Libya Live Blog

Libya Live Blog

Al Jazeera staff and correspondents update you on important developments in the Libya uprising.

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(All times are local in Libya GMT+2)

• Timestamp: 

  8:16pm

  The first shipment of halal MREs - Meals Ready to Eat, a kind of reheatable food used by the military - have been delivered by the United States to opposition officials in Benghazi, the US State Department said today.

  The US will next ship in uniforms, boots, and other non-combat, excess equipment from the Defense Department.

• Timestamp: 

  6:38pm

  The Guardian newspaper has posted some video from NATO's press conference today regarding its operations in Libya. In it, you can see some examples of what NATO is promoting as highly specific targeting by its strike aircraft.

   

• Timestamp: 

  3:14pm

  Libyan expat activists on Twitter have long hoped that the opposition National Transitional Council would use social media tools to spread information, and it looks like the Council has finally taken notice: It now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account.

  The NTC has used its Twitter voice in the past 24 hours to say it has paid all March salaries for public sector workers and that Egypt has reversed a decision that had required fleeing Libyans to obtain travel visas before entering the country.

• Live Blog Updates for May 10 are available here:

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  Live Blog Updates for May 9 are below:

• Timestamp: 

  10:00pm

  Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief, told the UN Security Council that all parties should pause fighting in Libya to allow food, medical supplies and other aid to be delivered to those in need.
  
  Amos said sanctions against Libya are causing "immense human suffering" but did not go so far to call for a change in the sanctions imposed.

  The last months of fighting, the breakdown of state infrastructure, and sanctions, are causing immense human suffering ...  Sanctions are causing widespread shortages, paralyzing the country in ways which will impact gravely on the general population in the months ahead, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable.

  You can watch the Security Council meeting here:

• Timestamp: 

  9:54pm

  @ChangeInLibya tweets the following:

  

• Timestamp: 

  9:36pm

  In a live interview with Al Jazeera, a Libyan rebel commander claims rebels have killed 57 pro-Gaddafi soldiers and destroyed 13 military vehicles during a major battle in Ajdabiya, a city in west Libya.

  Hamed al-hafi said fighting happened on the periphery of a small outpost half way between Ajdabiya and the strategic oil port of Brega, where Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces control.

  Over the past 20 days, we had reorganised our forces. The real clash happened two hours ago, on the outskirts [of] al-Arbaeen[, the outpost].

  Al-Hafi said two rebels were killed in the fight, during which Moatassem, one of Gaddafi's sons, was leading the government forces in Brega. His claims could not be independently verified.

   

• Timestamp: 

  8:13pm

  C.J. Chivers of the New York Times blogs about the scenes migrant workers left behind when fleeing "war-torn" Libya.

  

  (Photo by the New York Times)

• Timestamp: 

  8:01pm

  NATO warships bombed "military and civilian targets" in the rebel stronghold Misurata in western Libya and the neighbouring town of Zlitan, Libyan state television reported Monday, according to Reuters news agency.

• Timestamp: 

  7:08pm

  Christina Adam, a legal officer at the International Organisation for Migration, comments on recent accusations against NATO forces in the Mediterranean of having ignored dozens of migrants fleeing north Africa by boat. Adam says international law strictly requires ship masters to rescue all persons found in distress at sea. But the situation "often becomes more difficult after the actual rescue happens."

  Watch Adam's interview with Al Jazeera:

• Timestamp: 

  6:27pm

  Signs of daily NATO strikes against pro-Gaddafi forces are everywhere in Ajdabiya but there is no change militarily and diplomatically. Much fear remains in the eastern city as well as a deepening sense of frustration.

  Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley reports:

• Timestamp: 

  5:20pm

  

  Delegates from 25 local councils and tribes in west and south of Libya have met on Monday for the first time in a show of unity with rebels battling pro-Muammar Gaddafi forces in the country's east. Read our latest story on the Abu Dhabi meeting here. (Photo by Reuters)

• Timestamp: 

  4:43pm

  Norway will cut back its involvement in NATO-orchestrated air strikes against Libya next month when its three-month commitment ends, Norwegisan Defence Minister Grete Faremo said Sunday, according to the Reuters news agency.

  Norway was one of the first European states to be willing to implement a no-fly zone over the African country per UN resolution 1973, aimed at protecting Libyan refugees from the country's bloody uprising against leader Muammar Gaddafi. The scandinavian country currently has six F-16 fighter jets flying missions over Libya.

• Timestamp: 

  5:01am

  Two loud explosions were heard overnight in Tripoli as jets flew overhead, witnesses said. More details soon.

• Timestamp: 

  3:04am

  A Libyan refugee who fled unrest in Libya stands at a refugee camp near the southern Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Dehiba. (Reuters)

  

• Timestamp: 

  12:37am

  The UK's Guardian newspaper reports that dozens of African migrants were left to die in the Mediterranean Sea after a number of European and Nato military units ignored their cries for help. Read the full story here.

• Live Blog Updates for May 9 are above:

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  Live Blog Updates for May 8 are below:

• Timestamp: 

  11:59pm

  Shelling by Gaddafi's forces is choking off supplies to the rebel-held city of Misrata, leaving only enough food and water for about a month, a rebel spokesman said on Sunday.

  Shipments of food, water and medical supplies arrived two to five times a week until two weeks ago, when they dropped to once a week or stopped due to sustained shelling of the city's port, Saddoun El-Misurati, a Misrata-based rebel spokesman, said.

  The city will have supplies of basic foodstuffs and water supply that will last for another month or so without really having to ring the alarm bell, but it really depends on the flow of further shipments. If this deliberate attack on the port area continues without something done about eliminating that kind of threat, we might come to a really bad situation as far as food supplies, especially water supplies, are concerned.

• Timestamp: 

  10:00pm

  The NATO chief said he was confident that time was running out for Gaddafi, despite the prolonged stalemate between his forces and rebels who seek his ouster.

  But Anders Fogh Rasmussen also acknowledged the brutal war that has raged for nearly two months would be resolved politically, not militarily. The NATO secretary-general told CNN's "State of the Union" program:

  The game is over for Gaddafi. He should realize sooner rather than later that there's not future for him or his regime. We have stopped Gaddafi in his tracks. His time is running out. He's more and more isolated.

• Timestamp: 

  6:46pm

  Rebels in the Libyan city of Misurata have been engaged in intense fighting with government forces near the airport, and a NATO air strike hit the east of the city, a rebel spokesman told the Reuters news agency.

  "Fierce fighting is taking place now at the airport and in the air force college area [near the airport]. We are still hearing sounds of artillery and rockets," the spokesman, called Abdelsalam, said from Misurata.

  "NATO struck an area in the east of Misuata today but we do not have details," he said.
  
  

  Misurata is the last remaining city in the west under rebel control.

  It has been under siege for more than two months and has been the scene of some of the war's fiercest fighting between the rebels and Gaddafi loyalists.
  
  Click here to read our latest Libya news story.

  Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Benghazi, said Libya "is showing that it is ready for any kind of foreign aggression ... they know that it is extremely important to keep the momentum in what appears now to be a very long and protracted conflict."

• Timestamp: 

  1:42pm

  The Reuters news agency, citing Libyan state television, says groups of rebels in the city of Misurata have "turned themselves in to government forces".

  Al-Jamahiriya television gave no exact numbers but quoted a military spokesman as saying that some of those who had surrendered made recorded "confessions" which will be broadcast on television later, Reuters said.

• Timestamp: 

  1:40pm

  More on that report from last night on the boat that sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

  Italian police and coastguard officials rescued some 400 African migrants coming from Libya after their boat was tossed against rocks off the tiny island.

  Images of the rescue showed people jumping in panick or falling into the choppy waters as their boat heaved in the waves on Sunday.

  Read about it here.

• Timestamp: 

  1:30pm

  Libyan state television says NATO warplanes have launched air strikes on several government targets.

  It came after pro-government forces started a fuel fire in the western city of Misurata.

  Gaddafi loyalists attacked an oil depot - wiping out a key fuel source for the pro-democracy fighters still clinging onto control of the city.

  Witnesses told Al Jazeera that three helicopters that bombed the storage tanks were painted with Red Cross emblems.

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  Live Blog Updates for May 8 are above:

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  Live Blog Updates for May 7 are below:

   

• Timestamp: 

  11:00pm

  Forces loyal to Gaddafi attacked the remote eastern oil town of Jalu in the Libyan desert on Saturday, but the town remains in rebel hands, a rebel spokesman said.

  The town, south of the eastern frontline near Adjdabiyah, has been attacked by Gaddafi forces more than once since the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's rule began in mid-February.

• Timestamp: 

  8:54pm

  Fierce clashes near the western Libyan town of Zintan killed at least nine rebel fighters and wounded 50 others on Saturday, an AFP correspondent and medics said.

• Timestamp: 

  8:17pm

  Tunisia warned Libya that it considered the shelling of a border town on Saturday "extremely dangerous" and said it would take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty.

  Close to 100 shells or mortar rounds fell on or near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba on Saturday, causing no injuries but doing damage to one house, a Reuters witness said.

  The shelling sent residents scurrying for safety.

• Timestamp: 

  7:59pm

  Italy denied it had reached any agreement with Libyan rebels to supply them with arms in their battle against Gaddafi.

  "There has been no agreement to supply them with weapons," a foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters. He was responding to a claim by a rebel spokesman in Benghazi who said Italy had agreed to supply the anti-Gaddafi forces with whatever weapons they needed.

  The foreign ministry spoksman said Italy would only offer the rebels "equipment for self defence" as agreed by the so-called Libyan "contact group" at a meeting in Doha last month.

• Timestamp: 

  6:56pm

  Libya's rebel government said Saturday that Italy has agreed to supply it with weapons "very soon" to fight against Gaddafi. (AFP)
• Timestamp: 

  6:50pm

  NATO forces launched air strikes on several targets across western Libya on Saturday, state television reported.

  Al-Jamahiriyah Television quoted a Libyan government military spokesman as saying the raids included areas near the Western Mountain town of Yafran, al-Hera, west of the capital Tripoli and installations in the rebel-controlled city of Misrata. It gave no further details. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

• Timestamp: 

  6:36pm

  Unconfirmed reports that a migrant boat laden with 600 men, women and children, mostly African refugees has sunk off the coast of Tripoli.

  Most are feared dead but a rescue operation is said to be underway and some bodies have been already recovered.

• Timestamp: 

  5:40pm

  The acting foreign minister of Libya's rebel government cancelled a trip to Qatar on Saturday after Saudi Arabia refused to allow his plane to use its airspace, Cairo airport officials said.

  The officials said Ali al-Isawi's plane stopped in Cairo to refuel on its way from Rome when Saudi Arabia informed the crew that they would not be allowed to fly through its airspace.

  Isawi returned to Benghazi, the rebel's stronghold in eastern Libya, after waiting several hours in Cairo, they said.

  They did not explain why Saudi Arabia barred the plane. 

• Timestamp: 

  4:44pm

  NATO said aircraft under its command conducted 149 sorties on Friday, including 56 "strike" sorties designed to hit military assets.

  Among the targets were tanks, ammunition storage depots, military trucks and "command and control" facilities in and around Sirte and Ras Lanuf.

• Timestamp: 

  3:50pm

  Forces loyal to Gaddafi fired on the lifeline port in the besieged city of Misrata and hit several fuel depots, rebels said. 

  "There are still attacks by Grad missiles and our fighters are still resisting," said Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani, military spokesman of the National Transitional Council. 

  "They tried again to destroy the Misrata port but our fighters didn't allow them to do that," he said. "They want to leave the revolution without fuel," he said.

• Timestamp: 

  3:39pm

  Rebels accuse Gaddafi of using helicopters bearing the Red Cross emblem of dropping mines into Misurata's harbour.

  NATO confirmed that helicopters had flown over the city on Thursday in breach of the no-fly zone its war planes are supposed to enforce, but it could not confirm that the choppers were marked with the Red Cross sign.

• Timestamp: 

  2:36pm

  Libyan government forces dropped bombs on four large oil storage tanks in the contested western city of Misurata, destroying the tanks and sparking a fire that spread to four more, a rebel spokesman said on Saturday.

  Government forces used small, pesticides spraying planes for the overnight attack in Qasr Ahmed close to the port, said spokesman Ahmed Hassan.

  This Youtube video purports to show the burning fuel tanks:

• Timestamp: 

  1:13pm

  Rebel spokesman Hassan said that rebel forces informed NATO of the aircraft, but that the alliance did not act.

• Timestamp: 

  1:11pm

  More on the alleged bombing by warplanes in Misurata.

  Ahmed Hassan, a rebel spokesman, says that Libyan government forces used small aircraft, typically used for spraying pesticides, to drop bombs on four oil storage tanks in Qasr Ahmed, close to Misurata's port. The bombs sparked a fire which spread to four more tanks. 

• Timestamp: 

  1:02pm

  British prime minister David Cameron's office has said that both he and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, will be "increas[ing] the pressure militarily, politically and economically" to isolate Muammar Gaddafi's government..

  Cameron and Sarkozy spoke on the phone on Friday .

• Timestamp: 

  1:00pm

  A rebel spokesman has told Reuters that Libyan government warplanes have bombed four oil storage tanks in Misurata. If this is the case, the Libyan planes will have violated the no-fly zone established over Libya under UN Security Council Resolution 1973.

• Timestamp: 

  11:19am

  Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's senior crisis advisor, has just been speaking with Al Jazeera. Here's what she told us:

  The findings of our investigation so far are that the forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi have committed widespread violations of international law in Misurata as well as elsewhere in the country. Notably, the attacks, which are indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population - that is to say, rocket attacks, attacks with artillery, with mortars as well as the use of cluster bombs in civilian populated neighbourhoods within Misurata. 

  "Now obviously rockets are indiscriminate, they can never be used in civilian areas. The other weapons used ... are weapons that are designed for the battlefield, and again, should not be used in residential areas."

  Rovera also said that Gaddafi forces had been using residential areas to shield their tanks from NATO air strikes.

  Yes, indeed, I was able to go into neighbourhoods from which the Gaddafi forces had just evacuated, and I saw for myself tanks that were parked right between the houses in areas which are quite dense. Now apparently that was to shield the tanks from NATO attacks. That again is a serious violation of international law.

  "Shielding is a war crime."

• Timestamp: 

  11:16am

  Reuters reports that at least four shells have fallen inside Tunisia near Dehiba, after clashes erupted between pro- and anti-government forces on the Libyan side of the border.

   

  "At least four shells have fallen inside Tunisia, but not in a built-up area," said Reuters correspondent Tarek Amara in the Tunisian border town of Dehiba.

   

• Timestamp: 

  10:17am

  Libya's ambassador to Rome says that he is now on the side of the opposition.

  "I am with the people, with the rebels and against Gaddafi's regime," Abdulhafed Gaddur, who has been a Libyan diplomat in Italy since 1990, told the Corriere della Sera daily in an interview.

  Gaddur says he will continue to serve in his position "until a new Libya and its new government make their choices".

  Gaddur had earlier signed a document drafted by other diplomats who had abandoned Gaddafi's government, but had not publically signaled his exact position on the issue.

• Timestamp: 

  9:47am

  Italian coast guard officials on the island of Lampedusa say that hundreds of refugees fleeing the violence in Libya have landed on the island in two boats.

  One boat carried 655 people, including 82 women and 21 children, while the second carried 187 people, including 19 women and a child. 

  Television images have shown a rusted, overcrowded fishing vessel arriving in Lampedusa, which has in recent months been inundated by refugees fleeing violence in North Africa following uprisings in Tunisia and Libya.

  Live Blog Updates for May 7 are above:

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  Live Blog Updates for May 6 are below:

• Timestamp: 

  9:10pm

  Libya's deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, on possible plans to release frozen Libyan assets to the opposition in Benghazi:

  Libya still, according to the international law, is one sovereign state and any use of the frozen assets, it's like piracy on the high seas.

• Timestamp: 

  2:54pm

  France has expelled 14 Libyan diplomats who served the government of Muammar Gaddafi, giving them two days to leave and saying it will no longer recognise the group's diplomatic status.

• Timestamp: 

  1:15am

  AFP - An international plan to fund rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi's forces with frozen government assets is "like piracy on the high seas," the country's deputy foreign minister said.

  "Libya still, according to the international law, is one sovereign state and any use of the frozen assets, it's like piracy on the high seas," Khaled Kaim told a news conference in the capital Tripoli.

• Timestamp: 

  1:10am

  Reuters - More than a dozen mortar rounds fired from Libya landed near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba on Thursday, a Tunisian security source said, as Libyan government troops fought rebels in the Western Mountains.

  A resident of Dehiba said one of the mortar rounds landed near a reservoir supplying the town with drinking water.
  
  Artillery fire from Libya has landed in or near Dehiba several times in the past week, as forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi try to wrest control of a key border post from rebels.

  Live Blog Updates for May 6 are above:

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  Live Blog Updates for May 5 are below:

• Timestamp: 

  10:40pm

  AFP: Canada on Thursday said rebels trying to overthrow Gaddafi are a "valid interlocutor," but denied the fighters' claims that Ottawa has formally recognised them as the new government.

  "There has been no change in Canada's position on recognition. Canada recognises states, not governments. Libya, as a state, continues to exist," foreign affairs spokeswoman Lisa Monette told AFP.

• Timestamp: 

  9:22pm

  On Thursday, Libyan troops fired Grad rockets toward the outskirts of the rebel-held town of Nalut in a remote western mountain area.

  Al Arabiya television, citing rebels, reported that NATO launched air strikes on Gaddafi forces in the oil town of Brega, in eastern Libya. It did not give details.

• Timestamp: 

  8:30pm

  Coalition to create fund for Libya rebels: Countries involved in military campaign pledge money to provide food, medicine and supplies to opponents of Gaddafi.

  Read more here

• Timestamp: 

  4:48pm

  Foreign medics face siege in Libyan town of Nalut 

  Our Live Blog for May 5 starts here. If you missed out our May 4 blog, please click here.