Libya Live Blog - April 12

Libya Live Blog - April 12

As the uprising in Libya continues, we update you with the latest developments from our correspondents, news agencies and citizens across the globe. Al Jazeera is not responsible for content derived from external sites.

• Timestamp: 

  11:25pm

  More on those oil dealings between Libya's Transitional National Council and Qatar. You can read all about it, by clicking here:

  

• Timestamp: 

  10:29pm

  Libyan army soldiers patrol the old city of Tripoli earlier today

  

• Timestamp: 

  9:00pm

  As fighting continues along Libya's coast and inland, NATO comes under fire for not doing enough to help protect civilians.

  The fighters are reinforced by frantic diplomatic work behind the scenes, as protests continue in the streets of Benghazi.

  Al Jazeera's Stefanie Dekker wraps up today's events in Libya.

• Timestamp: 

  8:20pm

  Anti-Gaddafi fighters have asked France, Italy and Qatar for weapons, says Transitional Council spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga.

  We have submitted a list of military and technical equipment we need ...

  Obviously we've been asking the countries that have already recognised the national transitional council as the sole representative for Libya.

• Timestamp: 

  7:15pm

  Qatar has marketed a million barrels of crude oil on behalf of Libya's Transitional National Council - including two shipments from Tobruk - and has delivered four shipments of petroleum products - including diesel, gasoline and LPG Butane, to the eastern port of Benghazi.

  An official at Qatar's Ministry of Energy and Industry said the shipments to Benghai were delivered swiftly through the seaport "after intensive deliberations with concerned consumers, to provide quick assistance to the Libyan people".

  Qatar will continue to offer support to to the Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO) in marketing and selling Libyan oil, the official told Qatar News Agency.

• Timestamp: 

  6:55pm

  An anti-Gaddafi fighter escorts his son away from the front line at the western entrance of Ajdabiya, earlier today.

  

  [Photo: Reuters]

• Timestamp: 

  6:05pm

  More on that last line: Ali Al Isawi, of Libya's National Transitional Council, tells reporters at an EU meeting in Luxembourg:

  We have now about 10,000 killed by Gaddafi soldiers, we have about 20,000 persons missing and about 30,000 injured - 7,000 of them seriously injured with their lives endangered.

  We want more efforts regarding protection of civilians against this aggression.

• Timestamp: 

  5:42pm

  Gaddafi's forces have killed 10,000 people since the uprising in Libya began, with 30,000 wounded and 20,000 missing, an unidentified official from the Transitional National Council tells the AFP news agency. 

• Timestamp: 

  5:35pm

  Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi's former foreign minister and spy chief, is on his way to Qatar to meet officials from the Libyan Transitional National Council ahead of an international summit in Doha tomorrow.

  He is not expected to participate in the meeting of the Libyan Contact Group, but will hol meetings on the sidelines, it is understood.

  Naturally, we'll bring you anything we hear from that meeting on tomorrow's liveblog... 

• Timestamp: 

  5:32pm

  The "Circassians of the Caucasus", a Russian minority group, is reportedly waiting for a reply from Gaddafi after volunteering to join his army.

  Originally from the volatile North Causasus region, a 19th century Tsarist military campaign caused many to flee their homeland, says Reuters, with large diaspora in Syria, Turkey - and Libya.  Aslan Beshto, who helped draft this letter, said:

  We wanted to pay back our debt to Libya for accepting Circassians who fled to the country during the Russo-Circassian War.

  Reuters adds that some 7million Circassians are spread across the world, and about 700,000 remain in the northwest Caucasus. Circassian groups count 30,000 of their kinsmen in Libya, with 20,000 and 10,000 living in the rebel-held towns of Misurata and Benghazi respectively.

• Timestamp: 

  5:08pm

  NATO has not asked the United States to resume "strike sorties" or to "amplify" its military role in Libya, the Pentagon tells Reuters.

• Timestamp: 

  5:05pm

  Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from the western entrance of Ajdabiya - which came under fire earlier today - tells us:

  There are pockets of resistance of Gaddafi's forces all around. The front line is changing all the time, but we are told by some of the people here they believe their fighters have reached Brega, however, I cannot confirm this.

  They also say there has been NATO strikes on Gaddafi troops further down the road, but I can't confirm that either.

• Timestamp: 

  5:02pm

  Anti-Gaddafi fighters tell Reuters they have repelled attacks in two districts of Misurata after heavy shelling and street-to-street fighting there.

• Timestamp: 

  4:48pm

  An injured anti-Gaddafi fighter keeps watch along the front line near the western entrance of Ajdabiya.

  

  [Picture: Reuters]

• Timestamp: 

  4:43pm

  A NATO general has disagreed with the French and UK foreign ministers' assessment of the situation in Libya.

  Dutch Brigadier General Mark Van Uhm said the alliance was successfully enforcing an arms embargo
  against Libya, patrolling a no-fly zone and protecting civilians. He told reporters at NATO headquarters:

  I think, with the assets we have, we're doing a great job.

• Timestamp: 

  4:29pm

  Sue Turton adds:

  Misurata is really bearing the brunt because that is still very much a populated city and we're seeing all sorts of images of children being caught up and injured, being operated on in hospital because they have been shot at or have had shrapnel hit them.

  The saving grace for Ajdabiya is that it is a total ghost town now. People have managed to flee. It has been taken over so many times now, people have been able to leave. So when you come through it, you are not seeing families suffering.

• Timestamp: 

  4:19pm

  Shelling continues outside Ajdabiya. Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, at the city's western gate, tells us the area came under fire an hour ago:

  Exactly where those Gaddafi troops are that fired here, we're not quite sure. But there's a real feeling here of wondering who is going to blink first. It really feels though there is nothing going to change, with the constant to-ing and fro-ing, the fighting is not pushing anywhere near as far as it needs to if there was going to eb significant change in the position.

  People are looking out from here and thinking, well, if NATO aren't going to make the real difference by making a serious, serious amount of air strikes to change positions - and the diplomatic situation isn't improving ... then it's all stuck in stalemate - and somebody needs to make a difference.

• Timestamp: 

  4:15pm

  Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic tell us that opposition fighters have taken Zintan's western gate from Gaddafi's forces.

  They have also prevented Gaddafi's troops  from taking over the road between Nalut and Tunis.

• Timestamp: 

  4:00pm

  Doctors in Misurata tell Al Jazeera that shelling in the western Libyan city "was very bad yesterday: ten dead, including two children, with 40 injured."

• Timestamp: 

  2:02pm

  Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi bombarded the western entrance to the rebel-held town of Ajdabiyah in eastern Libya, a Reuters witness reported. The witness reported about eight blasts, apparently from artillery, around the western entrance. Ajdabiyah, which sits on a junction of routes that lead into the rebel-held east, has been a focus of fierce battles in the past two months.

• Timestamp: 

  1:44pm

  Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid with the latest on the battle for Misurata:

• Timestamp: 

  1:26pm

  Libya's former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa is traveling to Qatar to share his insight on the workings of Moammar Gaddafi's inner circle, a British government official said.

  Koussa has been asked to attend the conference on Libya being held in Doha as a valuable Gaddafi insider, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. MI6 agents stopped questioning Koussa last week, according to the official. 

  Koussa had been staying in a safehouse until late Monday night, according to Noman Benotman, an ex-member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and relative of Koussa who has been in regular contact with the former foreign minister since he fled to Britain. Although Koussa was provided with legal advice, Benotman said he believed he had "cleared most of the legal hurdles in the UK" surrounding his alleged involvement in the Lockerbie bombing and arming the IRA.

  Britain's Foreign Office confirmed the trip in a statement Tuesday, saying that Koussa was "traveling today to Doha to meet with the Qatari government and a range of other Libyan representatives".

• Timestamp: 

  1:25pm

  Rebels are defending the western gates of Ajdabiya as forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi continue to attack their positions. 

  Explosions could be seen less than 1.5km from the western gates as Gadhafi's forces shelled rebel lines. Rebels believe Gaddafi's forces could attack the western entrance to Ajdabiya from Brega, currently in government hands. 

   

• Timestamp: 

  12:45pm

  NATO must intensify its efforts in Libya to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said, echoing his French counterpart Alain Juppe.

  "We must maintain and intensify our efforts in NATO," Hague told reporters on arrival at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg, when asked about criticism of the Western military alliance's campaign in Libya.

  That is why the United Kingdom has in the last weeks supplied additional aircraft capable of striking ground targets threatening the civilian population ... of course it would be welcome if other countries also did the same.

• Timestamp: 

  12:20pm

  Captured rebel Libyan fighters have been found shot in the head with their hands tied behind their backs, Amnesty International said, adding it has strong evidence of other human rights abuses. Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had also deliberately killed unarmed protesters and attacked civilians fleeing fighting, Amnesty said, citing evidence gathered by its delegates in eastern Libya over the past six weeks.

  The rights group said Gaddafi's troops appeared to have executed captured rebel fighters close to the town of Ajdabiyah. Its researchers in eastern Libya had in recent days seen the bodies of two opposition fighters who had been shot in the back of the head after their hands had been bound behind their backs.

  Amnesty said it had received credible reports of four similar cases, where bodies of captured fighters were reportedly found with their hands tied behind their backs and multiple gunshot wounds to the upper parts of their bodies. Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

  The circumstances of these killings strongly suggest that they were carried out by the forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi.

• Timestamp: 

  11:57am

  Libya's state-run television says a NATO air strike on the town of Kikla, south of the capital Tripoli, killed a number of civilians and members of the police force. Al-Jamahiriya channel did not give details on the number of casualties in the incident that occurred yesterday.

• Timestamp: 

  8:55am

  In his first public statement since he fled Tripoli and arrived in Britain, ex-foreign minister Moussa Koussa called on Gaddafi and the country's opposition to show restraint.

  I ask everybody, all the parties, to work to avoid taking Libya into a civil war. This will lead to bloodshed and make Libya a new Somalia.

  Koussa has spent almost two weeks at an undisclosed location in interviews with British intelligence officers and diplomats. He also strongly rejects any division of the country.

  The unity of Libya is essential to any solution and any settlement in Libya.

  Britain's Foreign Office said Koussa was not being detained by authorities, but have repeatedly declined to discuss the details of his debriefings or comment on his whereabouts.

• Timestamp: 

  8:49am

  The African Union urges Libyan rebels to "cooperate fully" after they rejected the truce plan presented by the continental body.

• Timestamp: 

  8:43am

  NATO is not doing enough to protect civilians in Libya, Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister said on France Info radio:

  NATO must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in operations, we accepted that. It must play its role today which means preventing that Gaddafi uses heavy weapons to bomb populations.

• Timestamp: 

  7:09am

  Al Jazeera's Laurence Lee, reporting from Benghazi, said that the Red Cross is having a hard time setting up an office in Tripoli. 

  ...(They've) apparently been told that if they want to open a humanitarian corridor to Misurata, and they're seen to be aiding fighters, then that would be seen as an act of war by Tripoli.

• Timestamp: 

  5:41am

  It looks like ceasefire talks have collapsed for the moment as rebels say that the siege of Misurata by pro-Gaddafi forces make such talks meaningless. Reuters news agency reports:

  Rebels in the coastal city of Misurata, under siege for six weeks, scorned reports that Gaddafi had accepted a ceasefire, saying they were fighting house-to-house battles with his forces, who fired rockets into the city.

  Western leaders also rejected any deal that did not include Gaddafi's removal, and NATO refused to suspend its bombing of his forces unless there was a credible ceasefire.

• Timestamp: 

  11:35pm

  Meanwhile, over in Washington DC, Ali Aujali, a representative of the Libyan National Council, paid a visit to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI).

  Here he's chatting with none other than Paul Wolfowitz, who we all remember for his time as a member of the Bush Administration.[EPA]

• Timestamp: 

  11:23pm

  Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the Libyan interim governing council in Benghazi, second from right, with members of the visiting African Union delegation in Benghazi.

  [Photo: GALLO/GETTY]

  See our comprehensive coverage about how their proposal was not as well-received by the rebels as they had hoped.

   

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