerve gas attack?

Blood samples taken from Afghan schoolgirls who collapsed in an apparent mass poisoning showed traces of toxic chemicals found in nerve gas, the Health Ministry said today.

Suspicion has fallen on the Taliban, the hard-line Islamist militia that opposes education for women and prohibited girls from going to school before it was ousted in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Poisonous levels of organophosphates were found in samples taken from girls who became sick in incidents over the last two years, ministry spokesman Dr Ghulam Sakhi Kargar said.

Poisoned: Suspicion has fallen on the Taliban after traces of toxic chemicals found in nerve gas was found in the schoolgirls' blood

Samples from more recent cases, over the weekend, have been sent to Turkey for analysis and no results have been issued.

Last month, 48 pupils and teachers at Kabul's Zabihullah Esmati High School and 60 students and teachers at the Totia Girls School were hospitalised after fainting or complaining of breathing problems, dizziness and nausea.

The youngsters said they began feeling unwell after being exposed to an unknown gas spreading through classrooms.

Most were released within hours and it remains unclear how the gas spread.

Organophosphates, which are also present in herbicides and pesticides, are the active ingredients of deadly nerve gases such as sarin and VX and even low-level exposure can damage the nervous system.

Signs of organophosphate poisoning include headache, tiredness, upset stomach and breathing trouble, all similar to the symptoms shown by the students and teachers at the Kabul schools.

Targeted? Two Afghan schoolgirls receive treatment for suspected poisoning at a Kabul hospital

Asean wants formal code in disputed South China Sea

The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) wants to establish a formal code of conduct in the South China Sea to avoid tension around disputed territories, a senior Filipino diplomat said on Friday.

Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, China and Taiwan all stake claims over territory in the South China Sea. All except Brunei have a military presence in the area, and the boundary claims have sparked deadly naval clashes.

“We should start talking about the provisions of a regional code of conduct and this is to ensure that the South China Sea remains a peaceful and stable place where vessels can pass safely,” Erlinda Basilio, foreign affairs undersecretary for policy, told a media forum.

Southeast Asian states have become worried by China’s increasingly aggressive stance on the complex set of disputes. Last week, Chinese naval forces carried out drills in the disputed southern waters amid tension with Washington over security on the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea.







In 2002, China and ASEAN signed a declaration to halt military activities and promote cooperation on scientific, environment and non-military projects to lessen tension after China and Vietnam fought a naval battle in the late 1980s.

Basilio said ASEAN would propose a more formal and legally binding code of conduct in the South China Sea at its next meeting with China. ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“We just want stability and a peaceful environment, not only there, but all over the region,” she said.

She said disputes have always been discussed in security meetings at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), where extra-regional powers, such as the United States, Russia, India, Australia and Japan join Asean and China.

“Many of the participants in the ARF are trading nations and therefore it is important for them to have unimpeded access to the waters in South China Sea,” she said.

On Wednesday, Captain Rudy Lupton, commander of the flagship of the US Navy 7th Fleet, urged China to act responsibly in disputed areas in the South China Sea to avoid political and security issues.

Profile: Kim Jong-un -On the tracks of 'Kim's successor'

Kim Jong-il reportedly suffered a stroke last year


The only known image of Kim Jong-un shows him as a young boy,third son of Kim Jun-il.

Kim Jong-il's third son, Kim Jong-un, will become North Korea's next leader, according to unconfirmed South Korean media reports. The BBC News website and BBC Monitoring profile this elusive young man.

Kim Jong-un is youngest son of Kim Jong-il and his late third wife Ko Yong-hui.

Born in 1983 or early 1984, the young Kim was initially not thought to be in the frame to take up his father's mantle.

Analysts focused their attention on his half-brother Kim Jong-nam and older full brother Kim Jong-chol.

But speculation that he was in the frame to succeed his father picked up in January, after a report in South Korea's Yonhap news agency suggested that Kim Jong-il had picked him as heir.



North Korea watchers also took his reported appointment to the powerful National Defence Commission as a possible signal that he was being moved into a leadership position.

The defence commission is North Korea's most important government body, and Kim Jong-il rules the country in his capacity as the commission's chairman.

On 2 June, Seoul's intelligence agency reportedly briefed legislators that North Korean officials had been ordered to support the choice of Kim Jong-un as the next leader.

However there has also been much speculation that the man being lined up as the real "power behind the throne" is Chang Song-taek - the husband of Kim Jong-il's sister and director of the administrative department of the North Korean Workers Party.

Some analysts see him acting as a "regent" to Kim Jong-un until he is ready to rule on his own.

'Morning Star King'

Kim Jong-un's mother, Ko Yong-hui, was thought to be Kim Jong-il's favourite wife, and she clearly doted on her son, reportedly calling him the "Morning Star King".

In his 2003 book, "I was Kim Jong-il's Chef", a Japanese man writing under the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto also claimed that Jong-un was his father's favourite.


But the mysterious death of Ko Yong-hui in 2004 appeared to put the younger Kim firmly behind his half-brother Jong-nam in the leadership stakes.

However Jong-nam's deportation from Japan in May 2001, and middle brother Jong-chol's apparent "unmanliness" subsequently improved his chances.

Swiss-educated like his brothers, Kim Jong-un avoided Western influences, returning home when not in school and dining out with the North Korean ambassador.

Since his return to Pyongyang, little has been made public about his character.

In 2006, badges bearing his image were said to be circulating among senior officials of the ruling Korean Workers' Party, arousing suspicions that he had been chosen as Kim Jong-il's successor.

In his father's image

Said by Kim Jong-il's chef, Mr Fujimoto, to be the "spitting image" of his father, the young Kim has never been photographed by the Western media.

The only photograph known to exist of him is one taken when he was 11 which Mr Fujimoto said he was given by Kim Jong-un before he left North Korea.

Kim Jong-un also shares some of his father's health problems, and is reported to already have diabetes and heart disease due to a lack of exercise.

Like his film-loving father, Jong-un is said to enjoy popular culture, and is apparently a fan of NBA basketball.

One South Korean newspaper, the Dong-a Ilbo, has reported that the North was teaching its people a song lauding Kim Jong-un to raise his profile.

But this detail, as with many others in secretive North Korea, is impossible to confirm.



So little is known about Kim Jong-un - the youngest son and reportedly the named successor of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il - that even his date of birth is uncertain: no-one is really sure whether he was born in 1983 or 1984.

But it is known that the third Kim, like his two elder brothers, was sent to school in Switzerland. The BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports on the young Kim's school days, and the unusually close relationship between Switzerland and North Korea.

Kim Jong-un attended Berne's international school, where, it is rumoured, he joined school skiing outings, and was something of a peacemaker in playground disputes.

He arrived every day in a chauffeur-driven car from the North Korean embassy, which is just around the corner from the school.

But, since Jong-un went under an assumed name, none of his classmates knew his true identity.

He is said to have been closely supervised by embassy officials - but he also apparently speaks Swiss German - and since the language of the international school is English, that indicates that the young Kim did spend some time socialising.

The choice of a Swiss education for North Korea's future leader may not be a coincidence.

North Korea's ambassador to Switzerland has been in his post for more than 20 years and North Korea watchers regard Ri Tcheul as extremely powerful, enjoying the confidence of Kim Jong-il.

Studying cheese

Switzerland has surprisingly close ties with North Korea.

During the famine of the 1990's the Swiss launched a substantial humanitarian relief operation, which, almost alone among foreign aid projects, was subsequently transformed into a long-term development programme.

In 2003 Switzerland's foreign minister was the first foreign government official to cross the demarcation line between North and South Korea.

At the time she offered Switzerland's services as a mediator between the two Koreas.

And every year North Korean officials come to Switzerland, ostensibly to study the Swiss federal system - the most recent visit was in February.

North Korean agricultural specialists regularly spend time here studying the Swiss art of making cheese and yoghurt, which Kim Jong-il is said to love.

But recently, there are signs that warm relationship may be cooling.

The two biggest Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, stung by allegations that Kim Jong-il was storing billions in Switzerland, announced in 2006 that they were cutting ties with North Korea.

Meanwhile, Switzerland's development programme is set to end in 2011, amid rumours Swiss financial aid was going not to North Korean farms, but into the coffers of the government in Pyongyang.

China's dilemma on eccentric North Korea

Mr Wen (right) wants to avoid Korean instability at all costs


A war would see a flood of refugees over the North Korea-China border 

At the end of the three-way conference between President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, Yukio Hatoyama, the Japanese prime minister, and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, a great many people here must have been hoping to hear Mr Wen criticise North Korea for allegedly torpedoing the South Korean naval ship Cheonan two months ago.

At the very least they would have wanted him to accept publicly that North Korea had been responsible for it, as an international inquiry has maintained. If so, it was one of the most dangerous acts of war in the Korean peninsula in recent years.

Mr Wen refused. He sent his condolences to the families of the 46 South Korean sailors who were killed. He called for restraint. He hinted at the dire consequences of war.



But even though North Korea is China's protege, he would not condemn it in public.
Not good company

Nowadays China is keen to show the world that it is serious and responsible - a great power which can be trusted to behave properly.

And yet it chooses to give its support to a country which is regularly accused of being an outlaw.

If you see things from the vantage point of Beijing, though, it all looks rather different.

It seems safe to assume that if the Chinese felt they could safely dump North Korea and its strange, eccentric leader Kim Jong-il (whom his people are expected to call The Dear Leader), they certainly would.

Each new group of leaders in China, as it comes to power, is a little less friendly and supportive towards him. The Dear Leader is nothing short of an embarrassment. His regime is regularly accused of planning crimes and assassinations.

It is hard to work out whatever reason one of his submarines would have had to attack a South Korean ship in South Korean waters. Yet most experts here and in the West assume that the orders must have come from the top - or very near it.

This is not good company for China to keep.

Suppose, though, that Wen Jiabao had emerged from his summit meeting and told the world's press that China condemned North Korea in strong terms. His government would have made several new friends; but Kim Jong-il would have gone off the deep end immediately.

War, which despite the rhetoric actually seems quite far away at present, would have become more likely right away. Without China to warn him of the consequences, he or his associates could easily order an attack on South Korea.

Even so, outright fighting, though it might cost a great many casualties, would almost certainly be won by the South, with American help.

Large numbers of refugees would flood across North Korea's border with China. Kim Jong-il's ramshackle regime would probably fall quickly. Korea would be reunited, as a capitalist, strongly pro-American ally abutting on to China.

Who knows what might happen then to China's own, often insecure political leadership?

Mr Wen and his colleagues could lose everything.

This is all highly speculative; but we can be sure that China believes instability on the Korean peninsula is something which has to be avoided at all costs - just in case.

And if that means angering the South Koreans and turning a blind eye to a shocking act of aggression, so be it.

The way China sees it, this will protect the safety of ordinary South Koreans better than any ritual condemnation.

All the same, many other countries will regard it as yet another example of the tail wagging the dog: the uncontrollable North Koreans forcing their immensely more powerful Chinese neighbours to support them - or else.