History > 2011 > USA > International (XI)

Yemen's Saleh to quit

but activists say protests go on

SANAA | Sat Apr 23, 2011
7:55pm EDT
Reuters
By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to step down within weeks in return for immunity from prosecution, putting him on course to become the third veteran Arab leader toppled this year by street unrest.

Protesters, who have taken to the streets in their tens of thousands for months to demand the end of his nearly 33-year rule, said they would not stop street demonstrations until he leaves office once and for all.

Scores of demonstrators demanding Saleh's overthrow have been killed in months of unrest among young Yemenis inspired by the wave of rebellion across North Africa and the Middle East that brought down the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt.

"There is still one month until the president resigns and we expect him at any moment to change his mind," said activist Mohammed Sharafi. "We will not leave the arena until Saleh goes and we achieve our goals of setting up a modern, federal state."

Ibrahim al-Ba'adani, an opposition activist in the city of Ibb, said he was "surprised" that the formal opposition had accepted the principle of immunity for Saleh.

"We will continue sit-ins until the president goes," he said.

Yemen, with 23 million people, is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, and demonstrators accuse Saleh of corruption and mismanagement during his decades in power. He took power in North Yemen in 1978 and presided over its unification with the separate state of South Yemen in 1990.

In recent years he has positioned himself as an ally of the United States against al Qaeda, while also battling Shi'ite rebels in the north of the country and separatists in the south.

His opponents accused him of using the country's perpetual security crisis to entrench his inner circle. Harsh crackdowns on street demonstrations only further angered the protesters.

WASHINGTON WELCOMES ANNOUNCEMENT

After years of backing Saleh as a bulwark against instability and the activities of al Qaeda's active Yemeni branch, powerful neighbor Saudi Arabia and the United States had begun pressing him to negotiate to hand over power.

"We encourage all parties to move swiftly to implement the terms of the agreement so that the Yemeni people can soon realize the security, unity and prosperity that they have so courageously sought and so richly deserve," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

The plan drawn up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) grouping of Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, proposed that Saleh hand over power to his vice-president a month after an agreement was signed with the opposition. He would be granted immunity from prosecution for himself, family and aides.

"The president and the (ruling) GPC party agree with this initiative with all its items," Deputy Information Minister Abdoh al-Janady told reporters on Saturday. "Under this final approval, there are no reservations."

The opposition coalition said on Saturday it had agreed to the main elements of the plan, although opposition leaders had rejected a proposal to join a national unity government.

"The opposition welcomes the initiative with the exception of the formation of a national unity government," said opposition chairman Yassin Noman.

Yemen is an aid-dependent state overwhelmed by rapid population growth, the shrinking of its oil reserves and a severe water crisis.

Earlier on Saturday, Saleh called on young people to form a political party according to the constitution.

"They (the opposition) want to drag the area to civil war, and we refuse to be dragged to civil war," Saleh said.

"Security, safety and stability are in Yemen's interests and the interests of the region."

(Writing by Andrew Roche and Peter Graff)

Yemen's Saleh to quit but activists say protests go on, R, 23.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/23/us-yemen-idUSTRE73L1PP20110423

Factbox:

Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh

Sat Apr 23, 2011
7:25pm EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed Saturday to step down in weeks in return for immunity from prosecution, becoming the third veteran Arab leader this year to be toppled by a wave of public revolts.

Here are some facts about Yemen's long-serving leader:

* SALEH AS PRESIDENT:

-- Saleh, in power for more than three decades, uses internal conflicts with Houthi Shi'ite rebels in the north, Marxist rebels in the south and al-Qaeda operatives to the east to draw in foreign aid and military support and solidify his power base. Al Qaeda has already used Yemen to attempt attacks in Saudi Arabia and the United States in the past two years.

-- Saleh presided over the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990 and has been fighting to prevent Yemen sliding into becoming a failed state.

-- He was elected president by parliament in October 1994, and first directly elected president in September 1999, winning 96.3 percent of the vote. Most recently, he was re-elected in September 2006 to a seven-year term.

-- A string of Saleh's allies have defected to the protesters, who are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment. Some 40 percent of the population live on $2 a day or less, and one third face chronic hunger.

-- Born in March 1942 into a tribe living near Sanaa, he received only limited education before taking up a military career, beginning in 1958 as a non-commissioned officer.

-- His first break came when North Yemen President Ahmed al-Ghashmi, who came from the same Hashed tribe as Saleh, appointed him military governor of Taiz, North Yemen's second city. When Ghashmi was killed by a bomb in 1978, Saleh replaced him as leader of the North.

-- However, the severity of his rule aggravated tension with the South, and sporadic clashes escalated into open conflict between the two states in 1979. The brief war went badly for Saleh.

-- However Saleh was seen as a survivor. He crushed an attempt to overthrow him only months after he took power in North Yemen, and swept to victory when southerners tried to secede from united Yemen in 1994.

-- Saleh has made many verbal concessions during the recent protests, promising last month to step down in 2013 without bequeathing power to his son and offering a new constitution giving more powers to parliament. But until now he had rejected opposition plans for a quicker transition.

Sources: Reuters/Globalsecurity.com

Factbox: Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh, 23.4.2011,

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/23/us-yemen-saleh-profile-idUSTRE73M2M020110423

U.S. backs peaceful settlement

of Honduran conflicts

WASHINGTON | Sat Apr 23, 2011
12:25am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed strong support on Friday for efforts to resolve political and safety challenges in Honduras, divided by the aftermath of a coup in 2009.

Clinton and President Porfirio Lobo spoke by telephone about "political and citizen safety challenges" in Honduras and her strong support of work by Lobo and the Honduran people to address the challenges, said a State Department official.

"Secretary Clinton also conveyed her commitment to seeing Honduras readmitted to the OAS (Organization of American States) and rejoin the Inter-American community of democratic states," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Lobo was elected president following the June 2009 military coup that deposed Manuel Zelaya. There are reports of increased crime and drug trafficking amid the civic dissension that followed the coup. Zelaya reportedly plans to return to Honduras in May.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; editing by Anthony Boadle)

    U.S. backs peaceful settlement of Honduran conflicts, R, 23.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/23/us-honduras-usa-idUSTRE73M0B520110423

Libyan troops say leaving Misrata, rebels claim victory

MISRATA, Libya | Sat Apr 23, 2011
10:20am EDT
By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan troops captured by rebels in Misrata said on Saturday the army had been ordered to retreat from the western port, and a rebel spokesman said soldiers had booby trapped bodies and buildings as they fled.

The last large city held by rebels in western Libya, Misrata had been under a brutal government siege for nearly two months and hundreds of civilians have died in the fighting.

"We have been told to withdraw. We were told to withdraw yesterday," one army soldier, Khaled Dorman, told Reuters.

Lying in the back of a pickup truck, he was among 12 wounded soldiers brought to a hospital for treatment in Misrata, which is about 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli. Blasts and machine gun fire were heard in the distance.

Another serviceman, asked by a Reuters correspondent if the government had lost control over Misrata, said "yes."

Rebel spokesman Gemal Salem later told Reuters by telephone from Misrata that Muammar Gaddafi's forces had left the city but remained outside and would be in a position to bombard it.

"Misrata is free, the rebels have won. Of Gaddafi's forces, some are killed and others are running away," he said.

Salem said the rebels in Misrata would now help those elsewhere in western Libya against Gaddafi's forces, who cracked down on the west early on in the uprising against the Libyan leader's 41-year-old rule after the east fell to the rebels.

The Libyan government acknowledged late on Friday the siege had been broken when rebels seized the port and air strikes had taken their toll. "The tactic of the Libyan army is to have a surgical solution, but it doesn't work, with the air strikes it doesn't work," Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said.

"The situation in Misrata will be eased, will be dealt with by the tribes around Misrata and the rest of Misrata's people and not by the Libyan army," he told reporters in Tripoli.

Another rebel spokesman in Misrata, Abdelsalam, said pro-Gaddafi tribes were in a minority in the area:

"There are two small pro-Gaddafi settlements outside Misrata. They make less than one percent of the population of Misrata and the surrounding area."

"Those people know that when Gaddafi's regime falls, they will fall with it," he added, predicting the government would boost their strength by paying mercenaries to pose as tribesmen.

Salem said rebels were now combing Misrata and clearing the streets. Before leaving, he said, Gaddafi's forces had booby-trapped bodies, houses and cars.

"One man was opening his fridge when he went to his house after the Gaddafi forces left it this morning and it blew up in his face. Bodies the same. When the rebels are trying to lift a body it blows up," he said.

"We have had three people killed because of that and 15 wounded."

Libyan troops say leaving Misrata, rebels claim victory, R, 23.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/23/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110423

Syria buries scores of dead;

more protests due

AMMAN | Sat Apr 23, 2011
12:26am EDT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Scores of pro-democracy protesters killed by security forces will be buried across Syria in funerals expected to attract large crowds on Saturday and fuel mounting defiance against authoritarian rule.

A group of activists coordinating the demonstrations said regular forces and gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad shot dead at least 88 civilians on Friday. Rights groups had earlier put the death toll at a minimum of 70.

The Local Coordination Committees activist group sent Reuters a list with names of 88 people classified by region. The group said they were killed in areas stretching from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus and the southern village of Izra'a.

It was by far the bloodiest day yet in a month of demonstrations demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption in the country of 20 million people.

"The funerals will turn into vehement protests, like past funerals," a Syrian human rights campaigner said.

"When you have security services who are thugs it is difficult to think that they will not shoot at the crowds. Another cycle of funerals and demonstrations is likely to follow," the rights campaigner said from the Syrian capital.

President Barack Obama condemned Friday's violence and accused Assad of seeking help from Iran.

"This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said in a statement. "Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens...."

France's Foreign Ministry said Paris was "deeply concerned."

"Syrian authorities must give up the use of violence against their citizens. We again call on them to commit without delay to an inclusive political dialogue and to achieve the reforms legitimately demanded by the Syrian people."

Those killed were among tens of thousands of people who have taken to the streets of cities and rural areas across Syria calling for the overthrow of the regime, demands which have hardened over recent weeks.

ACTIVISTS SAY LIFTING OF EMERGENCY INSUFFICIENT

Friday's protests went ahead despite Assad's decision this week to lift the country's hated emergency law, in place since his Baath Party seized power 48 years ago.

A statement by the Local Coordination Committees said the end of emergency law was futile without the release of thousands of political prisoners -- most held without trial -- and the dismantling of the security apparatus.

In their first joint statement since the protests erupted last month, the activists said the abolition of the Baath Party's monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system was central to ending repression in Syria.

Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Assad, 45, has absolute power, having ignored demands to transform the anachronistic autocratic system he inherited when he succeeded his late father, Preident Hafez al-Assad, in 2000.

Friday's violence brings the death toll to about 300, according to rights activists, since the unrest which broke out on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa.

Protests swept the country on Friday, from the Mediterranean city of Banias to the eastern cities of Deir al-Zor and Qamishli. In Damascus, security forces fired teargas to disperse 2,000 protesters in the district of Midan.

Amnesty International said Syrian authorities "have again responded to peaceful calls for change with bullets and batons."

"They must immediately halt their attacks on peaceful protesters and instead allow Syrians to gather freely as international law demands," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director.

Syrian television said eight people were killed and 28 wounded, including army personnel, in attacks by armed groups in Izra'a. It said an armed group had attacked a military base in the Damascus suburb of Muadhamiya.

Syria buries scores of dead; more protests due, R, 23.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/23/us-syria-protests-idUSTRE73L1SJ20110423

Almost 90 dead

in Syria's bloodiest day of unrest

AMMAN | Fri Apr 22, 2011
7:12pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian security forces killed almost 90 protesters Friday, rights activists said, the bloodiest day in a month of escalating pro-democracy demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Local Coordination Committees sent Reuters a list with the names of 88 people, classified by region, the group said were killed in areas stretching from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus and the southern village of Izra'a.

It was not possible to independently confirm the figures.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the violence and accused Assad of seeking help from Iran.

"This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said in a statement.

"Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies."

That was an apparent reference to the suppression of anti-government protests in Iran, the biggest since the 1979 Islamic revolution, that erupted after a disputed 2009 presidential election.

Tens of thousands of people had taken to the streets of cities across Syria in the biggest demonstrations to sweep the country so far, and called for the "overthrow of the regime."

That reflected the hardening of demands which initially focused on reforms and greater freedoms.

The protests went ahead despite Assad's lifting of the state of emergency the day before. Ending the hated emergency rule, in place since the Baath Party seized power 48 years ago, was a central demand of demonstrators, who also seek the release of political prisoners and dismantling of the security services.

"This was the first test of the seriousness of authorities (toward reform) and they have failed," activist Ammar Qurabi said.

Washington urged Syria to stop the violence against protesters and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said emergency law should be "lifted in practice not just in word."

Friday's violence brings the death toll to about 300, according to rights activists, since the unrest which broke out on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa.

Activists cited the highest toll in the nearby village of Izra'a where protesters had been trying to head for Deraa. Residents said 14 people were killed.

"Izra'a is in the dark. No mobile phones or landlines working. People have been talking from villages near to Izra'a but not in the town," said Wissam Tarif of human rights organization, Insan.

Syrian television said eight people were killed and 28 wounded, including army personnel, in attacks by armed groups in the village. It added an armed group had attacked a military base in the Damascus suburb of Muadhamiya.

Amnesty International said it had been told of 75 deaths, including two children and a 70-year-old man.

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, urged the authorities to stop the violence: "They must also immediately launch an independent investigation into what happened and ensure that any security forces found to have carried out these killings are brought to justice."

As in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, citizens are rebelling against both a lack of freedom and opportunity and security forces' impunity and corruption that has enriched the elite while one-third of Syrians live below the poverty line.

In the first joint statement since the protests broke out, the activists coordinating the demonstrations Friday demanded the abolition of the Baath Party monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system.

Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Assad, 45, has absolute power in Syria.

PROTESTS ACROSS COUNTRY

Protests swept the country of 20 million people, from the Mediterranean city of Banias to the eastern towns of Deir al-Zor and Qamishli. In Damascus, security forces fired teargas to disperse 2,000 protesters in the district of Midan.

In Hama, where Assad's father crushed an armed Islamist revolt in 1982, a witness said security forces opened fire to prevent protesters reaching the Baath Party headquarters.

"We saw two snipers on the building. None of us had weapons. There are casualties, possibly two dead," said the witness.

Syria's third city Homs, where security forces had killed 21 protesters this week when demonstrators tried to gather at a main square, was not spared Friday either.

"I was in the center of Homs and in front of me I heard a security commander telling his armed men: 'Don't spare them (protesters),'" rights campaigner Najati Tayara told Reuters.

Witnesses said security forces also shot at protesters in the Damascus district of Barzeh and the suburb of Douma.

Al Jazeera showed footage of three corpses, wrapped in white burial shrouds, which it said were from the eastern Damascus suburb of Zamalka.

Ahead of the main weekly prayers Friday, which have often turned out to be launch pads for major demonstrations, the army deployed in Homs and police put up checkpoints across Damascus, apparently trying to prevent protests sweeping in from suburbs.

After prayers finished in Deraa, several thousand protesters gathered chanting anti-Assad slogans. "The Syrian people will not be subjugated. Go away doctor (Assad). We will trample on you and your slaughterous regime," they shouted.

Assad's conciliatory move to lift the state of emergency followed a familiar pattern since the unrest began a month ago: pledges of reform are made before Friday when demonstrations are the strongest, usually followed by an intense crackdown.

Activists said some funerals for those killed Friday took place in Damascus suburbs in the evening. Funerals have been another platform for protesters in recent weeks and security forces have opened fire when mourners started demonstrating.

The authorities have blamed armed groups, infiltrators and Sunni Muslim militant organizations for provoking violence at demonstrations by firing on civilians and security forces.

Western and other Arab countries have mostly muted their criticism of the killings in Syria for fear of destabilizing the country, which plays a strategic role in many of the conflicts in the Middle East.

 

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Yara Bayoumy and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Sami Aboudi in Cairo, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland aboard Air Force One, Adrian Croft in London; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Jon Boyle)

Almost 90 dead in Syria's bloodiest day of unrest, R, 22.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-syria-protests-idUSTRE73L1SJ20110422

Obama blasts Syria's Assad

for "outrageous" violence

WASHINGTON | Fri Apr 22, 2011
6:34pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama called on the Syrian government on Friday to stop using "outrageous" violence against demonstrators and accused President Bashar al-Assad of seeking help from Iran.

"This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," Obama said in a statement.

"Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies."

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland)

Obama blasts Syria's Assad for "outrageous" violence, R, 22.4.2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-syria-usa-obama-statement-idUSTRE73L47I20110422

Crowds rally in Yemen

for and against Saleh

SANAA | Fri Apr 22, 2011
5:05pm EDT
By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemenis flooded the streets of Sanaa and Taiz on Friday in rival demonstrations for and against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who gave a guarded welcome to a Gulf Arab plan for a three-month transition of power.

He told supporters in Sanaa any arrangements had to be "within the framework of the Yemen constitution" -- language which could mask objections to the plan -- and also vowed to "confront challenge with challenge," but without bloodshed.

"Guns can be used today but you cannot use them to rule tomorrow. We reject war," Saleh declared.

Ten soldiers were killed in three attacks by tribesmen and al Qaeda militants in several provinces, officials said.

In the southern city of Taiz, riot police fired in the air to keep vast, unruly crowds of pro and anti-Saleh demonstrators apart, but there were no serious injuries, witnesses said.

A sea of anti-Saleh protesters, perhaps in the hundreds of thousands, inundated the streets of Taiz, Yemen's third city and an epicenter of opposition to the 69-year-old president.

But in Yemen's northwestern city of Hajja, a 12-year-old boy was shot dead when security forces opened fire to prevent a crowd of anti-government protesters entering the city, witnesses told Reuters by telephone.

Tens of thousands of Saleh loyalists turned out in Sanaa, the capital, for what they called a "Friday of Reconciliation," waving Yemeni flags and pictures of the president.

Their numbers were matched by protesters demanding Saleh's immediate departure, spilling out of their usual protest area around Sanaa University to mark a "Last Chance Friday" in nearby Siteen street, where there was a heavy security presence.

That raised concern that Saleh's security forces and republican guards might clash with troops loyal to renegade general Ali Mohsen, protecting the protesters in Sanaa.

Demonstrators voiced skepticism about the latest Gulf plan aimed at halting Yemen's descent into more violence and chaos.

The proposal of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) calls for Saleh to hand power to his vice president one month after signing an agreement. He would appoint an opposition leader to lead an interim cabinet tasked with preparing for presidential elections two months later, a Yemeni official said.

IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION

The plan, presented on Thursday, also gives immunity from prosecution to Saleh, his family and aides -- anathema to his foes, who would also have to end protests under the proposal.

"We won't depend on any initiative that doesn't demand that this man leaves right away," said protester Manea Abdullah. "We are sticking to the demands of the revolution for an immediate departure and prosecution of those who killed our comrades."

Saleh's long-time Gulf and Western allies, concerned that chaos in Yemen will open more opportunities for ambitious al Qaeda militants, are trying to broker an orderly transition after three months of protests against Saleh's 32-year rule.

Protests in the southern port of Aden started up later in the evening on Friday, as thousands of demonstrators calling for Saleh's departure sought to avoid temperatures of over 40 degrees celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

While organized opposition parties may still be ready to do a deal, many protesters do not trust Saleh to implement it.

"This guy is a liar, we won't believe anything even if the opposition accepts the Gulf initiative," said Abdulnasser Ahmed.

"Every time he agrees to something, then backs off. We know his ways and so does the rest of the world. That's why the world should support our demands that he go."

In the lawless eastern province of Maarib, a local official said anti-Saleh tribesmen had ambushed troops trying to secure a key route for gas shipments, killing two soldiers, wounding 18 and destroying a tank and an armored vehicle.

Tribesmen disrupting the main road from Sanaa to Maarib, where most of Yemen's gas is produced, have made it impossible for trucks to distribute cooking gas to the rest of the country.

Shortages have quadrupled cooking gas prices on the black market to 5,000 rials ($20) from 1,200. Infuriated residents have blocked roads in some Sanaa districts with empty gas bottles. The crisis has prompted others to join anti-Saleh protests, where they have scrawled "Leave" on gas canisters.

Prolonged turmoil has driven the rial to near-record lows of around 250 to the dollar from 214 nine weeks ago. It has become harder to find outlets ready to sell dollars, residents say.

Violence involving suspected al Qaeda militants also flared on Friday, with seven soldiers killed when their convoy came under fire in Maarib, a government official said.

One soldier was killed and another wounded when the army clashed with gunmen thought to belong to al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing tried to seize a post office in Zinjibar, in the southeastern province of Abyan. The armed men later sped away on motorcycles.

The toll in a Thursday night clash in the southern province of Lahej rose to five soldiers killed and three wounded, according to a local official. Two militants were also killed.

(Additional reporting

by Mohammed Mukhashaf in Aden

and Erika Solomon in Dubai;

writing by Alistair Lyon;

editing by Philippa Fletcher)

    Crowds rally in Yemen for and against Saleh, G, 22.4.2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-yemen-idUSTRE73L1PP20110422

Dozens killed

in Syria's bloodiest day of protests

AMMAN | Fri Apr 22, 2011
2:14pm EDT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian security forces shot dead dozens of protesters on Friday, rights activists said, the bloodiest day in a month of escalating demonstrations against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

Activist Ammar Qurabi said at least 49 people were killed in unrest which swept the country, mainly from bullet wounds but also from inhaling tear gas. Many more were wounded and around 20 were still missing, he said.

It was not possible to independently confirm the figures.

Tens of thousands of people had taken to the streets of cities across Syria and chanted for the "overthrow of the regime," reflecting the hardening of demands which initially focused on reforms and greater freedoms.

The protests went ahead despite Assad's lifting of the state of emergency the day before. Ending the hated emergency rule, in place since the Baath Party seized power 48 years ago, was a central demand of demonstrators, who also seek the release of political prisoners and dismantling of the security services.

"This was the first test of the seriousness of authorities (toward reform) and they have failed," Qurabi said.

Before Friday's violence rights groups had said more than 220 people had been killed in the unrest which broke out on March 18 in the southern city of Deraa.

As in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions that ousted Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, citizens are rebelling against both a lack of freedom and opportunity and security forces' impunity and corruption that has enriched the elite while one-third of Syrians live below the poverty line.

In the first joint statement since the protests broke out, activists coordinating the demonstrations on Friday demanded the abolition of the Baath Party monopoly on power and the establishment of a democratic political system.

"All prisoners of conscience must be freed. The existing security apparatus has to be dismantled and replaced by one with specific jurisdiction and which operates according to law," they said in the statement, which was sent to Reuters.

Aided by his family and a pervasive security apparatus, Assad, 45, has absolute power in Syria.

PROTESTS ACROSS COUNTRY

Protests swept the country of 20 million people, from the Mediterranean city of Banias to the eastern towns of Deir al-Zor and Qamishli. In Damascus, security forces fired teargas to disperse 2,000 protesters in the district of Midan.

In the city of Hama, where Assad's father ruthlessly crushed an armed Islamist uprising nearly 30 years ago, a witness said security forces opened fire to prevent protesters reaching the Baath Party headquarters.

"We saw two snipers on the building. None of us had weapons. There are casualties, possibly two dead," said the witness.

Witnesses said security forces also shot at demonstrators in the Damascus district of Barzeh, the central city of Homs, the Damascus suburb of Douma, and on protesters heading for the city of Deraa, where Syria's uprising first broke out five weeks ago.

Al Jazeera showed footage of three corpses, wrapped in white burial shrouds, which it said were from the eastern Damascus suburb of Zamalka.

Ahead of the main weekly prayers on Friday, which have often turned out to be launch pads for major demonstrations, the army deployed in Homs and police put up checkpoints across Damascus, apparently trying to prevent protests sweeping in from suburbs.

After prayers finished in Deraa, several thousand protesters gathered chanting anti-Assad slogans. "The Syrian people will not be subjugated. Go away doctor (Assad). We will trample on you and your slaughterous regime," they shouted.

Assad's conciliatory move to lift the state of emergency followed a familiar pattern since the unrest began a month ago: pledges of reform are made before Friday when demonstrations are the strongest, usually followed by an intense crackdown.

Activists said some funerals for those killed on Friday took place in Damascus suburbs in the evening. Funerals have been another platform for protesters in recent weeks and security forces have opened fire when mourners started demonstrating.

The authorities have blamed armed groups, infiltrators and Sunni Muslim militant organisations for provoking violence at demonstrations by firing on civilians and security forces.

Western and other Arab countries have mostly muted their criticism of the killings in Syria for fear of destabilizing the country, which plays a strategic role in many of the conflicts in the Middle East.

 

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Yara Bayoumy and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Sami Aboudi in Cairo; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Diana Abdallah)

    Dozens killed in Syria's bloodiest day of protests, R, 22.4.2011
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-syria-protests-idUSTRE73L1SJ20110422

U.S. drone strike kills 25

in Pakistan's North Waziristan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan | Fri Apr 22, 2011
3:56am EDT
Reuters

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Four missiles fired by two suspected U.S. pilotless aircraft hit a house in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan on the Afghan border on Friday, killing 25 militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The drone strike happened in Mir Ali, a town about 35 kilometers (20 miles) east of the region's main town of Miranshah.

An intelligence official in the region, who requested not to be identified, told Reuters that the house was being used as a militant hideout.

"They (the militants) have surrounded the area where the attack happened and are not allowing anybody to go there," he said, adding 25 bodies had been recovered from the rubble and three women were among those killed.

Another official said some foreign militants were among the dead, but that their numbers and nationalities could not confirmed.

The strike came two days after a visit to Islamabad by Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military official, in which he expressed concern over continuing links between Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, and militants attacking U.S.-led forces across the border in Afghanistan.

North Waziristan is a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.

The United States has been using drone attacks to target al Qaeda-linked militants over the past few years in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, a source of concern for the Pakistan government, which says civilian casualties stoke public anger and bolster support for militancy.

(Reporting by Haji Mujtaba; Writing by Kamran Haider;

Editing by Rebecca Conway and Alex Richardson)

    U.S. drone strike kills 25 in Pakistan's North Waziristan, 22.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-pakistan-drone-idUSTRE73L0AF20110422

U.S. sends drones to Libya as battle rages for Misrata

MISRATA, Libya | Fri Apr 22, 2011
3:46am EDT
By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - The United States has started using armed drones against Muammar Gaddafi's troops, who battled rebels at close quarters on the streets of Misrata, despite Western threats to step up a month-old air war.

Rebels welcomed the deployment of U.S. unmanned aircraft and said they hoped the move would protect civilians.

Doctors at the hospital in Misrata, the rebels' last major bastion in the West of the country, said nine insurgents were killed in fighting on Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Washington news conference President Barack Obama had authorized the use of Predator drones and they were already in operation.

General James Cartwright, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first two Predators were sent to Libya on Thursday but had to turn back because of bad weather.

The United States planned to maintain two patrols of armed Predators above Libya at any given time, Cartwright said.

The drones have proven a potent weapon in Pakistan and other areas where U.S. forces have no troops on the ground. They can stay aloft nearly perpetually without being noticed from the ground and hit targets with missiles, with no risk to crew.

"There's no doubt that will help protect civilians and we welcome that step from the American administration," Rebel spokesman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga said on Al Jazeera television.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Gaddafi's forces were carrying out "vicious attacks" on Misrata and might have used cluster bombs against civilians.

 

PRO-GADDAFI SNIPERS

Hundreds of people are believed to have died in Misrata during its siege. At the hospital, ambulances raced in carrying wounded fighters. Doctors said that four of the nine rebels killed died in a fierce battle around the Tripoli Street thoroughfare.

Rebel Salman al-Mabrouk said a group came under fire when they tried to enter a building occupied by pro-Gaddafi snipers.

"We suddenly discovered they had surrounded us on all sides and they opened fire. It seems many government soldiers were inside buildings around the one where we tried to get into."

Rebel fighters voiced frustration with an international military operation they see as too cautious.

"NATO has been inefficient in Misrata. NATO has completely failed to change things on the ground," rebel spokesman Abdelsalam said.

Food and medical supplies were running out and there were long queues for petrol. Electricity was cut so residents depended on generators. Thousands of stranded foreign migrant workers awaited rescue in the port area.

 

"MISSION CREEP"

France said it would send up to 10 military advisers to Libya and Britain plans to dispatch up to a dozen officers to help rebels improve organization and communications. Italy is considering sending a small military training team.

Tripoli denounced such moves and some commentators warned of "mission creep," after assurances by Western leaders that they would not put "boots on the ground" in Libya.

Russia said the sending of advisers exceeded the U.N. Security Council mandate to protect civilians.

"We are not happy about the latest events in Libya, which are pulling the international community into a conflict on the ground. This may have unpredictable consequences," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Libyan authorities to stop fighting, saying during a visit to Moscow that the priority of the United Nations was to secure a ceasefire.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has spearheaded U.N.-backed NATO intervention, pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, on Wednesday.

The French Defense Ministry said on Thursday it had increased the number of its air sorties in the past week to 41 from an average of 30 since the start of the operation.

Libya urged rebels on Thursday to sit down to peace talks but said it was arming and training civilians to confront any possible ground attack by NATO forces.

"Many cities have organized themselves into squads to fight any possible NATO invasion," government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said, adding that authorities were handing out rifles and guns.

In Tripoli, Ibrahim told reporters the government welcomed ships coming to Misrata to pick up foreign workers. However, it would not accept international humanitarian aid arriving "with military cover."

    U.S. sends drones to Libya as battle rages for Misrata, G, 22.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/22/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110422

Egypt orders

"pharaoh" Mubarak's name stripped off

CAIRO | Thu Apr 21, 2011
5:39pm EDT
Reuters
By Miral Fahmy

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt Thursday took another step toward erasing the legacy of deposed president Hosni Mubarak by ordering his name, and that of his family, removed from public institutions across the nation.

Sycophantic officials seeking to curry Mubarak's favor had resorted to naming everything from streets to schools to military installations and remote, rural clinics after the authoritarian leader many Egyptians call a modern pharaoh.

Mass protests ended Mubarak's 30-year-rule in February, and a court Thursday ruled it was no longer acceptable for his name, and that of his wife and sons, to be so widely used.

"Officials in the previous administration had named a range of public institutions after Mubarak and his wife with the aim of pleasing him, and for a range of other embarrassing reasons," the court said in a statement after the ruling.

Outside the courtroom, pro-democracy activists celebrated the verdict with ululations and whoops of joy, as Mubarak supporters tried to drown them out with chants of: "Unlawful! Unlawful!"

The case had been brought to court by Samir Sabry, a celebrity lawyer who told Reuters after the verdict it was high time Egyptians stopped living under Mubarak's shadow.

Lawyers for Mubarak had said it was unacceptable to alter Egypt's history like this.

"For 30 years, we've been suffering from a ruling family that has now been accused of several crimes, including abuse of power and murder," Sabry said. "We need to move on."

MODERN PHARAOH

Nobody knows exactly how many public institutions and awards bear the names of the Mubarak family, but the number is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands. At least one Cairo metro station is named after him, and not the Pharaoh Ramses whose statue is only a few meters away.

The cabinet recently replaced the "Mubarak" in the name of a cultural award with "Nile," and the American University in Cairo also removed the name of Suzanne Mubarak, an alumnus, from one of its lecture halls.

The Egyptian practice of naming places after those in power harks back to ancient times, when pharaohs etched their names on public monuments, often on top of those of their predecessors.

It became even more rife during Mubarak's era when graft and nepotism riddled the administration. Investigations by the state prosecutor into the conduct of government officials has so far revealed gross abuses of power.

Once-ubiquitous portraits of the ex-president and his family have also been removed since the protests erupted on January 25, replaced by revolutionary graffiti and posters urging the people to cooperate with the military generals who now rule Egypt.

FORMER COMMANDER

The former head of the Armed Forces, Mubarak's name had been etched in marble plaques that decorate military buildings.

Both the military council and the interim government have been keen to prove to Egyptians they are serious about cracking down on graft and taking the former administration to task.

This month, the prosecutor ordered Mubarak, 82, detained for questioning into allegations that include corruption and murder.

His sons, Alaa and Gamal, and many other senior officials are being interrogated behind prison bars and a special panel formed to uncover ill-gotten gains will question Mubarak's daughters-in-law next week, the state news agency said.

Thursday, Egypt's public prosecutor ordered the authorities to inspect the medical facility in Cairo's Torah prison to determine whether it was equipped to receive Mubarak who remains in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh.

    Egypt orders "pharaoh" Mubarak's name stripped off, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-egypt-mubarak-idUSTRE73K7NN20110421

U.N. urges bold steps

to relaunch Mideast peace

UNITED NATIONS | Thu Apr 21, 2011
5:09pm EDT
By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations called on Thursday for "bold and decisive steps" to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the region awaits a possible new initiative by U.S. President Barack Obama.

U.N. political chief Lynn Pascoe and ambassadors of key Security Council countries said it was important to break the deadlock soon as a proclaimed September deadline for reaching an agreement draws closer.

Peace talks opened last September with the aim of an accord in one year but quickly broke down after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian leaders have said that if the deadline expires with no deal, they may seek U.N. backing for a Palestinian state -- a move that Israel and its big power ally the United States are keen to avoid.

"Bold and decisive steps are needed to resolve this decades-long conflict, with vision, leadership and responsibility from all concerned," Pascoe told a monthly meeting of the Security Council on the Middle East.

He said it was a matter of concern that "the political track is falling behind the significant progress" made by the Palestinian Authority in its preparations to become a functioning government ready for statehood.

A planned meeting of the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- has twice been called off in recent weeks.

European diplomats said the delays had been requested by the United States. Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Obama would lay out plans for a new U.S. push for Arab-Israeli peace in a speech to be made in coming weeks.

Netanyahu is expected to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress during a visit to Washington next month. He was invited by Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, one of Obama's chief critics.

 

STRONG LEADERSHIP

European countries believe the Palestinians could drop their push for U.N. recognition if "parameters" are announced for fresh peace talks. Diplomats said they had been hoping the Quartet would announce them, but now hoped Obama might do so.

The parameters, spelled out in a British-French-German statement to the Security Council in February, include: Palestinian and Israeli states based on 1967 borders but amended by land swaps, security arrangements for both sides, Jerusalem as capital of both states, and a refugee solution.

German Ambassador Peter Wittig told Thursday's council meeting that his country was looking forward to Obama's speech and that "strong U.S. leadership is required." French Ambassador Gerard Araud said "the time has passed for imagining new interim solutions."

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice gave little clue as to what Obama would propose, saying only that Washington favored a two-state solution achieved through direct negotiations.

But she called on the United Nations to "end, once and for all" action on its controversial Goldstone report, which accused Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants of war crimes during the December 2008-January 2009 conflict in Gaza.

Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who led the inquiry, has recently said he no longer believes Israel had a policy of targeting civilians, as his report had alleged.

Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour appeared to lend support to the European initiative, saying Palestinians wanted "to resume a credible peace process on the basis of internationally supported parameters."

Israeli Ambassador Meron Reuben gave no detailed account of where he saw negotiations heading, but voiced long-standing Israeli skepticism about U.N. involvement, quoting President Shimon Peres as saying, "We need solutions, not resolutions."

 

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

    U.N. urges bold steps to relaunch Mideast peace, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-palestinians-israel-un-idUSTRE73K74420110421

Abbas sees U.S. support

for Palestinian statehood bid

PARIS | Thu Apr 21, 2011
3:13pm EDT
Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday it would "illogical" for the United States to block a Palestinian bid for statehood planned at the United Nations in September.

Abbas, in Paris for talks with French leaders, noted that Washington already backs the formula of a Palestinian state co-existing in peace alongside Israel to end the longstanding Middle East conflict.

"In principle we have a lot of signs that the United States is ready to recognize the Palestinian state," he told France 24 television in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "If the United States is not ready it would not be coherent and logical."

Palestinian leaders will be seeking broad endorsement of statehood at the U.N. General Assembly. More than 100 nations have said they recognize Palestine as a state.

But diplomats say the U.S. government has reservations about unilateral steps toward Palestinian statehood and could hold up approval of full U.N. membership for Palestine that must come from the U.N. Security Council.

Abbas expressed optimism that the bid would receive broad support, despite a lack of concrete promises from abroad.

"But all signals from these states and organisations show they are waiting for the right time to recognize the Palestinian state," he said. "We are also waiting for the right time."

U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down last September in a dispute over continued Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. Abbas has said he will not resume the talks until all West Bank settlement construction in the West Bank is suspended.

"We have gone beyond that because we think that question should not hold up dialogue with the United States," he said.

After meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Abbas told journalists that he had not raised the issue of Palestinian statehood with the president -- adding that France's position was clear.

A source in the presidential office said that Sarkozy had given Abbas his "clear support" for efforts leading to the creation of a Palestinian state. Fillon said last month that 2011 "should be the year when a Palestinian state is created."

Abbas warned about consequences in the Palestinian territories if the United Nations rejected the statehood appeal.

"I don't know what the next step would be but maybe it would be difficult, maybe dangerous ...A third intifada (Palestinian uprising) is not my preference," he said.

(Reporting by Nick Vinocur, Leigh Thomas and Emmanuel Jarry; editing by Mark Heinrich)

    Abbas sees U.S. support for Palestinian statehood bid, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-france-palestinians-abbas-idUSTRE73K70E20110421

Israeli intellectuals

endorse Palestinian state

TEL AVIV | Thu Apr 21, 2011
2:50pm EDT
Reuters

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Barely audible above the chants of "traitor," an Israeli actress who lost a leg in a Palestinian attack read out on Thursday a declaration by Israeli intellectuals endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state.

The event, attended by dozens of left-wing artists and academics, was held outside the hall where Israelis united to declare independence in 1948. Sixty-three years later, deep divisions over Israel's future played out at the historic venue.

Right-wing demonstrators were out in force, heckling and sounding horns, as Hanna Maron, the 87-year-old grande dame of Israeli theater, struggled to make herself heard on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard.

She read from a "Declaration of Independence from the Occupation" that she and some 50 other peace activists signed ahead of an expected Palestinian bid to win broad endorsement of statehood at the U.N. General Assembly in September.

In 1970, the German-born Maron was wounded when Palestinian militants attacked passengers waiting to board an Israeli airliner at Munich airport. One of her legs was amputated, but she continued to perform on stage and on television.

"We are here assembled ... to welcome the coming Declaration of Independence of the Palestinian State," the document said, calling for its creation, alongside Israel, on the basis of what is "known today as the '67 borders."

Israel's government opposes any one-sided steps and has said that a peace deal may be reached only through direct talks.

Palestinian Authority leaders, citing an impasse in peace talks that collapsed last year over the issue of Jewish settlements, say they will aim to seek U.N. recognition for statehood in all the territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war.

That would include the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, over which the Western-backed Palestinian Authority has no control. Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 but still largely controls the territory's borders.

More than 100 nations have said they recognize Palestine as a state. But full U.N. membership would also require Security Council approval, diplomats say, a development they see as unlikely given U.S. reservations about unilateral moves.

The left-wing group, whose members include prize-winning writers, artists, professors and a former cabinet minister, Shulamit Aloni, demanded "the complete end of occupation," referring to the lines that existed before Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip some 44 years ago.

Limor Livnat, Israel's culture and sport minister, and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, said she respected the Israel Prize laureates who signed the declaration, but did not agree with "their extreme views."

"This is a group that is acting to spread a wrong message and is causing Israel serious harm internationally," she said on Israeli radio.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Ramallah;

writing by Jeffrey Heller and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; editing by Mark Heinrich)

    Israeli intellectuals endorse Palestinian state, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-palestinians-israel-independence-idUSTRE73K6UC20110421

Egypt detains ex-energy minister

for questioning

CAIRO | Thu Apr 21, 2011
2:00pm EDT
Reuters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor on Thursday ordered former energy minister Sameh Fahmy and five other senior energy officials detained for questioning into a natural gas deal with Israel the government is reviewing.

Israel gets 40 percent of its natural gas from Egypt under an arrangement put in place after a 1979 peace deal.

Opposition groups have long complained the gas was being sold at preferential prices and that East Mediterranean Gas (EMG), the company which supplies it, violated bureaucratic regulations.

A statement from the prosecutor's office said the deal involved selling gas to Israel at prices way below market rates, which incurred losses worth over $714 million to the state.

It said Fahmy and the five officials would be held for 15 days for questioning about the deal as the government widens its crackdown on corruption that riddled ousted President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

The prosecutor said the officials would be questioned on allegations that included profiteering, squandering national wealth and harming Egypt's national interests.

Egypt's new government has said it would review natural gas contracts with other states, including Israel and Jordan, which could boost the government's income by $3-4 billion.

The prosecutor also ordered the detention of one of Mubarak's close associates, Hussein Salem, a major shareholder in EMG and a former intelligence chief. It was not immediately clear if Salem had fled Egypt after the uprising.

Newly appointed Petroleum Minister Abdullah Ghorab said last month that Egypt was trying to amend gas export deals with a number of countries, particularly Israel. He said public disapproval of the gas exports was sufficient reason to negotiate better terms.

Previous governments had insisted the natural gas deals were fair.

Egypt is a modest gas exporter, using pipelines to export to Israel, Jordan and other regional countries. It also exports liquefied natural gas via facilities on its Mediterranean coast.

(Reporting by Dina Zayed; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

    Egypt detains ex-energy minister for questioning, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-energy-egypt-idUSTRE73K6ED20110421

Mortars pound Misrata

as West talks of tougher action

MISRATA, Libya | Thu Apr 21, 2011
12:58pm EDT
Reuters
By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan government troops pounded the besieged rebel-held city of Misrata, undeterred by Western threats to step up military action against Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Mortar fire killed at least three rebels and wounded 17 in attacks on Tripoli Street early on Thursday, rebel spokesmen said. Fierce fighting erupted later in the day, with heavy machine gun fire resounding through the streets and the whole area overshadowed by a big plume of black smoke.

Amid streets carpeted with debris, rebels and loyalists are fighting a ferocious battle, often at close quarters. Streets are barricaded with orange dump trucks, parts of cars and even bedframes and tree trunks.

"Gaddafi's fighters taunt us. If they are in a nearby building they yell at us at night to scare us. They call us rats," said one rebel.

Libya's third largest city, the only rebel stronghold in the west of the country, has been under a punishing siege by Gaddafi's forces for seven weeks. Hundreds have died.

Libyan state television said NATO forces had struck the Khallat al-Farjan area of Tripoli, killing seven people and wounding 18 others. NATO said the target was a military command bunker and it had no indication of civilian casualties.

NATO forces later hit the town of Gharyan, south of Tripoli, killing or wounding several people, Libyan TV said. There was no no immediate NATO comment.

Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's Libya operations, said civilians should keep away from Gaddafi's forces to avoid being hurt by NATO air attacks. That would allow NATO to strike with greater success, he said.

Another NATO official told Reuters on Thursday: "We want to maintain and increase pressure on the frontline units but the biggest risk in doing that is civilian casualties.

"More and more of Gaddafi's military equipment is being used closer to civilian-populated areas and closer to buildings, which makes targeting obviously difficult."

NATO "HAS FAILED"

Rebel fighters voiced frustration with an international military operation they see as too cautious.

"NATO has been inefficient in Misrata. NATO has completely failed to change things on the ground," rebel spokesman Abdelsalam said.

France said it would send up to 10 military advisers to Libya. Britain plans to dispatch up to a dozen officers to help rebels improve organization and communications, and Italy is considering sending a small military training team.

Tripoli denounced such moves and some commentators warned of "mission creep," after assurances by Western leaders that they would not put "boots on the ground" in Libya.

Russia said the sending of advisers exceeded the U.N. Security Council mandate to protect civilians.

"We are not happy about the latest events in Libya, which are pulling the international community into a conflict on the ground. This may have unpredictable consequences," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"We can remember how instructors were first sent to some other countries, and later soldiers were sent there and hundreds of people died on both sides."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has spearheaded U.N.-backed NATO intervention, pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, on Wednesday.

The French defense ministry said on Thursday it had increased the number of its air sorties in the past week to 41 from an average of 30 since the start of the operation.

French aircraft destroyed several military vehicles and tanks near Misrata in the past week and two missile sites and a communications center in the Sirte region, it said.

Among the dead in Misrata were British photojournalist Tim Hetherington, co-director of Oscar-nominated war documentary "Restrepo," and American photographer Chris Hondros, killed when a group they were in came under fire.

Spanish photojournalist Guillermo Cervera said the group had been returning from Tripoli Street when there was an explosion.

"It hit the group," he said. "They were all on the floor."

A Ukrainian doctor was killed in a separate incident, medics said. The doctor's wife lost her legs.

LOYALISTS TAUNT "RATS"

Civilians say they live in constant fear of snipers.

"Mohammed and his friends were in our garage. They had gone outside to play when he had to pause to put his shoe on. In that instant the bullet hit his head," said Zeinab, mother of a 10-year-old boy who lay in a hospital bed with a bullet wound.

Tripoli denies attacking civilians and calls rebels terrorists.

Misrata is running out of food and medical supplies. There are long queues for petrol, and electricity has been cut so residents depend on generators. Thousands of stranded foreign migrant workers are awaiting rescue in the port area.

Government troops have a wide edge in training and arms and rebel tactics are far from sophisticated.

"When we want to advance we just scream Allah-u-Akbar (God is Greatest). Some run to the left, some run to the right and one guy usually just shoots down the middle," said rebel Abdel Raouf, 32, who used to work in Libya's tourism industry.

Residents have laid out ambulance lanes lined by cinder blocks along the city's streets. At one sandbagged rebel checkpoint, an effigy of Gaddafi hangs from a pole.

"We lie to our children," said engineer Ahmed Hussein. "We tell them that the soldiers are very far away. But really there are bullets flying around here all the time and there are lots of mortar attacks. There is nothing we can really do about it."

DEADLOCK

Gaddafi's government repeated its call for a ceasefire. "Why don't they send us negotiators and decide ... a starting date for the ceasefire and observe whether we keep our promise or not?" a spokesman said. "I'm asking the international community to come and test what we say."

It is unclear how NATO-led forces plan to break the deadlock on the ground after the United States and several European allies declined last week to join ground strikes. Only the United States possesses low-flying attack aircraft of the types analysts say would be most effective in Libya.

"The problem here is that there is a mismatch between the real objective -- regime change -- and the forces that are being dedicated to it," said Stratfor analyst Marko Papic.

A rebel spokesman said there was also fighting near Libya's western border with Tunisia.

"Clashes are currently occurring in Nalut and have been going on since Monday. The Gaddafi forces are using Grad missiles and mortar rounds to attack Nalut. It's not an even battle. The rebels are not well-armed."

Witnesses said rebels appeared to have taken control of the Libyan side of a border crossing near the southern Tunisian town of Dehiba, in a remote region where they have been fighting government forces. Some government troops had turned themselves over to the Tunisian military.

The Libyan state news agency said on Thursday NATO had intercepted a Libyan oil tanker and had used "violence and terrorism against its crew" in a "barbaric piracy operation."

Evidence surfaced on Wednesday that Gaddafi's government is circumventing U.N. sanctions to import gasoline to western Libya using intermediaries who transfer the fuel between ships in Tunisia, a source told Reuters.

(Writing by Andrew Roche; editing by Giles Elgood)

    Mortars pound Misrata as West talks of tougher action, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110421

Rebels improvise to counter Gaddafi firepower

MISRATA, Libya | Thu Apr 21, 2011
11:55am EDT
By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Hassan Saleh never imagined how his work day on Tripoli Street would end up when he studied to become a banker in the city of Misrata.

The day starts with incoming mortar rounds in the middle of the night. Then it gets really terrifying.

"The snipers start on us. Then there are rockets. Things are really bad," said Saleh, sheltering behind a cement wall from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces in the besieged city.

Around him, buildings are burned out and pulverized from seven weeks of fighting.

Twisted metal and bullet cases riddle the streets of Libya's third city, whose resistance has become a symbol of the battle by rebels to topple Gaddafi in the name of democracy.

Tripoli Street is at the heart of the fighting and rebels there are trying to figure out how best to simply survive.

Just down the street, say Saleh and his comrades, are 300 soldiers and militiamen holed up in a fortified old hospital they are using to launch mortars and rockets.

Occasionally, Gaddafi loyalists move up and down the streets in pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft weapons. Snipers blend into the ruins to track rebel movements meticulously.

"Gaddafi's fighters taunt us. If they are in a nearby building they yell at us at night to scare us. They insult us and call us rats," said one rebel.

Gaddafi dismisses the rebels as rats and says they are sent by al Qaeda to destabilize Libya and make it a militant base.

The insurgents now rely on Western powers, who set up a no-fly zone to destroy Gaddafi's tanks. But as the rebels have found, there is a limit to much protection that offers.

Routes leading into Tripoli street are blocked by huge orange dump trucks or heavy tree trunks so tanks can't get through. Sometimes the best the rebels can manage are mattress frames or scavenged car parts.

From defense to attack, it's all about improvisation.

"When we want to try and advance we just scream Allah hu Akbar (God is Greatest). Some run to the left, some run to the 'right and one guy usually just shoots down the middle," said rebel Abdel Raouf, 32, who worked in Libya's tourism industry before trading hotel brochures for a worn automatic rifle.

 

GADDAFI FIREPOWER

Another rebel, resting on a dirt lane, said "We don't have a leader. All decisions are personal on the front line." Nearby, an insurgent peered through binoculars at a pockmarked green and white building, scanning for the enemy.

Gaddafi's loyalists are trying to gain the edge on Tripoli Street with their superior firepower.

They fired more than 40 mortars overnight, the insurgents say. One landed in a mound of sand the rebels set up a few feet from a room where they sipped tea.

That one hurt nobody, but others did.

The corpses of three rebels were laid beside each other in Misrata's hospital. Comrades stood over them and wept. Others stuck their faces between their knees and trembled in despair.

Despite the losses, the fighters in Misrata appear more disciplined than the ragtag rebels along Libya's east -- who run away from attacks rather than digging in.

In Misrata, the insurgents are defending homes and neighborhoods and not the remote desert roads of the east. With their backs to the sea, the rebels have nowhere to run.

The insurgents score some successes too.

Olive uniforms mark where Gaddafi's soldiers fell. Three charred corpses are what remains from what the rebels say were African mercenaries, though Gaddafi denies using hired guns.

Two very nervous African men are led past for questioning.

"To hell with you Gaddafi," said one fighter proudly.

One kilometer (half a mile) further down Tripoli Street, the rebels call themselves the "Martyrs Unit." They stand beside a government vehicle seized in battle.

The car was quickly painted in rebel colors and a poster of a young Libyan taped to its windshield -- a brother of one of the fighters who was killed by a rocket.

Although the rebels are fighting hard to keep their hold on Tripoli Street, there is little sign they can push back Gaddafi's forces without significant Western help.

The rebels want that to go beyond air support,

"There is no way we will be able to keep Gaddafi away from Misrata, from coming back in full force, unless foreign armies launch a ground invasion," said insurgent Abu Bakr, 32. "It's the only way we can win."

(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

    Rebels improvise to counter Gaddafi firepower, G, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-misrata-rebels-idUSTRE73K53F20110421

Syria's Assad ends state of emergency

AMMAN | Thu Apr 21, 2011
11:54am EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad ended Syria's state of emergency, in effect for nearly 50 years, on Thursday in an attempt to defuse mass protests against his authoritarian rule that have gripped Syria for over a month.

His announcement, endorsing a law passed by the government this week, came ahead of what activists described as "Great Friday" protests in several Syrian cities when more people are expected to take to the streets after Muslim Friday prayers.

Thousands of Syrians, inspired by uprisings sweeping the Arab world, have demonstrated to demand greater freedom in their policed-controlled country, presenting Assad with the most serious and sustained challenge to his 11-year rule.

"We are determined on totally peaceful protests... we rejoice at the downfall of the state of emergency. It was not lifted, it was toppled... With the help of God, we will embark on freedom," a comment on a Facebook page run by activists said.

The abolition of emergency rule, used since Assad's Baath Party seized power in 1963 to justify arbitrary arrests and detention and a ban on all opposition, is symbolic since other laws still give entrenched security forces wide powers.

Leading opposition figure Haitham al-Maleh said the move was meaningless without an independent judiciary and curbs on the powers of the security forces.

"The state has a multitude of tools of repression at its disposal that have to be dismantled for repression to end," Maleh told Reuters.

Rights activist Ammar Qurabi welcomed the move but told Reuters other measures must follow, such as the release of prisoners detained in the unrest and a retrial in civil courts for all those convicted by the state security court.

State TV said Assad also endorsed legislation that regulates protests and dissolves a state security court which lawyers said violated the rule of law and the right to a fair trial.

Other demands include freeing thousands of political prisoners, many of whom are held without trial, and the removal of clause 8 in the constitution which enshrines the Baath Party as the leader of state and society.

Assad's conciliatory move followed a familiar pattern since the unrest began a month ago: pledges of reform are made a day before Friday when demonstrations have been the strongest, and are usually followed by an intense crackdown.

NEXT FLASHPOINT: HOMS

Residents in the southern city of Deraa, where protests first erupted in March, said army units took up positions closer to the city after having abandoned them in the last two days.

A rights activist said trucks carrying soldiers and vehicles equipped with machine guns were seen on highway from Damascus to Homs, a central city that has emerged as the new focal point of protests in mostly Sunni Muslim Syria.

Security forces wielding assault rifles were deployed in Homs, a witness said, where residents organized neighborhood patrols after 21 protesters were shot dead on Monday and Tuesday by security police and Alawite gunmen known as 'al-shabbiha'.

Assad's security apparatus, dominated by minority Alawites, has used gunfire and brutality to cow protesters. Authorities have blamed armed groups, infiltrators and Salafi fundamentalist organizations for firing on civilians and security forces.

Rights groups say more than 200 people have been killed since protests started.

Former vice president Abdelhalim Khaddam said the crackdown would eventually lead to Assad's overthrow, adding he expected the army to stop supporting Assad. [nLDE73K0RR]

"People in Homs are scared and angry," Wissam Tarif, director of the Insan human rights group, told Reuters.

"Shabbiha and security are obvious in the streets. Kalashnikovs and other weapons are in their hands. Al Saha al Jadida square is packed with security forces. Security is mixed between civilian and uniformed," he said.

The most extensive protests since an armed Islamist revolt in 1982 have included ordinary Syrians, secularists, leftists, tribals, Islamists and students.

Western and other Arab countries have mostly muted their criticism of the crackdown in Syria for fear of destabilizing a country of 20 million people that borders on Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq and is at the heart of many regional conflicts.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Sami Aboudi in Cairo; writing by Yara Bayoumy; editing by Samia Nakhoul and Paul Taylor)

    Syria's Assad ends state of emergency, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110421

Rebels seize Libya-Tunisia

border crossing: witnesses

TUNIS | Thu Apr 21, 2011
11:03am EDT
Reuters
By Tarek Amara

TUNIS (Reuters) - Rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi's forces in a mountainous region took control of the Libyan side of a border crossing with Tunisia on Thursday, waving the country's pre-Gaddafi flag, witnesses said.

Thirteen Libyan officers and soldiers, including a general, handed themselves over to the Tunisian military at the border, Tunisia's state news agency TAP reported, apparently seeking refuge after clashes with the insurgents.

Witnesses said some wounded Libyan soldiers were treated at a nearby Tunisian hospital.

In Tripoli, Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim denied that the insurgents had taken over the border post.

Thousands of Libyans fleeing worsening violence in the remote region known as Western Mountains have poured into southern Tunisia and the border town of Dehiba in recent days.

The violence in the sparsely populated area has received little of the international attention given to attacks on cities on the Libyan coast such as Misrata and Ajdabiyah.

"We see rebels who control the border crossing," a witness who gave his name as Ali told Reuters by phone from Dehiba.

He said there had been fierce fighting near the border, lasting until Thursday morning, and that dozens of Libyan soldiers had turned themselves over to the Tunisian army. The Defense Ministry was not immediately available for comment.

The post is the smaller of Tunisia's two border crossings with Libya; the main one is at Ras Jdir further north.

Another witness at the crossing said rebels were celebrating by shooting in the air and several waved the pre-Gaddafi green, black and red Libyan flag -- a symbol of the rebellion against his rule. Gunfire could be heard over the phone.

Chanting "God is greatest," dozens of Libyan refugees from a camp near Dehiba as well as some Tunisians joined in the rebels' celebrations, witnesses said.

TUNISIA "ALARMED" BY MORTARS

TAP said about the incident. "Libyan revolutionaries ... took control of the border gate of the Libyan side of Dehiba crossing after a heavy exchange of fire."

In Tripoli government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said when asked whether rebels had taken over the crossing: "I deny this. They are present on the Tunisian side and we know this and we warned about this."

Towns in Western Mountains joined a wider revolt against Gaddafi's autocratic four-decade-old rule in February and are now facing government bombardment.

The area is populated by Berbers, a group ethnically distinct from most Libyans and traditionally viewed with suspicion by Gaddafi's government.

A rebel spokesman in the region told Reuters late on Wednesday that there were clashes in the town of Nalut.

"The Gaddafi forces are using Grad rockets and mortar rounds to attack Nalut. It's not an even battle," the spokesman, Abdulrahman, said, citing fellow fighters in Nalut.

Libyan officials deny attacking civilians, and describe rebels as armed criminal gangs and al Qaeda sympathizers who, they say, are trying to destroy the North African country.

"In reality they are hiding in some caves in the Western Mountains. They come down, strike here and there and flee," spokesman Ibrahim said. More than 100 "armed elements" in the area had handed in their weapons on Thursday, he added.

Earlier this week, a Libyan doctor helping refugees in a camp near Dehiba said witnesses had told him that Gaddafi's forces had stepped up shelling of Western Mountains towns.

The doctor cited them as saying that dozens of people -- both rebels and civilians -- had been killed in the last week.

It is difficult to independently verify accounts of events in this region and other parts of western Libya because journalists have little access to these areas.

People who arrived last week in Tunisia from Western Mountains told Reuters that pro-government forces were shelling homes, poisoning wells and threatening to rape women.

Several mortar bombs fired from Libya landed on the Tunisian side of the border earlier this week. TAP cited a Foreign Ministry source on Thursday as saying it had told Libyan authorities it was "extremely alarmed by this incident."

    Rebels seize Libya-Tunisia border crossing: witnesses, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-tunisia-border-idUSTRE73K3DB20110421

France flies more sorties over Libya:

defense minister

PARIS | Thu Apr 21, 2011
7:50am EDT
Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) - France increased the number of sorties flown over Libya over the past week to 41 from an average of about 30 since the start of a coalition operation, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

French aircraft destroyed several military vehicles and tanks near Misrata in the past week as well as two ground-to-air missile sites and a communications center in the Sirte region, defense ministry spokesman Thierry Burkhard told a news briefing.

On Wednesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy assured a visiting Libyan rebel leader that France would intensify air strikes on Muammar Gaddafi's army, an official in the president's office said.

France has flown 255 sorties since the operation, designed to protect Libyan civilians from Gaddafi's armed forces under a U.N. Security Council mandate, began in late March.

(Reporting by Nicholas Vinocur, editing by Tim Pearce)

    France flies more sorties over Libya: defense minister, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-france-airstrikes-idUSTRE73K2TS20110421

Analysis: In Libya,

both sides prepare for lengthy conflict

LONDON | Thu Apr 21, 2011
7:16am EDT
Reuters
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - With Britain, France and Italy sending military advisers to Libya's rebels and both Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and opposition forces working to secure essential supplies, all sides appear settling in for a long war.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised on Wednesday to intensify air strikes, but few believe they alone will settle the conflict.

Summer heat will make fighting harder in the months to come, perhaps entrenching the existing stalemate. If Gaddafi is not ousted by internal coup, the outcome of the conflict may come down to whether the rebels can secure the funds, fuel, weaponry and skills to sustain a campaign over months or even years.

"If the rebels were a cohesive, serious fighting force, air power could be enough," said Stratfor analyst Marko Papic. "But they are not, and everyone knows that. The problem here is that there is a mismatch between the real objective -- regime change -- and the forces that are being dedicated to it."

Sending Western military advisers to coordinate strikes and help attempt to shape the battle may prove a mistake, some serving officers say, but -- as with the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan -- there is now little choice but to continue.

Without air strikes, the rebel stronghold of Benghazi could fall in days and neither Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron nor U.S. President Barack Obama would want the political fallout of that. Nor, after recent statements, can they easily agree any deal that could leave Gaddafi in power.

After the relatively swift success of revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, Western leaders had hoped Gaddafi's rule would crumble quickly after air strikes began. But the Libyan leader has proved to be much more tenacious than many anticipated.

The allies are seen pursuing different strategies despite operating under the NATO umbrella. French and British jets have acted almost in direct support of the rebels while the U.S. has been less willing to commit its much more capable tank-busting and gunship aircraft in the same way.

While Russia and China abstained to allow the U.N. resolution endorsing initial military action to pass, they openly oppose escalation. The rebels too have repeatedly voiced reluctance to allow Western troops to operate on the ground.

Deploying ground troops might just be permissible under the U.N. security council resolution providing it stopped short of outright occupation. But there is little political enthusiasm for it, leaving only the option of building rebel capacity.

"To actually train people to a higher standard of military competency would take months and then some," said one former Western senior military commander on condition of anonymity. "No amount of contractors will be able to do what we in Iraq and Afghanistan took years to achieve -- it is just an issue of material, commitment and time."

The best hope was to somewhat tilt the balance of power away from Gaddafi and help secure a ceasefire, he said.

 

VITAL SUPPLIES

Whether that happens or not, accessing finance and supplies will also be vital for the opposition. So far, success on that front looks to have been mixed -- particularly as sanctions designed to starve Gaddafi cover the entire country.

Already, they have suffered several setbacks.

First, they lost the key port facilities of Ras Lanuf and Brega, slashing the volume of oil they could potentially export and leaving them with only a small port at Tobruk. Meanwhile, worries over sanctions have put off many buyers.

So far, only one confirmed export cargo has shipped, through London-based trading firm Vitol, and oil trade sources say finding an ultimate buyer even for that shipment has proved difficult due to worries about breaching sanctions.

International recognition of the rebels by more countries as the legitimate government of Libya may make matters easier for the opposition. But so far, only France, Italy and Qatar have done so, with Washington and London holding back.

Libya is also under an arms embargo but for now there seems no immediate shortage of ammunition for either side.

Fuel might be a different matter. Both sides may be sitting on plentiful oil fields, but like the Allied and Axis armies in North Africa 70 years ago they need refined petrol and diesel or their vehicles will grind to a halt.

Gaddafi is trying to import gasoline through Tunisia, aiming to dodge sanctions by transferring fuel from ship to ship. The rebels too look to have been lining up supply options, possibly aiming to swap crude exports for shipments of refined products.

Gaddafi may be struggling to get fuel and other supplies to his forces along the exposed road to eastern Libya in the face of NATO air strikes. But the rebels also face challenges as they try to support fighters in the besieged western enclave of Misrata, surrounded by Gaddafi forces and under heavy fire.

Crucially, they still hold its port -- allowing the wounded out and journalists and human rights observers in, hoping to drive calls for further intervention. They might also be able to ship in arms.

But without the strength to break out toward Tripoli, the rebels may face a repeat of the multi-year sieges of Sarajevo and Jaffna in the Bosnian and Sri Lanka wars.

"Gaddafi is a planner, as you have seen throughout this conflict -- our indecision is ammunition to him," said Hayat Alvi, Middle East expert at the U.S. Naval War College -- making it clear her opinions were personal and not the government view.

"Unless things substantially alter, it is hard to escape the conclusion that this could go on for a very long time."

(Additional reporting by Emma Farge and Jessica Donati; Editing by Louise Ireland)

    Analysis: In Libya, both sides prepare for lengthy conflict, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-conflict-idUSTRE73K2FR20110421

”Restrepo” director Tim Hetherington

killed in Libya

MISRATA, Libya | Thu Apr 21, 2011
2:27am EDT
Reuters
By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Fighting in Libya's besieged rebel city of Misrata killed at least 10 civilians including an Oscar-nominated British filmmaker, and NATO urged non-combatants to avoid troops so it could step up air strikes.

Among the dead were British photojournalist Tim Hetherington, co-director of Oscar-nominated war documentary "Restrepo," and American photographer Chris Hondros, killed when a group they were in came under mortar fire.

Seven Libyan civilians and a Ukrainian doctor were also killed during fierce fighting in Libya's third largest city, medics said.

France promised the insurgents on Wednesday it would intensify air strikes on Libyan government forces and dispatch military liaison officers, echoing a move by Britain, to help organize poorly trained insurgents.

Rebels said they were battling for control of a major road in Misrata, a port of 300,000 people and the insurgents' last bastion in the west of the country, where civil war ignited in February over demands for an end to Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

Around 120 people were wounded, including the wife of the Ukrainian doctor who lost both of her legs, according to Khalid Abufalgha, a doctor on the Misrata medical committee that tracks civilian casualties.

Abufalgha said a total of 365 people have been killed, including at least 85 civilians, and 4,000 people wounded in the Mediterranean city since it came under government siege about seven weeks ago. Civilians say they live in constant fear of government snipers.

"Mohammed and his friends were in our garage. They had gone outside to play when he had to pause to put his shoe on. In that instant the bullet hit his head," said Zeinab, mother of a 10-year-old boy who lay in bed with a bullet wound.

Rebels complained that there were too few NATO air strikes.

"NATO has been inefficient in Misrata. NATO has completely failed to change things on the ground," rebel spokesman Abdelsalam said.

Libyan state television said early on Thursday that NATO forces had struck the Khallat al-Farjan area of the capital Tripoli, killing seven people and wounding 18 others. The report could not immediately be independently verified.

Rebel spokesman Abdulrahman, reached by telephone from the western town of Zintan, said clashes were also taking place in Nalut, near the Western border with Tunisia.

"Clashes are currently occurring in Nalut and have been going on since Monday. The Gaddafi forces are using Grad missiles and mortar rounds to attack Nalut. It's not an even battle. The rebels are not well-armed."

NATO TELLS CIVILIANS TO AVOID GADDAFI FORCES

Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO's Libya operations, said Libyan civilians should keep away from Gaddafi's forces to help NATO carry out air attacks.

"Civilians can assist NATO by distancing themselves from Gaddafi regime forces and equipment whenever possible. Doing this will allow NATO to strike those forces and equipment with greater success...," Bouchard said in a statement.

Aid groups say the humanitarian situation in Misrata is turning grave due to a lack of food and medical supplies.

Forces loyal to Gaddafi have been bombarding Misrata heavily over the last week. The government denies it is targeting civilians in the city.

There are long queues for petrol, and electricity has been cut so residents depend on generators. Thousands of stranded foreign migrant workers are awaiting rescue in the port area.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed on Wednesday the need to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on Gaddafi, the White House said.

France said it would send up to 10 military advisers to Libya, following on Britain's plan to dispatch up to a dozen officers to help rebels improve organization and communications. Neither country plans to arm or train the insurgents to fight.

In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has spearheaded U.N.-backed NATO intervention, pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

"We are indeed going to intensify the attacks and respond to this request from the national transition council," an official in the president's office said, quoting Sarkozy as telling Abdel Jalil: "We will help you."

He did not say how NATO-led forces planned to overcome the stalemate on the ground after the United States and several European allies declined last week to join ground strikes.

Abdel Jalil told reporters he had invited Sarkozy to pay a visit to the eastern rebel powerbase city of Benghazi to underline French support for ending Gaddafi's autocratic tenure and "boost the morale of the revolution."

French officials did not say whether Sarkozy had accepted.

Evidence surfaced on Wednesday that Gaddafi's government is dodging U.N. sanctions to import gasoline to western Libya using intermediaries who transfer the fuel between ships in Tunisia, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

    ”Restrepo” director Tim Hetherington killed in Libya, R, 21.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110421

    Related
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/21/photojournalists-tim-hetherington-chris-hondros

The Revolution’s Missing Peace

April 20, 2011
The New York Times
By ABDULLAH GUL

Ankara, Turkey

THE wave of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa is of historic significance equal to that of the revolutions of 1848 and 1989 in Europe. The peoples of the region, without exception, revolted not only in the name of universal values but also to regain their long-suppressed national pride and dignity. But whether these uprisings lead to democracy and peace or to tyranny and conflict will depend on forging a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and a broader Israeli-Arab peace.

The plight of the Palestinians has been a root cause of unrest and conflict in the region and is being used as a pretext for extremism in other corners of the world. Israel, more than any other country, will need to adapt to the new political climate in the region. But it need not fear; the emergence of a democratic neighborhood around Israel is the ultimate assurance of the country’s security.

In these times of turmoil, two forces will shape the future: the people’s yearning for democracy and the region’s changing demographics. Sooner or later, the Middle East will become democratic, and by definition a democratic government should reflect the true wishes of its people. Such a government cannot afford to pursue foreign policies that are perceived as unjust, undignified and humiliating by the public. For years, most governments in the region did not consider the wishes of their people when conducting foreign policy. History has repeatedly shown that a true, fair and lasting peace can only be made between peoples, not ruling elites.

I call upon the leaders of Israel to approach the peace process with a strategic mindset, rather than resorting to short-sighted tactical maneuvers. This will require seriously considering the Arab League’s 2002 peace initiative, which proposed a return to Israel’s pre-1967 borders and fully normalized diplomatic relations with Arab states.

Sticking to the unsustainable status quo will only place Israel in greater danger. History has taught us that demographics is the most decisive factor in determining the fate of nations. In the coming 50 years, Arabs will constitute the overwhelming majority of people between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea. The new generation of Arabs is much more conscious of democracy, freedom and national dignity.

In such a context, Israel cannot afford to be perceived as an apartheid island surrounded by an Arab sea of anger and hostility. Many Israeli leaders are aware of this challenge and therefore believe that creating an independent Palestinian state is imperative. A dignified and viable Palestine, living side by side with Israel, will not diminish the security of Israel, but fortify it.

Turkey thinks strategically about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, not only because it knows that a peaceful Middle East would be to its benefit, but also because it believes that Israeli-Palestinian peace would benefit the rest of the world.

We are therefore ready to use our full capacity to facilitate constructive negotiations. Turkey’s track record in the years before Israel’s Gaza operation in December 2008 bears testimony to our dedication to achieving peace. Turkey is ready to play the role it played in the past, once Israel is ready to pursue peace with its neighbors.

Moreover, it is my firm conviction that the United States has a long-overdue responsibility to side with international law and fairness when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The international community wants the United States to act as an impartial and effective mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, just as it did a decade ago. Securing a lasting peace in the Middle East is the greatest favor Washington can do for Israel.

It will be almost impossible for Israel to deal with the emerging democratic and demographic currents in the absence of a peace agreement with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. Turkey, conscious of its own responsibility, stands ready to help.

Abdullah Gul is the president of Turkey.

    The Revolution’s Missing Peace, NYT, 20.4.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/opinion/21gul.html

Forces deploy in Syria's Homs city,

residents defiant

AMMAN | Wed Apr 20, 2011
11:45pm EDT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Plain clothes security forces toting Ak-47s deployed in Homs overnight, a witness said on Thursday, as the central Syrian city defied a crackdown following the killing of 21 pro-democracy protesters this week.

Residents, expecting more attacks from gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad known as "al-shabbiha," have organized into unarmed groups to guard neighborhoods, said the witness, who reached Homs after going through two road blocks manned by security police.

"The atmosphere is tense. Another day of strikes is planned tomorrow," the witness said.

The witness, a human rights campaigner who did not want to be further identified, was referring to shops that closed after 21 protesters were shot dead by security police and shabbiha forces on Monday and Tuesday, according to rights campaigners.

The protests, which intensified after a tribal leader died in custody following a demonstration in Homs ten days ago, have been demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption.

Homs, a strategic city 165 km (100 miles) off a main highway north of Damascus, became the latest flashpoint in Syria after demonstrations inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia erupted in southern Syria last month.

Assad has tried to appease mass discontent by ordering his cabinet to pass a law lifting 48 years of emergency rule, but opposition figures say the move, which the rubberstamp cabinet approved on Tuesday, will not halt repression.

Rights groups say more than 200 people have been killed since protests started. Washington said a new law requiring permits to hold demonstrations made it unclear if the end of emergency rule would make for a less restrictive Syrian state.

IN AND OUT OF ISOLATION

The United States tentatively joined a Western drive to rehabilitate Assad after Barack Obama became president, while maintaining criticism of Syria's human rights record.

Syria is involved in several Middle East conflicts. Any change at the top -- Assad, backed by his family and the security apparatus, is Syria's absolute ruler -- would ripple across the Arab world and affect Syria's ally Iran.

The leadership backs the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah but seeks peace with Israel. Assad was largely rehabilitated in the West after being isolated for years after the 2005 assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, a Lebanese parliamentarian and a former prime minister.

In Homs, protesters took to the streets in large numbers again on Wednesday. Their chants demanded "the downfall of the regime."

In the city of Banias, in what was seen as another attempt to mollify protesters, the chief of the security police was sacked, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Security forces sealed off Banias last week after demonstrations against Assad and an attack by irregular forces loyal to him on men guarding a Sunni mosque.

Hours before Tuesday's cabinet meeting, the Interior Ministry had called on citizens to refrain from protesting at all. Leftist opposition figure Mahmoud Issa was arrested a day later in Homs.

(Editing by Peter Graff)

    Forces deploy in Syria's Homs city, residents defiant, R, 20.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110421

Obama, Cameron discuss

tightening pressure on Gaddafi

WASHINGTON | Wed Apr 20, 2011
9:45pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron Wednesday discussed the need to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the White House said.

The two leaders agreed that U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that the Libyan government cease violence against civilians must be fully implemented.

"In addition to increasing military pressure and protecting civilians through the coalition operation that NATO is leading, the leaders discussed the importance of increasing diplomatic and economic pressure on the Gaddafi regime to cease attacks on civilians and comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions," a White House statement said.

The White House said earlier that Obama still opposes sending U.S. ground troops to Libya, but he supports a French and British move to dispatch military advisers to help rebels fighting Gaddafi.

"The president obviously is aware of this decision and supports it, and hopes and believes it will help the opposition," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters traveling with Obama to California. "But it does not at all change the president's policy on no 'boots on the ground' for American troops," Carney said.

France will send up to 10 military advisers to Libya while Britain said it could send up to a dozen officers to help the opposition improve organization and communications, but said it would not arm the rebels or train them to fight.

 

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland;

Writing by Alister Bull; Editing by Jackie Frank)

    Obama, Cameron discuss tightening pressure on Gaddafi, R, 20.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/us-libya-usa-idUSTRE73J7OR20110421

Snipers strike fear into civilians

in Libya's Misrata

MISRATA, Libya | Wed Apr 20, 2011
8:57pm EDT
By Michael Georgy

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Ten-year-old Mohammad Hassan lies in a hospital bed with a bullet wound to the head in the besieged city of Misrata, hallucinating one minute and calling out for his father the next.

He is a victim of what doctors say must have been a sniper loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

"My head, my head," cries the boy, tossing and turning as his mother paces the room.

Verses from the Koran play on a cellphone, about the only form of comfort available to a family which like others are scared government forces will recapture Misrata.

Snipers have become among the most feared combatants in the battle for Misrata, the only major rebel-held town in western Libya and under siege for more than seven weeks.

There was no way of verifying whether Hassan was shot by a government sniper.

It was just assumed by doctors and the boy's mother -- and that is something that would probably please government forces who hope fear will help them regain control.

"Mohammed and his friends were in our garage. They had gone outside to play when he had to pause to put his shoe on. In that instant the bullet hit his head," said his mother Zeinab.

"This must have been Gaddafi's people. They are everywhere."

Doctor Khalid Abufalgha, a member of a Misrata medical committee that tracks casualties in the conflict, said 365 people had been killed, including 85 civilians, and 4,000 wounded in the Mediterranean town.

He said the number of civilians killed by snipers had fallen because many had been advised to leave Tripoli Street, a thoroughfare where much of the fighting is taking place.

Mortar bombs were now becoming a far graver danger, he said.

But rebels said their comrades are still highly vulnerable to skilful government snipers who possess far more effective weapons including ones with night vision scopes.

Gaddafi may be reluctant to use tanks because some have been wiped out by NATO air strikes, so snipers are becoming a more useful asset.

Rebels shot by government snipers who were being treated a few rooms away from Mohammad Hassan said they had been struggling to come up with a strategy to deal with the threat.

Mohsen al-Urayk, and a few other rebels, had decided to surround a building which they said government snipers had occupied but soon came under fire by the shooters.

They escaped unhurt but the next day did not bring such luck.

"I was standing in an apartment and suddenly I was struck in the back. I am sure it was the same people we were trying to surround," said Urayk, a truck driver by profession.

"They are very, very dangerous."

While Gaddafi makes use of military men and militias who have managed to help him stay in power for 41 years, the insurgent forces are made up of everyone from engineers to accountants and are learning on the job.

Another rebel wounded by a sniper's bullet, 37-year-old businessman Abdul Hakim, insisted that he explain how badly Gaddafi's opponents needed more advanced weapons, even though a relative suggested it would strain him too much to speak.

"We spotted these snipers days ago. They were highly disciplined. We noticed that they work in shifts. One guy focuses on his targets for two hours and then he is replaced," said Hakim.

"And I don't think Gaddafi will quit. We saw a colonel put two locks on the door of a building where some snipers were located. It seems he wanted to stop them from leaving, if they wanted to."

(Editing by Myra MacDonald)

    Snipers strike fear into civilians in Libya's Misrata, R, 20.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/21/uk-libya-misrata-snipers-idUKTRE73K0B020110421

Syria lifts emergency but police arrest leftist

AMMAN | Tue Apr 19, 2011
7:16pm EDT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian authorities' arrest of a leftist opposition figure overnight suggests that a bill passed by the government to end emergency rule after 48 years will not halt repression, rights campaigners said on Wednesday.

The draft law was passed on Tuesday as a concession by President Bashar al-Assad in the face of increasingly determined mass protests against his authoritarian rule. More than 200 people have been killed, rights groups say.

The end of emergency rule was, however, coupled with new legislation requiring Syrians to obtain a permit from the state if they want to hold demonstrations. Defiant protests continued regardless, and three protesters were shot dead in the city of Homs on Tuesday, activists said.

A prominent leftist in the city, Mahmoud Issa, was taken from his house around midnight by members of Syria's feared political security division. Rights campaigners said at least 20 pro-democracy protesters had been shot dead by security forces in Homs in the past two days.

"Issa is a prominent former political prisoner. Arresting him hours after announcing a bill to lift emergency law is reprehensible," said Rami Adelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, speaking from Britain.

"Lifting emergency law is long overdue, but there are a host of other laws that should be scrapped, such as those giving security forces immunity from prosecution, and giving powers to military courts to try civilians," he added.

"Thousands of political prisoners arrested under these exceptional laws should be released," Abdelrahman added.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the new law requiring permits to hold demonstrations made it unclear if the end of emergency rule would make for a less restrictive regime.

"This new legislation may prove as restrictive as the emergency law it replaced," he said, adding that the Syrian government "needs to urgently implement broader reforms."

PLEA TO ARMY NOT TO SHOOT

Prominent civic figures in Homs, a central city known for its intellectuals and artists, signed a declaration calling on the army "not to spill the blood of honorable Syrians" and denying allegations by the authorities that Salafist groups were operating in the city.

In a sign of resistance to protesters' demands for reforms, the Interior Ministry on Monday night described the unrest as an insurrection by "armed groups belonging to Salafist organizations" trying to terrorize the population.

Salafism is a strict form of Sunni Islam that many Arab governments equate with militant groups like al Qaeda. Assad and most of his inner circle are from Syria's minority Alawite community, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

"Not Salafist, not Muslim Brotherhood. We are freedom seekers!" hundreds of people chanted in Tuesday's demonstration in Banias on the Mediterranean.

Emergency rule, in place since the Baath Party seized power in a 1963 coup, gave security organs blanket power to stifle dissent through a ban on gatherings of over five people, arbitrary arrest and closed trials, lawyers say.

Syria is involved in several Middle East conflicts. Any change at the top -- Assad, backed by his family and the security apparatus, is Syria's absolute ruler -- would ripple across the Arab world and affect Syria's ally Iran.

The leadership backs the Islamist movement Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah but seeks peace with Israel. Assad was largely rehabilitated in the West after years in isolation after the 2005 assassination in Beirut of Lebanese statesman Rafik al-Hariri.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)

    Syria lifts emergency but police arrest leftist, R, 19.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110419

Misrata shelled again,

but rebels said to make gains

TUNIS/RABAT | Tue Apr 19, 2011
6:16pm EDT
Reuters
By Fredrik Dahl and Souhail Karam

TUNIS/RABAT (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi renewed the bombardment of Misrata on Tuesday, causing a number of casualties, an Amnesty International researcher in the besieged Libyan city said.

Despite the shelling, a resident who backs rebels fighting against better-equipped government troops said the insurgents made "big gains" and their enemies suffered significant losses. The claim could not be independently verified.

Libya's third-largest city, the insurgents' last major stronghold in the west of the North African country, has been under siege for more than seven weeks.

Rebels and residents say pro-Gaddafi forces have pounded Misrata heavily in recent days, firing rockets and mortars at insurgent positions and also hitting residential areas.

"They were shelling very close by, in the area slightly to the northwest of the center. I just left the hospital, there were casualties coming in," Amnesty researcher Donatella Rovera, who came to Misrata late last week, said by phone.

"These are the areas which are, for now, in the hands of the opposition and they are being shelled by Gaddafi forces," she told Reuters. "The city center is the front line."

Rebel spokesmen, citing hospital records, say hundreds of people have been killed in Misrata during the siege.

Aid groups say conditions are worsening in the city of 300,000, with a lack of food, medicines and other basic items.

International humanitarian organizations have started evacuating trapped civilians by boat from its rebel-held port.

"There is no electricity. The town is functioning on generators," Rovera said. "The supply of water has now been cut off for weeks. They've gone back to using old wells."

 

GUERRILLA TACTICS

In Geneva, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said at least 20 children have been killed in weeks of fighting in Misrata.

Libyan officials say they are fighting militia with ties to al Qaeda bent on destroying the country, and deny government troops are shelling Misrata and its civilians.

"There are just pockets of violence attacking the armed forces from time to time and then the armed forces have to respond to those attacks, "Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told reporters in Tripoli.

The Misrata resident said five rebels were killed in the day's fighting but the pro-Gaddafi forces "suffered heavy losses," both in the number of dead and those who surrendered.

"There were big gains for the rebels today," he said. "The rebels celebrated their gains today by driving cars through the city, waving their guns out of the windows and honking."

Unlike eastern Libya, where rebels control many coastal cities, most of the west remains firmly under Gaddafi's control.

A rebel spokesman in the western city of Zawiyah, which insurgents held for several weeks after the uprising against Gaddafi erupted in mid-February, said they were now using guerrilla tactics there.

"Groups, each comprising between 15 and 20 rebels, keep ambushing Gaddafi forces ... We have managed to kill dozens of them," the rebel who called himself Mohamed said by phone.

"Since they took control of the city, they have arrested thousands, mostly young men on the slightest suspicion of sympathy for the rebels," Mohamed said.

(Additional reporting by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli; Joseph Nasr in Berlin and Marie-Louise Gumuchian in Tunis; editing by Tim Pearce)

    Misrata shelled again, but rebels said to make gains, R, 19.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-libya-misrata-shelling-idUSTRE73I70M20110419

Libyan mortar shells hit Tunisia,

follow refugees

TUNIS | Tue Apr 19, 2011
5:58pm EDT
Reuters

TUNIS (Reuters) - Four mortar shells fired from Libya fell across the border in Tunisia this week, the latest sign of worsening violence in a remote Libyan region where residents say Muammar Gaddafi's forces are fighting rebels.

Thousands of people fleeing Libya's Western Mountains -- where some towns joined a wider revolt against Gaddafi's rule in February and are now facing an onslaught by government troops -- have poured into neighboring Tunisia in recent days.

The state news agency TAP, citing Tunisia's Defense Ministry, said the mortar shells landed in an isolated area near the southern border town of Dehiba on Monday. No one was wounded and it was unclear who fired them.

A Libyan doctor helping refugees in a camp near Dehiba said witnesses had told him that Gaddafi's forces had stepped up their bombardment of towns in the Western Mountains.

The doctor, who gave his first name as Abdelrahman, also cited them as saying that dozens of people -- both rebels and civilians -- had been killed in the last week.

It is difficult independently to verify accounts of events in this region and other parts of western Libya, where journalists have little access.

The violence in sparsely populated Western Mountains has received little of the international attention given to attacks on cities on the coast such as Misrata and Ajdabiyah.

It is populated by Berbers, a group ethnically distinct from most Libyans and traditionally viewed with suspicion by Gaddafi's government.

Libyan officials deny attacking civilians, and say they are waging a battle against armed criminal gangs and al Qaeda sympathizers who, they say, are trying to destroy the country.

Abdelrahman, citing witnesses, said there had been fierce battles between government forces and insurgents since Friday in the regional towns of Nalut, Yafran and Zintan.

"According to witness accounts I heard in the refugee camp, dozens of people -- civilians and rebels -- were killed over the last seven days," he said. "Most were killed in the last three days when the attacks intensified."

Abdelrahman, declining to give his last name, said he worked and lived abroad but was in Tunisia to help fellow Libyans.

Isaa, a refugee from Nalut who spoke to Reuters on Abdelrahman's mobile phone, said homes had been destroyed and livestock killed in the shelling. "We heard that four people were killed in shelling attacks on Nalut today," he said.

People who arrived last week in Tunisia from Western Mountains told Reuters that Gaddafi's forces were shelling homes, poisoning wells and threatening to rape women in the region.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara and Joseph Nasr; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Tim Pearce)

    Libyan mortar shells hit Tunisia, follow refugees, R, 19.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-libya-tunisia-mortars-idUSTRE73I6UZ20110419

U.N. says 20 children killed in Misrata

BENGHAZI, Libya | Tue Apr 19, 2011
2:17pm EDT
Reuters
By Alexander Dziadosz

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed on Tuesday for a ceasefire in the Libyan city of Misrata, saying at least 20 children had been killed in attacks by besieging government forces on rebel-held parts of the city.

Libya's third city, where hundreds are believed to have been killed by shelling and sniper fire by Muammar Gaddafi's forces, is the main focus of efforts to protect civilians caught up in the Libyan leader's bid to put down an armed rebellion.

At the same time Western powers are looking for ways to support the rebels' efforts to topple Gaddafi, though NATO said there were limits to what air power could do to end the city's siege.

Britain said it would send military officers to advise the rebels on organization and communications, but not to train or arm fighters. France said the West had underestimated Gaddafi's ability to adapt his tactics in response to the NATO operation.

Italy said the international Libya Contact Group was seeking ways to allow the rebels to sell oil produced in the rebel-held east despite a U.N. embargo on Libyan oil sales.

Nine weeks after the rebellion broke out, inspired by other uprisings against autocratic Arab rulers, the NATO-led air campaign to keep Gaddafi's forces out of the air and prevent attacks on civilians has failed to halt the bombardment of Misrata, a city of 300,000 people.

"Fifty days into the fighting in Misrata, the full picture of the toll on children is emerging -- far worse than we had feared and certain to get worse unless there is a ceasefire," said Marixie Mercado of the U.N. children's fund UNICEF.

"We have at least 20 verified child deaths and many more injuries due to shrapnel from mortars and tanks and bullet wounds," she told a news briefing in Geneva.

Aid groups say food, medicines and other basic items are in short supply in the city, and tens of thousands of casualties and foreign workers are waiting at the port to be evacuated.

Many NATO members refuse to go beyond enforcing a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone to attack Gaddafi's forces, despite the urging of the United States, France and Britain.

Some of those who allowed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya to pass say that it is being misused to give the rebels military aid -- though fighting appears to have stalemated on a front line just west of Ajdabiyah in eastern Libya.

 

AIR STRIKES

NATO said numerous air strikes on Monday night targeted Gaddafi's communications infrastructure and the headquarters of his 32nd brigade, 10 km (six miles) south of Tripoli. Libyan television said Tripoli, Sirte and al-Aziziyah had been bombed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Western air support was allowing the Libyan opposition to refuse to sit down to negotiate.

"The U.N. Security Council never aimed to topple the Libyan regime," he said in Belgrade. "All those who are currently using the U.N. resolution for that aim are violating the U.N. mandate. It is crucial to establish a ceasefire."

France said President Nicolas Sarkozy would meet the head of Libya's rebels, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, in Paris on Wednesday, but its foreign minister, Alain Juppe, said that France, like Britain, remained opposed to sending ground troops.

The European Union outlined a tentative plan on Monday to do just that, with a non-combat mandate, to protect aid deliveries to Misrata and elsewhere if requested by the United Nations.

Any EU mission could involve military personnel securing the transport of supplies to Libya, in particular Misrata.

The U.N. World Food Program said it had, with Libyan consent, sent eight trucks from Tunisia with 240 tons of food -- enough for 50,000 people for 30 days -- to towns in the west including Zawiyah, Zintan and Nalut that are mostly under Gaddafi's control after uprisings were crushed.

GASOLINE CARGOES

A combination of fighting and U.N. sanctions have caused gasoline shortages in Tripoli and other government-controlled towns in the west.

But state oil official Bashir Guiloushi, who chairs Brega Oil Company, told state television that "we are working to ensure the arrival of successive cargoes of gasoline," without specifying where it was coming from.

He said the oil refinery at Zawiyah west of Tripoli, where production stopped for several weeks while rebels controlled the city, was now working at full capacity again.

For now, Misrata's lifeline is its port, where humanitarian supply ships have been docking and ferries have been evacuating some of the wounded as well as trapped foreign workers, although many thousands still await a passage to safety.

"There is no electricity. The town is functioning on generators ... the reserves of fuel are being used up," Amnesty International researcher Donatella Rovera told Reuters by telephone from the city. "The supply of water has now been cut off for weeks so, again, what is being used is reserves."

Government shellfire continued on Tuesday, Rovera said, and a rebel spokesman said at least 31 people had been killed there on Sunday and Monday by government shelling and snipers.

Doctors from the Arab Medical Union working in Misrata told the World Health Organization that the 120-bed hospital there was "overwhelmed."

They said around 30 patients with multiple injuries and requiring surgery were being admitted every day.

Libyan officials say they are fighting armed militias with ties to al Qaeda bent on destroying the country, and deny that government troops are shelling Misrata.

The rebels who control the eastern territory around Benghazi had hoped to sell oil produced there to finance the rebellion, but the U.N. sanctions designed to cut off Gaddafi's revenues have prevented them selling more than a trickle.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he hoped a meeting in early May of the Libya Contact Group -- European and Middle Eastern countries, the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League -- would agree a way to let the rebels sell oil on world markets.

(Additional reporting by Ashraf Fahim in Benghazi, Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, Souhail Karam in Rabat. James Mackenzie in Rome, Matt Falloon, Olesya Dmitracova and Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade; Writing by Kevin Liffey; Editing by Tim Pearce)

    U.N. says 20 children killed in Misrata, R, 19.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110419

West wants military,

aid action to end Libya crisis
 

BENGHAZI, Libya | Tue Apr 19, 2011
2:21am EDT
Reuters
By Michael Georgy

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - NATO may have to intensify attacks on government forces to break the military stalemate in Libya, while the United Nations pushes for a humanitarian presence to help civilians trapped in the conflict.

Both approaches, aimed at carrying out a U.N. Security Council mandate to protect Libyan civilians from attack by President Muammar Gaddafi's troops, will focus on the western city of Misrata, the only west Libyan city still in rebel hands.

Hundreds of people are thought to have been killed in the seven-week siege of the port city, where thousands of foreign migrant workers are stranded. A rebel spokesman said at least 31 people were killed in Misrata on Sunday and Monday by government shellfire and snipers.

Two months after the Libyan rebellion broke out in earnest, inspired by uprisings against autocratic rulers elsewhere in the Arab world, the insurgents control only the east of the country from their Benghazi stronghold, and part of Misrata.

NATO bombing has damaged Gaddafi's armor but not enough to break the stalemate, and the alliance may have no choice but to use naval gunfire or helicopters, analysts said -- the latter vulnerable to ground fire by Gaddafi's troops.

"There's more risks using helicopters as they are easier to shoot down, and it's a serious problem if you have casualties or people captured," said Daniel Keohane of the EU Institute for Security Studies think tank.

BOXED IN

The U.S., British and French leaders said last week they would not stop military action until Gaddafi quit.

"They've boxed themselves in by describing victory as Gaddafi leaving," said Keohane. "I don't think there's any way they can walk away now. There's a political imperative to carry on."

While NATO looked for a more effective way of attacking Gaddafi's forces despite limited resources, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said on Monday in Benghazi she was extremely worried about the plight of civilians in Misrata.

"I very much hope the security situation will allow us to get into Misrata," she said. "No one has any sense of the depth and scale of what is happening there.

Before the rebellion, Misrata had a population of 300,000.

The European Union outlined a tentative plan on Monday to send European troops to Misrata to protect aid deliveries if requested by the United Nations, EU officials said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in Budapest, said Gaddafi's government had agreed to a humanitarian presence in the capital Tripoli. His spokesman Farhan Haq said this included an agreement on the entry of international humanitarian staff and equipment through the Tunisian border.

Details were scarce, and so far Libya has not agreed to a ceasefire to allow aid providers an opportunity to work.

Previously, NATO leaders had ruled out sending ground troops into Libya, but EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Monday "The 27 (EU members) have now adopted unanimously the concept of the operations" -- if the UN requested it.

Any EU mission could involve hundreds of military personnel securing transport of supplies directly to Libya, in particular Misrata, and helping to supply food and shelter to refugee camps on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders.

EU troops would not have a combat role, except to protect the humanitarian mission, but analysts say the arrival of the first Western troops since the Libyan crisis erupted would be significant.

A chartered ship evacuated nearly 1,000 foreign workers and wounded Libyans from Misrata on Monday, the second evacuation ship in the past few days. Rebels said they had gained ground in fighting in the Tripoli Street area despite government shelling.

"It is clear Gaddafi wants to wipe out Misrata. NATO's inaction is helping him carry out this plan. Are they waiting for a massacre to happen to realize that they need to change tactics?" rebel spokesman Abdelsalam told Reuters by telephone.

The Libyan government denies allegations that it is violating its people's human rights and says it is fighting gangs of al Qaeda militants.

Pro-Gaddafi forces have also kept up an offensive on the rebels' eastern frontline outpost of Ajdabiyah, from where the rebels hope to retake the oil port of Brega, 80 km to the west.

(Additional reporting by Ashraf Fahim in Benghazi, Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli, Mariam Karoumy in Beirut, Sami Aboudi in Cairo, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Tim Pearce; Editing by Peter Graff)

    West wants military, aid action to end Libya crisis, R, 19.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110419

On Ship of Evacuees From Libya,

Harrowing Tales

April 18, 2011
The New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS

ABOARD THE IONIAN SPIRIT, off Libya — More than 900 migrant workers were evacuated by sea overnight Sunday from the besieged Libyan port city of Misurata, one further step in the international effort to rescue thousands of foreigners stranded within Libya after the rebellion began.

The rescued workers, ferried to safety in the rebel capital of Benghazi on a tourist vessel, carried with them little beyond harrowing accounts of their weeks in limbo beside a nearly abandoned port, and a collective sense of relief to be out of the war’s path.

The conditions they left behind were dire. Misurata, Libya’s third largest city, continued to be the scene of intensive, close-quarters fighting between forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and the city’s anti-Qaddafi rebels. It also faced barrages of mortar and rocket fire from Colonel Qaddafi’s troops.

As the fighting raged, as many as 5,000 migrant workers remained trapped within the city, according to Jeremy R. A. Haslam, the team leader for the International Organization for Migration, which chartered the vessel that entered the port for a second time to collect foreigners trying to flee.

The city also was at risk of losing more of its already limited medical support. Misurata, like much of Libya, has relied for years on foreign medical workers to help staff its hospitals. Much of that staff has already left. And foreign nurses aboard the vessel said that many more planned to go soon.

Prospects for further evacuations were unclear. Mr. Haslam said the crew of the Ionian Spirit, worried that Misurata was too dangerous, was threatening not to return for another evacuation. “They think they are pushing their luck with a third trip,” he said.

Compounding the unease was an evident sense of distrust between crew members and the cruise line operating the ship. “I am sure I do not want to go back,” said a crew member on the vessel. The crew member, who asked not to be identified because he feared retaliation, said that the crew had not been told they would travel to a war zone, and that many of the ship’s company remained on the vessel only because they were owed back pay.

“They told us we were going to Greece,” the crew member said. “Not here. They lied to us.”

All around the Ionian Spirit, the scenes of the evacuation were evident, as more than 650 young Ghanaian men slept on the decks of the vessels or slumped over the tables where tourists would ordinarily be enjoying their meals. Also on board were more than 100 Nigerians, 72 Libyans and smaller numbers of other nationalities.

They were an exhausted lot. Many had been sleeping in the open for weeks, and had waited, anxiety rising, for a berth on any of the few relief ships that have risked docking in Misurata.

Isaac Owuso, 33, a construction laborer, offered a mixture of gratitude that he had at last left the city with his deep disappointment at his recent fate. He had traveled from Ghana to Libya, he said, to work on the Qaddafi government’s construction projects and earn money for his wife and child.

When the war erupted, he had managed to save $2,000 euros and 100 Libyan dinars, which he kept hidden in his clothes. He tried to flee Misurata overland, he said, but robbed at a checkpoint. He said he did not know whether rebels or pro-Qaddafi gunmen manned the checkpoint. But he knew the result.

“Look at me,” he said, pulling a lone dinar note from his pocket. “This is my life. See me? I have only this money and nothing more. How will I take care of my family?”

The ship’s cabins, meanwhile, held many wounded Libyans evacuated from the siege, including four recent amputees. Some were anti-Qaddafi fighters suffering grievous wounds.

“Thank God for this ship,” said Mustafa Youssif, whose leg was amputated on Sunday after he was hit by shrapnel while riding in a pickup truck near Tripoli Street, one of Misurata’s fronts.

In other cabins were more victims: a 9-year-old boy struck in the teeth by shrapnel, and an anti-Qaddafi sniper shot through his mouth, a man peppered with shrapnel holes.

One deck also held several Filipino evacuees, including a group of teachers from Misurata University.

The teachers said they had come from the Philippines in December, and had not yet been paid their salary by the government when the war started. The university had closed, and since the bombardments of the city by the pro-Qaddafi forces, they had been surviving with help from Libyan neighbors.

“They gave us food,” said Zoe Contreras, 37, an English teacher. “Our neighbors were giving us water. They sometimes were knocking on our door and then just giving us food.”

Not all of the foreign workers in Misurata had been so fortunate, they said. A group of evacuating nurses said more than a dozen of their friends and colleagues in Misurata had been missing since mid-March, when the pro-Qaddafi forces occupied the neighborhood near their apartment building.

The missing, they said, included five Filipino and four Bangladeshi nurses, as well as an Egyptian nurse and her husband and three children. The account underscored that the toll of the fighting in Misurata, which rebels say has killed more than 1,000 people, is far from tallied, and that there are potentially many classes of victims whose fates remain unknown.

    On Ship of Evacuees From Libya, Harrowing Tales, NYT, 18.4.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/world/africa/19evacuees.html

Syrian forces fire at protesters,

unrest intensifies

AMMAN | Mon Apr 18, 2011
8:47pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian forces fired shots at hundreds of protesters who had gathered overnight in Homs city in defiance of warning by the authorities to halt what they called an insurrection, a rights campaigner said on Tuesday.

A member of the security police addressed the protesters at Clock Square through a loud speaker asking them to leave, and then the forces opened fire, said the human rights campaigner, who is in contact with protesters in the square.

Tear gas was also used. At least one protester was injured, the activist added. Two residents of Homs also said they heard the sound of gunfire coming from around the square.

Several hours earlier, Syrian state television broadcast an interior ministry statement that described the wave of unrest in Syria as an insurrection, pointing specifically to Homs as one of two cities where "armed groups belonging to Salafist organizations" were trying to terrorize the population.

Salafism is a strict form of Sunni Islam which many Arab governments equate with militant groups like al Qaeda.

President Bashar al-Assad announced on Saturday that he would end nearly half a century of emergency rule with legislation that should be in place by next week, but his pledge did little to appease protesters calling for political freedoms.

Rights campaigners say more than 200 people have been killed since the protests began.

Syrian authorities have intensified bans on independent media since protests challenging the authoritarian rule of Assad erupted more than a month ago.

No independent media is allowed into Homs or other cities witnessing unprecedented pro-democracy demonstrations. Several international journalists have been expelled or arrested.

Thousands demanded the overthrow of Assad on Monday at the funerals of 17 protesters killed in Homs, 165 km (100 miles) north of Damascus. Human rights campaigners said the 17 had been killed late on Sunday during protests against the death in custody of a tribal leader in Homs.

ALLEYWAY TO ALLEYWAY

"From alleyway to alleyway, from house to house, we want to overthrow you, Bashar," the mourners chanted, according to a witness at the funeral.

Further north, in Jisr al-Shughour, 1,000 people called for "the overthrow of the regime," echoing the chants of protesters who overthrew leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, at the funeral of a man who they said had been killed by security forces.

Protests against the authoritarian rule of Assad's Baath Party erupted in the southern city of Deraa more than a month ago, and have spread across the country.

The government says Syria is the target of a conspiracy and authorities blame the violence on armed gangs and infiltrators supplied with weapons from Lebanon and Iraq. Opposition groups say there is no evidence of a conspiracy.

The interior ministry statement said Salafist groups were trying "to spread terror across Syria ... using the march of freedom and reform that was launched according to a timetable by President Assad in his guiding speech."

The demonstrations present the gravest challenge yet to Assad, who succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000 after 30 years of rule.

    Syrian forces fire at protesters, unrest intensifies, R, 18.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110419

Yemen ruling party members

form pro-protest bloc
 

SANAA | Mon Apr 18, 2011
3:02pm EDT
Reuters
By Mohammed Ghobari and Mohamed Sudam

SANAA (Reuters) - Members of Yemen's ruling party including three former ministers formed a new bloc on Monday to support protests against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The protests, inspired by uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia, are now in their third month and bring tens of thousands of people onto the streets almost every day demanding an end to endemic poverty and corruption. Scores of protesters have been killed.

At least 88 people were wounded on Monday in the Red Sea port of Hudaida as plainclothes police fired bullets and teargas at protesters, who responded by hurling stones, witnesses and doctors said.

After years of backing Saleh as a bulwark against regional instability and the activities of al Qaeda's active Yemeni branch, Saudi Arabia and the United States are now pressing him to negotiate with the opposition on handing over power.

The new party, called the Justice and Development Bloc, opposes the suppression of protests and is demanding an end to Saleh's 32-year rule, its leader Mohammed Abu Lahoum told Reuters.

The new party includes former ministers for tourism, human rights and transport from the ruling party, and a number of members of parliament, who joined a stream of former officials who have already deserted Saleh.

"We support the youthful revolution and we are with it," Lahoum said. "The issue is not the split from the ruling party but the difference in views."

The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including Saudi Arabia, have offered to mediate between the opposition and the government. But the Yemeni opposition rejects such talks without guarantees that Saleh will relinquish power.

No breakthrough was reached at a meeting between opposition leaders and GCC foreign ministers in Saudi Arabia on Sunday night.

A ruling party official told Reuters a high-level delegation from the party would head to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, for a meeting there on Tuesday.

In Hudaida, residents told Reuters that plainclothes police armed with clubs, pistols and stones had attacked thousands of protesters who had marched into the streets outside the square where they have been camping for weeks calling for Saleh to go.

"We're appealing for help in medical supplies as we're really suffering from a severe shortage ... the medical situation is really bad," said protester Abdul Jabar Zayed. "We have some friends missing and we think they were arrested, we are still making calculations but no specific number yet."

In a first round of clashes hurt 15 people, two were shot and the others were beaten or hit with stones, doctors said, and protesters began to withdraw back to their camp.

Clashes erupted again as riot police fired shots and tear gas at a group of protesters, witnesses said. Protesters responded by marching out of their camp again, this time headed for Hudaida's main thoroughfare, residents said.

Five people were shot and 68 were beaten or suffering from teargas inhalation, they said. Zayed said protesters had built a roadblock to try to prevent police getting closer to the demonstrations.

(Writing by Erika Solomon and Jason Benham; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

    Yemen ruling party members form pro-protest bloc, R, 18.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/us-yemen-idUSTRE73H1EU20110418

Libya's oil company

protests to OPEC about Qatar

LONDON | Mon Apr 18, 2011
Reuters
10:42am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Libya's National Oil Corporation has protested to OPEC about help fellow member Qatar is giving to Libyan rebels, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.

The complaint by Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of NOC, hints at rising political tension as a result of the Libyan crisis within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which pumps more than a third of the world's oil.

His letter to OPEC described the Qatari action as "very unfortunate," said one of the sources, who declined to be identified because the source is not authorized to speak to journalists.

Brent crude futures earlier this month rose above $127 a barrel, the highest in more than two and a half years, partly as a result of the conflict in Libya and resulting loss of most of its crude oil exports.

Qatar is marketing Libyan crude oil and buying fuel on behalf of the rebels -- throwing a lifeline to the forces fighting Muammar Gaddafi.

A second source familiar with the matter said NOC had complained to OPEC about Qatar, asking not to be named because of the political sensitivity of the issue. No-one from OPEC's Vienna headquarters was available to comment on Monday.

OPEC has a track record of working together to limit oil supplies when it considers it necessary to support prices, even during times of political tension or war between members, such as following Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Although Saudi Arabia unilaterally adjusted supplies, the 12-member OPEC has yet to take any formal action in response to the loss of Libyan oil supplies.

The group is not scheduled to meet to reassess output policy until June.

Libya's oil output has fallen to less than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 1.6 million bpd before the crisis, or almost 2 percent of world supply.

    Libya's oil company protests to OPEC about Qatar, R, 18.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/us-libya-opec-idUSTRE73H2FF20110418

Gaddafi presses Libyan rebels,

West says no troops

AJDABIYAH, Libya | Mon Apr 18, 2011
1:00am EDT
Reuters
By Alexander Dziadosz

AJDABIYAH, Libya (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi kept up an offensive on the rebels' eastern frontline outpost of Ajdabiyah, while the West again ruled out sending ground troops to help the rebel cause.

One witness said he saw around a dozen rockets land near the western entrance to Ajdabiyah, which rebels wanted to use as a staging post to retake the oil port of Brega. Many fled on Sunday as loud explosions boomed across the town.

"There are still some guys out there at the western gate but the situation isn't very good," said Wassim el-Agouri, a 25-year-old rebel volunteer waiting at Ajdabiyah's eastern gate.

"We want weapons, modern weapons," said rebel Ayman Aswey, 21. "If we had those, we could advance against them."

Sunday marked a month since the U.N. 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 armor, 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 on Sunday.

"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.

He said outside powers would help in every other way to stop Gaddafi "unleashing this hell on people in Misrata" and other towns up and down the Libyan coast, including providing "non-lethal equipment" to the rebels.

European Council President Herman van Rompuy said he viewed the Libyan rebel council as "a valuable discussion partner ... that embodies the Libyan people's aspirations," a political vote of confidence for a force that has struggled militarily.

 

STREETS DESERTED

Ajdabiyah's streets were almost deserted by mid-afternoon and rebels barricaded the roads with concrete blocks, tree branches and anything else they could find.

Rebel pick-ups patrolled the streets and men took up positions across the town with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Others returned to positions at the western gate with their weapons pointed west and south into the desert.

"We are ready for a street war. We are prepared. We have got dynamite and we've got grenades," said rebel fighter Emtar el-Farjany, who was holding a stick of dynamite.

Some rebels on Saturday made it into the outskirts of Brega, 50 miles to the west, but many others retreated to Ajdabiyah after six were killed by rockets fired by Gaddafi loyalists on the exposed coastal road joining the two towns.

By Sunday, scores of volunteer fighters and civilian cars carrying men, women and children streamed east from Ajdabiyah up the coast road toward Benghazi, where the popular revolt against Gaddafi's 41-year rule began on February 17.

In western Libya, the rebel-held city of Misrata has been under government siege for seven weeks, leading to a growing humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed in the fighting and shelling of the city.

A rebel spokesman said Gaddafi's forces bombarded Misrata again on Sunday, killing at least six people. Abdel Basset Mezerik said at least 47 people were also wounded.

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 toward 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.

"From a military point of view, one can currently see there is a stalemate," the head of Germany's intelligence service, Ernst Uhrlau, told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper.

"One cannot predict at the moment how much longer Gaddafi can hold onto power. The area around Tripoli is much stronger in terms of the population and the tribes than the east," he said.

Earlier on Sunday a sandstorm obscured the flat expanse of desert stretching west from Ajdabiyah to Brega. Rebel Ahmed al-Zuwaihi blamed the weather for a lack of NATO air strikes.

"The weather is no good today. NATO hasn't hit anything," he said. "It's a big opportunity for Gaddafi and he's taking advantage of it. He might enter Ajdabiyah today. Today the planes are not going to hit anything."

NATO warplanes instead bombed the area of Al-Hira, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of the capital Tripoli and also hit the city of Sirte, Libyan state television said. Bursts of anti-aircraft fire were heard in Tripoli on Sunday evening.

 

SNIPERS

In Misrata, rebels say they have faced daily bombardment from Gaddafi's forces. The U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch has accused Gaddafi's forces of using cluster bombs -- which scatter bomblets over a wide area, increasing civilian casualties. The Libyan government has rejected the allegations.

A rebel spokesman, called Abdelsalam, said there was fighting around Misrata's main thoroughfare Tripoli Street.

"Snipers are firing in all directions," he said. "For three days, it was very tough. Gaddafi troops were launching powerful attacks. They have been firing artillery, mortars."

Food was running short and long queues formed outside bakeries. Some streets were fast becoming unrecognizable.

The Libyan government blames militants allied to al Qaeda for the fighting. Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi held talks with U.N. envoy Abdelilah Al-Khatib in Tripoli and condemned "the unjustified crusader colonial aggression on Libya."

He said Libya was ready to comply with U.N. resolutions to implement a ceasefire and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid, according to the Jana state news agency.

(Additional reporting by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli, Mary-Louise Gumuchian in Sfax and Sami Aboudi in Cairo; Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Alex Richardson)

    Gaddafi presses Libyan rebels, West says no troops, R, 18.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/18/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110418

In a Medical Tent in Libya,

a Grim Procession

April 17, 2011
The New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS

MISURATA, Libya — Jinan Hussein Jweil rested on her back on a gurney inside the triage tent. Either a bullet or a piece of whizzing shrapnel had struck the 5-year-old high on the right side of her head.

A Libyan and Italian medical team worked to save her. It was not certain they could. “Her brain is out,” said Dr. Abdullah Juwid, a surgeon.

As the ugly math of a midsize city suffering a siege would have it, Dr. Juwid was both a doctor in an overcrowded triage tent and an uncle of this wounded child. He had no time to dwell on her case.

A pickup truck skidded to a stop outside. Several rebel fighters carried their bullet-riddled friend through the entrance flap. The man appeared to have been in his 20s. He had been shot through both legs and squarely in his chest and mouth. His pupils were fixed.

“Maybe he is dead,” another doctor said, as their assistants cut away the man’s clothes. The assistants stopped. There was no point in searching for more wounds. “He is killed,” one of them said.

In the battle for Misurata, a rebel holdout city under attack by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces for months, the tally of those killed and wounded rises daily, and often by the hour. It can be only partially assessed at one of the several treatment centers scattered around the rebel-controlled portions of the city. But where it is counted, it is grim.

The wounded arrive at this triage tent throughout the day and sometimes deep into the night, a population formed by circumstance and number into a procession of wartime trauma.

Mustafa Madhoun, a physiotherapist who had never seen injuries nastier than those suffered by the victims of vehicle accidents, had just participated in the amputation of the lower left leg of a fighter, Mustafa Youssif.

Mr. Madhoun summed it up. “Yesterday was a very bad day,” he said. “I had hoped today would be different. Today is a very bad day, too.”

In clinical terms, this triage tent has seen a catalog of the effects of modern weapons on human life — gunshot wounds, blast wounds, shrapnel wounds, the occasional burns. People arrive with wounds as mild as a bullet’s graze, to wounds as life-changing as a severed spinal cord. A few arrive dead.

On average, 50 or 60 wounded people pass through this tent each day. About 10 of them die, according to the medical staff and the flow of patients observed.

“Most of them, for sure, are civilians,” said Dr. Paolo Grosso, an anesthesiologist who is part of a seven-member team in Misurata from Emergency, the Italian aid organization, and was among those working to save young Jinan. The organization has been helping Misurata’s doctors.

How many people have been fatally wounded since the siege began in February is not readily known. Rebels say more than 1,000 people have been killed. That number is not verifiable in the current conditions.

The hospital records available so far indicate that at a minimum 313 people have been killed and 1,047 wounded through Sunday evening. But this count is most likely low, as some families do not take victims who have been killed outright to hospitals. They simply bury them instead.

(Eight people who were killed in a rocket strike last Thursday, for example, were interred in a small public park in the Qasr Ahmed neighborhood without being tallied by any medical staff.)

Some days, like Saturday and Sunday, in which 70 people were verified wounded each day, have been worse than others.

Among those struck have been children, including Mohamed Hussein el-Faar, 10. He arrived at the triage tent Saturday afternoon, howling. Blood trickled from the hair beside his right ear. He fought the doctors as they tried to examine him, until several assistants held him down.

At first it seemed he had been grazed by a bullet. But there was also a wound on the opposite side of his head. After he was stabilized and moved into a facility with a CT scanner, the images provided a fuller view: a bullet had passed through Mohamed’s skull.

On Sunday he was still alive, though a doctor gave a discouraging prognosis. “Not good,” he said. “Never with this kind of injury is the prognosis good.”

By late Sunday morning in the triage tent, there was little time to think of yesterday’s patients. The sounds of battle could be heard a few blocks away, and thick smoke billowed over part of Tripoli Street, one of the city’s main fronts. A hurried pace had picked up again.

At 11:20 a.m. the medical staff cut away the shirt of a man who had been peppered by light debris in an explosive blast, his back busy with small holes. An ultrasound technician scanned his torso while doctors watched.

“No problem,” Dr. Grosso said. “His chest is free.”

Another ambulance arrived eight minutes later, with a man who was not so lucky. A bullet had struck him near his hip — a place where blood flow can be very difficult to stop. The crowd of men who saw him being carried off the ambulance, and saw the wide pool of blood he left behind, realized he was likely to die.

The men immediately began to chant: “God is great,” they shouted, over and over.

Throughout the afternoon the pace was unrelenting. At times four or five fresh patients were treated at once. As each was wheeled out of the tent, it seemed another arrived.

The trauma center was in many ways well-provisioned. Its staff and the many volunteers who have come to support it had done the planning, and some of the necessary scrounging, to make do. (At two sinks on Sunday, the staff washed hands with powdered laundry soap — anything to stay clean.)

Many of its principal needs have thus far been covered. It has a generator and running water, two things not available in much of the city. It serves its patients and those who work here occasional bottles of water and small portions of food.

But it lacks some medicines, including opiates. For at least a week there has been no morphine.

Some of the patients would in any other circumstance surely need it, including Mr. Youssif, a fighter brought down by ordnance that ruined his legs.

Mr. Youssif watched as his bloody pants were cut away, revealing shins that had been blown open and feet that pointed in ways they were not meant to. It was obvious his lower right leg would need to be amputated. Keeping his lower left leg appeared uncertain, too. He flashed a victory sign, laid back on the gurney, and moaned.

He began to pray.

Later, in a lull after Mr. Youssif’s lower right leg had been removed, Mr. Madhoun paced away from the tent.

Assistants were washing bloodied stretchers and pushing them into ambulances headed back out. The smoke over Tripoli Street was getting thicker. Some said the rebel lines risked being broken, which might allow the pro-Qaddafi forces to push unimpeded into the city.

Asked if he was afraid, Mr. Madhoun’s answer was quick.

“Absolutely not,” he said. He added: “We have a strong connection to God. All of us here know that some day death will come. We know we will die. And we do not care how we die.”

He stood quietly as patients were moved by. A refrigerated truck in the lot held rotting remains collected in the morning on the street. He amended his answer. “It is an honor,” he said, “to die in defense of freedom.”

So many, though, have been wounded or killed defending nothing, resisting nothing, just trying to stay out of the conflict’s way.

As Sunday’s tallies rose, an aged woman joined the procession of the wounded, as did a wafer-thin 92-year-old man, who was carried into the tent with bloodied face and feet.

He had been in his home, his son said, when a mortar or artillery round hit it, collapsing the roof.

More and more fighters arrived, too, some in pickup trucks that now contained lakes of blood. These men were in the last moments of life. By 5 p.m. the crowd around the tent was chanting almost nonstop.

Another Libyan fighter had died, and his body was to be carried to his grave. A gantlet of men formed, some of them weeping, and walked with the wooden casket containing him overhead toward another waiting pickup truck. The body was wrapped in a green blanket, prepared for the earth.

Ten minutes later, the same dirge started anew. It was another man’s turn.

Dr. Grosso watched. He had been a portrait of composure throughout the day. Now he stood among the blood-splattered ambulances.

“It is a shame on Western nations,” he said, and slipped back inside to work.

A short while later, the word moved from the medical staff, then through the crowd. There was another victim. Jinan Hussein Jweil, 5 years old, was dead.

    In a Medical Tent in Libya, a Grim Procession, NYT, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/world/africa/18misurata.html

Al Qaeda Stirs Again

April 17, 2011
The New York Times
By JUAN C. ZARATE

Washington

MANY in the West had taken comfort in Al Qaeda’s silence in the wake of the uprisings in the Muslim world this year, as secular, nonviolent protests, led by educated youth focused on redressing longstanding local grievances, showcased democracy’s promise and seemed to leave Al Qaeda behind.

Indeed, the pristine spirit of the Arab Spring does represent an existential threat to Al Qaeda’s extremist ideology. But Al Qaeda’s leaders also know that this is a strategic moment. They are banking on the disillusionment that inevitably follows revolutions to reassert their prominence in the region. And now Al Qaeda is silent no more — and is taking the rhetorical offensive.

In recent statements, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, and Qaeda surrogates have aligned themselves with the protesters in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere, while painting the West as an enemy of the Arab people.

In North Africa, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed that while protesters flooded the streets of Tunis and Cairo, it had been fighting in the mountains against the same enemies. Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, declared that in the wake of the revolutions, “our mujahedeen brothers ... will get a chance to breathe again after three decades of suffocation” and that “the great doors of opportunity would open up for the mujahedeen all over the world.”

Mr. Zawahri has denounced democracy, arguing that toppling dictators is insufficient and that “justice, freedom, and independence” can be achieved only through “jihad and resistance until the Islamic regime rises.”

The chaos and disappointment that follow revolutions will inevitably provide many opportunities for Al Qaeda to spread its influence. Demographic pressures, economic woes and corruption will continue to bedevil even the best-run governments in the region. Divisions will beset the protest movements, and vestiges of the old regimes may re-emerge.

Al Qaeda and its allies don’t need to win the allegiance of every protester to exert their influence; they have a patient view of history.

Although Washington must avoid tainting organic movements or being perceived as a central protagonist, the United States and its Western allies should not be shy about working with reformers and democrats to shape the region’s trajectory — and ensuring Al Qaeda’s irrelevance in the Sunni Arab world, the heart of its supposed constituency.

In countries where autocrats have been toppled (as in Egypt and Tunisia), we must help shape the new political and social environment; in nondemocratic, allied states (like the region’s monarchies), we need to accelerate internal reform; and in repressive states (like Iran, Libya and Syria), we should challenge the legitimacy of autocratic regimes and openly assist dissidents and democrats.

This is not about military intervention or the imposition of American-style democracy. It is about using American power and influence to support organic reform movements.

The United States Agency for International Development and advocacy organizations can help civil society groups grow; human rights groups can organize and assist networks of dissidents; and Western women’s groups and trade unions could support their counterparts throughout the Middle East. Wealthy philanthropists and entrepreneurs who are part of the Middle Eastern diaspora could make investments and provide economic opportunities for the region’s youth, while technology companies interested in new markets could partner with anticorruption groups to aid political mobilization and increase government accountability and transparency. Hollywood and Bollywood writers and producers should lionize the democratic heroes who took to the streets to challenge the orthodoxy of fear.

A focused campaign to shape the course of reform would align our values and interests with the aspirations of the protesters. More important, it would answer the challenge from Al Qaeda to define what happens next and reframe the tired narratives of the past.

In 2005, Mr. Zawahri anticipated this battle for reform and noted that “demonstrations and speaking out in the streets” would not be sufficient to achieve freedom in the Muslim world. If we help the protesters succeed, it will not only serve long-term national security interests but also mark the beginning of the end of Al Qaeda.


Juan C. Zarate, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was the deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism from 2005 to 2009.

    Al Qaeda Stirs Again, NYT, 17.4.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/opinion/18Zarate.html

Yemen forces fire

on Sanaa protest march, 22 hurt

SANAA | Sun Apr 17, 2011
5:42pm EDT
Reuters
By Mohamed Sudam and Mohammed Ghobari

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh fired at a protest march in Sanaa on Sunday, wounding at least 22 people, doctors said, as opposition leaders met Gulf Arab mediators in Saudi Arabia.

Doctors said around 200 more demonstrators were overcome by tear gas during the clashes when they marched outside their normal protest zone in the streets near Sanaa University, a hub of pro-democracy demonstrations that have lasted three months.

"We neared the Sanaa Trade Center when police confronted us with tear gas, and suddenly opened heavy gunfire on us from all directions," said Sabry Mohammed, a protester.

"A state of terror set in among the demonstrators, and some of them fled into side streets."

Both Western and Gulf Arab allies have tried without success so far to broker a resolution to a crisis over a transition of power from Saleh, who has led the Arabian Peninsula state for 32 years and says he wants a handover, but only to "safe hands."

Saudi and Western allies of Yemen fear a prolonged standoff could ignite clashes between rival military units and cause chaos that would benefit an active al Qaeda wing operating in the poor, mountainous country.

Hundreds of security forces deployed across the area near where the clashes took place on Algeria Street in Sanaa, roughly 2 km (1.2 miles) outside the normal protest zone. Some were on foot while others were in armored vehicles.

The wounded were rushed to hospital by ambulance and private car, and tear gas canisters littered the road. A protest official told anti-Saleh crowds over a loudspeaker dozens of protesters had been arrested by a nearby mosque.

A military source, however, denied either republican guard or central security forces had fired on protesters, either with bullets or tear gas.

Clashes also were reported to have taken place in Dhamar, just south of the capital.

A political survivor who has described governing Yemen as akin to "dancing on the heads of snakes," Saleh has warned of civil war and the break-up of the country if he is forced out.

More than 116 protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces since late January.

 

SAUDI MEETING

Gulf Arab states stepped in this month with an offer to mediate after Western-brokered talks stalled, and an opposition delegation met Gulf foreign ministers in Riyadh to lay out conditions for entering formal talks.

The opposition delegation, led by former foreign minister Mohammed Basindwa, rejected a Gulf framework for talks last week, saying it wanted Saleh out within two weeks and the Gulf plan did not include a quick or clear transition timetable.

The Riyadh meeting did not appear to produce any major breakthroughs, but Saleh's opponents did agree to continue talks with the Gulf states, a GCC statement said. The Gulf ministers would also meet separately with Saleh's representatives.

Basindwa said the opposition had agreed to meet in Riyadh at the invitation of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal on condition no Saleh representatives would be included.

The opposition said Saleh stepping down was not negotiable, but other sensitive matters like granting him immunity from prosecution would not prove stumbling blocks to a deal.

"We are not after taking the president to trial. This issue is not on the table. The president will ask for guarantees ... and the GCC will identify the nature of the guarantees necessary for the president to step down," said Sultan al-Atwani, a member of the opposition delegation.

"We want him to step down. If he wants to remain in Yemen, let it be, and if he wants to leave, let it be."

Saleh had welcomed the Gulf plan, which appeared to promise him immunity from prosecution. Saleh accepted the Gulf talks framework the next day.

After initially offering to leave after his current term ends in 2013, Saleh subsequently said he would step down after holding elections, possibly this year.

Even before the start of the protests, inspired by the toppling of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents, Saleh was struggling to quell a separatist rebellion in the south and cement a truce with Shi'ite Muslim rebels in the north.

(Additional reporting by Asma Alsharif in Riyadh; Writing by Reed Stevenson and Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

    Yemen forces fire on Sanaa protest march, 22 hurt, R, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-yemen-idUSLDE73E0BF20110417

Assad pledge fails to quell Syria anger;

troops fire

AMMAN | Sun Apr 17, 2011
3:32pm EDT
Reuters
By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters at a funeral on Sunday, witnesses said, and an announcement that President Bashar al-Assad would lift 48-years of emergency rule failed to quell fury on the streets.

Two witnesses said security forces killed three mourners when they opened fire on a funeral for a man killed the day before, which turned into a demonstration on a highway outside the town of Talbiseh, north of the central city of Homs.

One resident said he counted five tanks and saw soldiers wearing combat gear deployed around the town.

Chants at protests on Sunday, Syria's Independence Day holiday, more hostile toward Assad than at previous marches held in recent weeks, a sign that a promise to lift the country's hated emergency law had failed to appease the public.

Opposition figures say they believe new laws that will replace the emergency rule are likely to retain severe curbs on political freedoms.

Thousands of demonstrators called for Bashar's overthrow at another funeral, held in Hirak town northeast of the southern city of Deraaa, for soldier Mohammad Ali Radwan al-Qoman, whose relatives believe he was tortured by the security forces.

"Freedom, freedom Syria, Bashar get out," people chanted, their slogans audible in a telephone call with one of the mourners at the funeral.

A relative, who declined to be named, said Qoman's family were told he had been accidentally electrocuted at his unit, but the 20-year-old conscript had signs of beating to his feet and doctors at the local hospital said there were signs of torture.

DEATH TOLL RISING

Assad named a new cabinet last week, and in a speech to his ministers on Saturday said legislation to replace the emergency law should be ready by next week. But he did not address protesters' demands to curb Syria's security apparatus and dismantle its authoritarian system.

Protests against Assad's authoritarian rule began in Deraa after teenagers were arrested for scrawling pro-democracy graffiti more than a month ago. Demonstrations have spread across large parts of the country of 20 million people, inspired by uprisings in other parts of the Arab world this year.

The death toll, which rights groups put at more than 200 people, continues to rise. Assad says Syria is the target of a conspiracy and authorities blame the violence on armed gangs and "infiltrators" supplied with weapons from Lebanon and Iraq.

The unprecedented unrest has spread across the authoritarian state, posing the sternest challenge yet to Assad, who assumed the presidency in 2000 when his father, Hafez al-Assad, died after 30 years in power.

In the coastal city of Banias, around 2,000 people marched with some chanting "the people want the overthrow of Bashar."

"No Sunni, no Alawite: freedom is what we want," they chanted. Assad is a member of the Alawite minority sect in a country that is predominately Sunni Muslim.

They called for the arrest of pro-Assad militia members, known as "al-shabbiha." Residents say they killed five people Banias last week following demonstration against Assad's rule.

Funerals were also held on Sunday in the port city of Latakia for two protesters who were killed in a confrontation with security forces at a protest on Friday, a rights activist in contact with Latakia said.

The funerals turned into protests and two mourners were injured by bullets when security forces intervened to stop the demonstrations, the activist said.

In rallies elsewhere, thousands of Syrians chanted slogans calling for political freedoms at independence day celebrations.

"The people want freedom," several hundred people shouted at the grave of independence leader Ibrahim Hananu in Syria's second city Aleppo, which has been mostly free of pro-democracy protests that erupted more than a month ago in the south.

Hundreds also turned out in the southern city of Suweida, in the heart of the country's Druze heartland. They chanted "God, Syria, freedom, that's all," before coming under attack from Assad loyalists, a woman at the demonstration said.

"They came at us with sticks and also hit us with the pictures they were carrying of Bashar -- the same president who was talking about freedom yesterday," she said.

The head of Germany's intelligence service was quoted on Sunday as saying the Assad dynasty's history of crushing dissent meant a North Africa-style uprising was unlikely.

"Remember that the father of the current president a few decades back murdered as many as 30,000 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama," Ernst Uhrlau told Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper, referring to Hafez al-Assad's crushing of an uprising led by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982.

(Writing by Dominic Evans and Khaled Yacoub Oweis; Editing by Peter Graff)

    Assad pledge fails to quell Syria anger; troops fire, R, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110417

Israel holds two Palestinians

over settlement killings

JERUSALEM | Sun Apr 17, 2011
12:07pm EDT
Reuters
By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police have arrested two Palestinian teenagers on suspicion of stabbing to death a Jewish couple and three of their children while they slept in a West Bank settlement, a police spokesman said on Sunday.

The killings on the night of March 11 in Itamar in the occupied West Bank caused shock in Israel and drew condemnation from the Palestinian Authority that exercises limited self-rule in the area.

Police said Amjad Awwad, 19, and Hakim Awwad, 18, from Awarta, a Palestinian village neighboring Itamar, were in custody. Hakim was detained on April 5 and Amjad on April 10, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

He said the two were suspected of having killed Udi Fogel, 37, his wife Ruth, 36, and three of their five children, Yoav, 10, Eldad, four, and three-month-old Hadas.

"The two planned and carried out the attack with knives, they first killed children Yoav and Eldad before moving into the parents' bedroom and killing them and baby Hadas who was sleeping with them," Rosenfeld said.

He added that the Fogel house was the second they broke into after first entering a house that was empty. The were also found to be in possession of an assault rifle and ammunition taken from the Fogels, added Rosenfeld.

Nimrod Aloni, a senior military officer who commanded Israeli troops in the search for suspects in Awarta, said in a conference call the killings were not premeditated but that the brothers were egged on by their own daring.

"The murders were not planned, they were something that happened when they entered and exited the house twice. They wanted to test their own ability to break into a house and steal a weapon. The killings took place when they went in for a second time," Aloni said.

Hakim's mother, Nof, told Reuters by phone that her son was innocent and suggested he may have been pushed into a confession by Israeli questioning.

"Maybe my son went crazy as a result of the interrogation or they asked him to sign some paper. My son cannot do such a thing ... They had taken his sister to prison for six days (to pressure him) and they also took me in for two days," she said.

Aloni said he had no doubt the killers had been caught, although he did not elaborate on the evidence that had been uncovered other than mentioning the assault rifle found in the two men's possession.

OTHER ARRESTS

Rosenfeld said five other members of the Awwad family were also arrested as suspected accomplices and all were being held by the Shin Bet undercover internal security service, although he did not know whether any had yet been charged.

Rosenfeld said the Awwad family had known links to the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) faction that has carried out attacks against Israelis in the past. He said an uncle of the two suspects was connected to the killing of an Itamar security guard a decade ago.

Some 500,000 settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians fear the enclaves will deny them a viable state on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Violence in the West Bank has dropped significantly since its peak during a Palestinian uprising a decade ago.

 

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, editing by Mark Heinrich)

    Israel holds two Palestinians over settlement killings, R, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-palestinians-israel-killings-idUSTRE73G0PS20110417

Israeli teenager dies

from bus attack injuries

JERUSALEM | Sun Apr 17, 2011
12:07pm EDT
Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli teen-ager who was critically injured by an anti-tank missile fired by Hamas militants at his school bus earlier this month died Sunday, a police spokesman said.

The missile was fired across the border by gunmen in the Gaza Strip at the yellow bus in southern Israel on April 7, injuring the 16-year-old and the driver, and drew a harsh Israeli retaliation over four days of fighting.

Nineteen Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli ground and air strikes, and Gaza militants fired at least 140 mortars and rockets at southern Israel, causing damage but no injuries.

The fighting has subsided since an informal ceasefire a week ago.

"He died this afternoon from wounds sustained in the attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

    Israeli teenager dies from bus attack injuries, R, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-palestinians-israel-bus-idUSTRE73G1HX20110417

Clinton pledges Japan support

as PM Kan calls for "rebirth"

TOKYO | Sun Apr 17, 2011
1:24am EDT
Reuters
By Chisa Fujioka and Matt Spetalnick

TOKYO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday urged Japan to remain active on the world stage as it grappled with a nuclear crisis in the wake of a deadly earthquake and tsunami and she pledged support for Washington's key ally in East Asia.

Clinton also said Japan and the United States had agreed to create a "public-private partnership for reconstruction" under the guidance of Japan's government, and that U.S. firms and organizations would begin discussing how they can support Japan as it comes through the crisis.

"Economically, diplomatically and in so many other ways, Japan is indispensable to global problem-solving," Clinton told a news conference after talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto. "And the U.S.-Japan alliance is as indispensable as ever to global security and progress."

Clinton arrived in Japan, which is still reeling from the triple disaster nearly five weeks later, on the final leg of a global trek that took her to Berlin for NATO talks on the Libya conflict and to Seoul to tackle the North Korean nuclear stand-off.

She planned to meet unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan in Tokyo and was also invited to tea with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Imperial Residence.

Japan's March 11 quake and tsunami killed up to 28,000 people, crippled a nuclear power plant and seriously rattled the world's third-largest economy. The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), will hold a news conference later on Sunday about the outlook for bringing the plant under control.

Damages have been estimated at $300 billion, making it the world's costliest natural disaster.

Washington has deployed thousands of troops plus military aircraft and navy ships to help with relief work in the devastated northeastern part of the island nation.

Earlier, a senior U.S. official said one of Clinton's key messages was Japan should not withdraw from the world stage.

"We all recognize that Japan is in a critical phase, and we want to encourage them as they rebuild and recover to maintain an international focus, that this crisis does not trigger an inward-looking Japan," the official told reporters during Clinton's stop in Seoul.

Clinton is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit in a gesture of solidarity with Japan, one of Washington's closest Asian allies, since it was engulfed in its worst crisis since World War Two.

Her 5-1/2-hour stop comes after a week in which the Japanese government put its nuclear calamity on a par with the world's worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl, after new data showed that more radiation had leaked from its crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant than first thought.

Kan has insisted the nuclear situation is slowly stabilizing and the country must now focus on recovery from the 9.0-magnitude quake and the tsunami it unleashed.

"I believe ... this difficult period will provide us with a precious window of opportunity to secure the 'Rebirth of Japan'," Kan wrote in an editorial in the online version of Sunday's International Herald Tribune newspaper.

He said Japan would remain internationally engaged while it recovers from the disasters.

"I believe that the best way for Japan to reciprocate ... the cordial friendship extended to us is to continue our contribution to the development of the international community," he wrote.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC PILLAR

In the meantime, Washington is concerned about harm to the economic health of a key trading partner and a pillar of the global economy.

Japan's economics minister warned last week that the damage was likely to be worse than first thought as power shortages would cut factory output and disrupt supply chains. The Bank of Japan governor said the economy was in a "severe state," while central bankers were uncertain when efforts to rebuild the northeast would boost growth.

Japan's nuclear disaster has also raised concern in the United States about President Barack Obama's push for expanded nuclear energy to help wean Americans off their dependence on foreign oil.

Neighboring China and South Korea have become increasingly alarmed over the risk of radiation spreading from Japan, and several countries have banned or restricted food imports.

Japanese voters last weekend vented their anger at the government's handling of the nuclear and humanitarian crisis, with Kan's ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) losing nearly 70 seats in local elections.

A fragile political detente with opposition parties has already collapsed and on Sunday, one of Kan's chief rivals in the DPJ, Ichiro Ozawa, hinted he would vote in favor of a no-confidence motion against Kan, according to the Mainichi newspaper.

Kan was already under pressure to step down before the March 11 disasters, although any no confidence motion would need the support of more than 70 MPs from his own party.

The North Korean nuclear stand-off was also expected to be on the agenda for Clinton's talks in Tokyo, especially after she discussed the issue with South Korean leaders in Seoul.

Japan is party to the long-stalled six-nation talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon nuclear weapons development.

(Additional reporting by Shinichi Saoshiro and Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by David Chance and Alex Richardson)

    Clinton pledges Japan support as PM Kan calls for "rebirth", R, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-japan-idUSTRE72A0SS20110417

Libyan rebels push on Brega,

Misrata bombarded

AJDABIYAH, Libya | Sun Apr 17, 2011
1:32am EDT
By Michael Georgy

AJDABIYAH, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan rebels pushed toward the strategic oil port of Brega while Muammar Gaddafi's forces pounded besieged Misrata to the west with rockets and mortars.

Rebels said Gaddafi's forces were ensconced in the center of Brega, often inside houses, while insurgent fighters were more exposed.

"We have people on the edge of Brega, we control that area only. Nothing has changed inside Brega," Mohammed el-Misrati, 20, after returning to Ajdabiyah to the east, said on Saturday.

Gaddafi's forces have been bombing the road from Ajdabiyah, 80 km (50 miles) east of Brega, for several days, sometimes firing from a distance, sometimes approaching in cars.

Six rebels were killed and 16 wounded when Gaddafi loyalists fired rockets at a group of insurgents driving along the exposed coastal highway westward from Ajdabiyah.

"We were in our vehicles and they opened fire with rockets," said Abdulrazek, one of the men hit in Saturday's attack, groaning in pain in Ajdabiyah hospital. Outside, medics gathered blood-soaked bandages and scrubbed stretchers clean of blood.

Ajdabiyah, once a bustling city of 100,000, has become a ghost town, with most residents fleeing the fighting.

At the town's western entrance, a group of rebels triumphantly drove a pick-up truck through a checkpoint, saying they had commandeered it from Gaddafi forces on the Brega road.

A rebel with an AK-47 rifle strapped to his shoulders played a guitar and sang in Arabic and English to his comrades, who tried to memorise the words and sing along.

"Hit us with your rockets; hit us with your tanks; we have no problem; we will win. Our country will be free, our country will be strong, my mother, don't worry, we know how to fight. We know how to get freedom," they sang.

 

SIEGE

Sunday marks a month since the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing force to protect civilians in Libya, leading to an international air campaign.

The United States, France and Britain said this week they will not stop bombing Gaddafi's forces until he leaves power, effectively revising the mission's aim to regime change.

U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged on Friday that the military situation on the ground had reached "stalemate," but said sanctions and air strikes had isolated Gaddafi and the leader would be ousted eventually.

The air campaign has failed to alleviate the siege of Misrata, the rebels' only major stronghold in the west of the country, cut off by Gaddafi's forces for seven weeks, where hundreds of civilians are believed to have died.

A rebel spokesman, Gemal Salem, said Gaddafi's forces pounded the town with rockets and mortars on Saturday, targeting a dairy factory and another that makes cooking oil.

"The (government) forces are still firing mortars at residential areas. There are clashes in Tripoli Street. Three people were killed today," Salem, the rebel spokesman, said, referring to Misrata's main thoroughfare.

Another rebel spokesman said government forces fired at least 100 Grad rockets into the city early on Saturday, targeting an industrial area close to the port where thousands of migrants are stranded and awaiting evacuation.

"The (Gaddafi) forces have focused their shelling on that area in the past few days because they want to scare away ships bringing aid or aiming to evacuate migrants," Abdelbasset Abu Mzereiq said by telephone.

A resident who arrived in Tunisia on Saturday said the fighting in Misrata was getting worse by the day.

Ibrahim Ali, 22, accompanied a neighbor seriously wounded in a shelling attack, one of 64 of Misrata's wounded evacuated on a ship by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontiers.

"They are bombing residential areas day and night. It's non-stop and they are using bigger weapons," he said in a hospital in Tunisia's port of Sfax. "They bomb roads, houses."

Food was running short in some areas but people were trying to help each other out, and electricity was on and off. "Many shops are closed. At the bakeries there are long queues."

Some streets where heavy fighting was taking place were fast becoming unrecognizable. "The destruction is total," he said.

Asked who was controlling most of the city, Ali said: "It's 50-50. It can change quickly."

(Additional reporting by Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli

and Mary-Louise Gumuchian in Sfax; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Michael Roddy)

    Libyan rebels push on Brega, Misrata bombarded, R, 17.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110417

Obama committed to South Korea trade deal:

Clinton

SEOUL | Sat Apr 16, 2011
10:21pm EDT
By Matt Spetalnick

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday that concluding a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea was a priority for the Obama administration, and it was committed to getting the deal done this year.

Clinton told a gathering of business leaders in Seoul that, beyond the economic benefits, the pact was "profoundly in America's strategic interest as well."

"Getting this done together sends a powerful message that America and Korea are partners for the long-term and that America is fully embracing its role as a Pacific power," she said.

U.S. and South Korean trade negotiators struck a deal in December on a free trade pact, which was signed in 2007 but had not been ratified for three years because of U.S. auto and beef industry concerns.

Both the U.S. Congress and the South Korean parliament have yet to pass bills to approve the pact, despite U.S. President Barack Obama's renewed push for ratification.

"I want to state as strongly as I can how committed the Obama Administration is to passing the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement this year," she told a gathering of business leaders in Seoul during a whirlwind trip through South Korea and Japan.

A U.S. official added that Washington hoped to have the FTA ratified by Congress well before an Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has previously said the Obama administration wanted to win congressional approval of a free trade agreement before July. The agreement is pending in South Korea's parliament and is expected to be passed.

Clinton said the pact -- which Washington says will increase exports of American goods by $11 billion and create tens of thousands of jobs -- is ready for review by Congress.

Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, last month criticized Republicans for refusing to move ahead on the South Korea deal until the White House sends Congress implementing bills for long-delayed trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.

 

PENDING TRADE DEALS

Republicans broadly support the South Korea deal, but have threatened to block a vote on the pact unless the White House also submits the other two pending trade deals for approval.

"This is a priority for me, for President Obama and for the entire administration," Clinton said. "We are determined to get it done, and I believe we will."

The United States and the European Union are racing against each other to be the first to seal a free trade agreement with South Korea, the world's 15th largest economy, hoping to get a jumpstart on the benefits of increased business deals.

The European Parliament approved a South Korea free-trade deal in February, clearing the way for the EU's largest bilateral free trade deal to take effect from July.

The shift in focus to Asia follows Clinton's attendance at a NATO conference in Berlin, where the alliance's foreign ministers faced strains over a Western air campaign in Libya against forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

Clinton met South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Sunday, who commended her for Washington's "exceptional leadership" in handling the situation Libya.

She was due in Tokyo later on Sunday for a flying visit in a show of support following last month's earthquake and tsunami disasters that killed thousands and crippled a nuclear plant.

(Writing by Jeremy Laurence; Editing by Alex Richardson)

    Obama committed to South Korea trade deal: Clinton, R, 16.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/17/us-korea-usa-trade-idUSTRE73F31L20110417

Syria's Assad vows

to lift emergency law by next week

AMMAN | Sat Apr 16, 2011
6:01pm EDT
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday emergency law in place for almost 50 years in Syria would be lifted by next week but ignored popular demands to curb the security apparatus and dismantle its authoritarian system.

Assad, facing unprecedented pressure for democratic reform, had earlier pledged to replace the repressive emergency law with anti-terrorism legislation, but opposition figures said this was likely to preserve tough restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly in Syria, under monolithic Baath Party rule since 1963.

"Next week is the maximum (time) limit for completion of these laws regarding the lifting of the state of emergency," Assad said in a speech to a new cabinet he named last week broadcast by Syrian state television.

"When the lifting of the emergency law package is issued, it should be firmly enforced. The Syrian people are civilised. They love order and they do not accept chaos and mob rule," he said.

"We will not be lenient toward sabotage," Assad said in a speech to a new cabinet he named last week. Syrian authorities have blamed "infiltrators" for stirring up unrest at the behest of outside players, including Lebanon and Islamist groups.

Emergency law bans public gatherings of more than five people and served to throttle any public dissent until Syrians began taking to the streets a month ago, emboldened by popular uprisings that ousted autocratic leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

Assad, 45, who took office in 2000 upon the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, who ruled for 30 years, said stability remained his priority but reform was needed to "strengthen the internal front."

But he did not mention the main demands of tens of thousands of protesters, namely to end the tight grip of security services on everyday life, release thousands of long serving political prisoners, most of whom have been held without trial, and do away with a clause in Syria's constitution that enshrines the Baath Party as "leader of the state and society."

"We do not want to be hasty. Any reforms have to be based on maintaining internal stability," Assad said.

MARCH IN DERAA, PROTEST FUNERAL IN LATAKIA

Thousands of people marched in the southern city of Deraa, the fount of the protest wave, on Saturday chanting: "The people want the overthrow of the regime," two witnesses said.

In the Damascus suburb of Douma, 1,500 residents staged a sit-in in the main square to demand the release of 140 local people arrested in a march on the capital on Friday, two rights campaigners said. Twelve of the detainees were freed after their heads were shaved so they could be easily identified by security police if they joined future protests, they said.

In Latakia, a funeral was held for a protester who died in a pro-democracy demonstration that was broken up by security forces on Friday. Security forces attacked a rally that followed the funeral, firing guns in the air, a rights campaigner in contact with Latakia said, and one protester was injured.

Assad said a law to allow political parties would remain under study but the issue was sensitive because it could lead either "to the break-up of society or to more national unity."

"I think that this package will lead to more participation and more freedoms in Syria. We do not want to be hasty and bring about opposite consequences. Reform must be built on internal stability and security."

Assad said corruption was a problem and a commission to address it should be set up, but announced no measures to end his own family's dominance over the Syrian economy.

His cousin Rami Makhlouf, a tycoon, has expanded his businesses during Assad's rule and he has been widely cited by protesters in their calls for an end to public corruption.

Demonstrations in pursuit of democratisation have spread through the tightly controlled security state over the past month and around 200 people have been killed in attacks by security forces, according to rights campaigners.

The West, which had been trying to coax Syria away from its anti-Israeli alliance with Iran and support for militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, has urged Assad to refrain from violent crackdowns on disaffected Syrians.

In Paris on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said rulers in Syria and Yemen, also convulsed by revolt against autocracy, "must realize that there is no path other than dialogue that brings a clear answer to the aspirations of their people that need to express themselves with complete freedom."

Asked if there was a chance of conflict worsening in Syria, Juppe told reporters: "There is a risk. The only way to prevent it is to reform. There is a need to go further in Syria."

 

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and John Irish in Paris;

editing by Mark Heinrich)

    Syria's Assad vows to lift emergency law by next week, R, 16.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110416

Tunisia makes "good start" on democratic path

TUNIS | Sat Apr 16, 2011
5:36pm EDT
Reuters

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia has made a good start in its transition to democracy but faces a major challenge in meeting people's expectations of fast progress, the chairman of Europe's main rights and security watchdog said Saturday.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Azubalis, the current chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), said Tunisia's situation reminded him of his own country when it won independence from the Soviet Union two decades ago.

He was in Tunis to discuss ways the 56-nation body could help the North African country three months after a popular revolt ended the 23-year rule of former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

The OSCE could assist with electoral support, developing independent media, drafting legislation, police reform, border management, and other areas, he said.

"They have a very strong belief in the...democratic future of their country," Azubalis said after meeting Foreign Minister Mouldi Kefi and other officials. "The start is good."

The caretaker authorities, trying to assert their authority and gain legitimacy in the eyes of protesters who forced the transition, are attacking the vestiges of the long rule of Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia after his January 14 ouster.

They appointed a new government early last month and disbanded the state security apparatus, notorious for human rights abuses under Ben Ali.

Tunisia will hold an election on July 24 to choose a constituent assembly that will rewrite the constitution and chart the country's transition.

"Twenty years ago we saw almost the same challenges in Lithuania when we regained independence," Azubalis, who also met non-governmental organizations in the Tunisian capital, said.

"We didn't have at that time independent media. We didn't have...strong democratic institutions," he told Reuters.

But he warned against expecting fast changes: "The public expectations for big changes could be too high ... when you're building democracy you should understand that it requires time."

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

    Tunisia makes "good start" on democratic path, R, 16.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-tunisia-osce-idUSTRE73F2PW20110416

Libyan government forces bombard Misrata

BENGHAZI, Libya | Sat Apr 16, 2011
7:51am EDT
Reuters
By Alexander Dziadosz

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fired at least 100 Grad rockets into Misrata Saturday, a rebel spokesman said, in a third day of heavy bombardment of the besieged rebel-held city.

"They fired Grads at an industrial area this morning, at least one hundred rockets were fired. No casualties are reported," Abdelbasset Abu Mzereiq told Reuters by telephone.

Misrata is the only major bastion of the rebels in the western part of Libya. Pro-Gaddafi forces have laid siege to it after the city rose up in revolt along with others against Gaddafi's four-decade rule in mid-February.

More than 100 rockets landed in the city Friday and rebels said government forces had reached the city center.

Human Rights Watch said it had evidence Gaddafi's forces were firing cluster munitions into residential areas of Misrata. It published photographs of what it said were Spanish-produced cluster bombs, which release grenades designed to explode into fragments and kill the maximum number of people.

Mussa Ibrahim, a Libyan government spokesman, dismissed the allegations, saying: "I challenge them to prove it."

Late Friday, an aid ship brought nearly 1,200 Misrata evacuees to the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, just a fraction of those stranded in the city and desperate to escape, an official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), who was on board the Greek ship, said.

There were likely to be 8,000-10,000 migrants who still needed to be evacuated from the city, Jeremy Haslam, an IOM aid coordinator said. The continued bombardment made it impossible to get into many areas of Misrata, he said.

"We threw out the textbook, basically. We couldn't get to the most vulnerable, those who need to get out fastest, because it was too dangerous," Haslam said.

Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged the military situation on the ground in Libya had reached stalemate three weeks into the war, but said he expected NATO allies to force Gaddafi from power eventually.

Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy published a joint newspaper article vowing to continue their military campaign until Gaddafi leaves power. They acknowledged their aim of regime change went beyond protecting civilians, as allowed by a U.N. Security Council resolution, but said Libyans would never be safe under Gaddafi.

Obama told an interview with the Associated Press: "You now have a stalemate on the ground militarily, but Gaddafi is still getting squeezed in all kinds of other ways. He is running out of money, he is running out of supplies. The noose is tightening and he is becoming more and more isolated."

LIFELINE

A rebel spokesman in Misrata said pro-Gaddafi forces had on Friday also shelled the road leading to the port, a lifeline for trapped civilians and the main entry point for international aid agencies, killing eight people.

"Today was very tough ... Gaddafi's forces entered Tripoli Street and Nakl al Theqeel road," he said by phone, referring to a main Misrata thoroughfare.

"Witnesses said they saw pro-Gaddafi soldiers on foot in the city center today. Except for snipers, they usually stay in their tanks and armored vehicles," the spokesman added.

A government reconnaissance helicopter had flown over the city, he said, despite a no-fly zone mandated by the U.N. Security Council and enforced by NATO warplanes.

Hundreds are believed to have died in Misrata, under what Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy described in their article as a "medieval siege."

"Our duty and our mandate under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Gaddafi by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power," they wrote.

The United States led the bombing campaign in its first week, but has since taken a back seat, putting NATO in command with the British and French responsible for most strikes on Gaddafi's forces. Obama made clear Washington was not planning to resume to a more active military role.

Britain and France spent this week trying to persuade other NATO allies to contribute more fire power.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the NATO allies were searching for ways to provide funds to the rebels, including helping them to sell oil from areas they control.

"The opposition needs a lot of assistance, on the organizational side, on the humanitarian side, and on the military side," she said.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Ajdabiyah and Mussab Al-Khairalla in Tripoli; writing by Janet Lawrence; editing by Myra MacDonald)

    Libyan government forces bombard Misrata, R, 16.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110416

Syrian dies of wounds, democracy protest in 5th week

AMMAN | Sat Apr 16, 2011
7:01am EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - A man shot by gunmen loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this week died of his wounds on Saturday, a rights group said, adding to tension in the coastal city of Banias where the army was deployed to contain protests.

Osama al-Sheikha, 40, was among a group of men, some carrying sticks, guarding a mosque in Banias Sunday after mass protests against Assad's 11-year rule. Loyalists, known as "al-shabbiha," fired at them with AK-47 rifles from speeding cars, witnesses said.

Some mourners at his funeral Saturday chanted "freedom, freedom ... the murderers must be held accountable," witnesses said. His funeral was being held at the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq mosque, which he was guarding when he was shot.

His death added to the tense atmosphere in Banias, which has also witnessed sectarian tension between its majority Sunni population and Alawite residents following the demonstrations.

Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, a secretive offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, has said mass pro-democracy protests that erupted in the southern city of Deraa more than a month ago and spread across large parts of Syria were a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife.

But the warning -- Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, used similar language when he crushed a leftist and Islamist challenge to his iron rule in the 1980s -- has failed to quell the tide of protests.

The demonstrations swept into the capital Damascus Friday for the first time. Thousands of protesters marched elsewhere in the country despite a crackdown and vague political concessions announced by Assad in an attempt to quell the unrest.

Shouting "God, Syria, Freedom," protesters repeated the same demand for democratic reform and freedoms across many cities.

 

PATTERN OF DEFIANCE

In Damascus, security forces used batons and teargas to prevent thousands of protesters marching from several suburbs from reaching the main Abbasside Square.

"I counted 15 mukhabarat (secret police) bus loads," one witness said. "They went into the alleyways just north of the square chasing protesters and yelling 'You pimps, you infiltrators, you want freedom? We will give it to you'."

As the protests entered their fifth week, the biggest and most bloody have taken place after Friday prayers, often in defiance of concessions announced by authorities the day before.

Al-Jazeera television channel aired footage Friday showing Syrian security forces beating with sticks, kicking and walking over detained protesters in the coastal city of Baida. It said the pictures were shot several days ago.

Baida and Banias have kept up defiance against Assad despite the deployment of the army, secret police and Assad's loyalist gunmen.

Shiekha was the father of two boys and two girls. He worked at the Banias oil refinery, one of two in Syria. His death brings to five the number of civilians killed in Banias since the protests began, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent organization.

A deal was reached last week under which the army patrolled Banias in exchange for freeing people detained by security forces in the city and not harming residents.

A source in the city said the deal was not going smoothly, with residents opposing army deployment in a square that has been the main sites of the protests.

An estimated 200 people have been killed during the demonstrations, mostly when security forces attacked protesters, according to rights campaigners.

The authorities said unspecified armed groups and "infiltrators" were responsible for the violence and police and soldiers have also been killed, including a policeman in the central city of Homs Friday.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

    Syrian dies of wounds, democracy protest in 5th week, R, 16.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110416

Israel strikes Hamas targets after rocket fire

JERUSALEM | Sat Apr 16, 2011
5:11am EDT
Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel responded to Palestinian rocket fire with two air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Friday, officials said, ending a lull in violence since an informal ceasefire took effect earlier in the week.

Two rockets were fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in the direction of the southern Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashekelon. Neither caused any injuries or damage, an Israeli police spokesman said.

Israel responded hours later with two air strikes against Hamas targets in the coastal territory, Hamas and the Israeli military said. No one was injured in the strikes.

Violence flared last week after Hamas militants fired an anti-tank rocket across the border at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding an Israeli teenager. Israel retaliated with air and ground strikes, killing 19 Palestinians.

Militants in Gaza had fired at least 140 rockets at Israel during the four days of fighting, which had subsided since Egyptian and U.N. mediators achieved an informal truce on Sunday.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch and Nidal al-Mughrabi; editing by Michael Roddy)

    Israel strikes Hamas targets after rocket fire, R, 16.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/16/us-palestinians-israel-violence-idUSTRE73E8NN20110416

NATO and UK hope

for more Libya strike aircraft

BERLIN | Fri Apr 15, 2011
1:41pm EDT
Reuters
By Erik Kirschbaum
and David Brunnstrom

BERLIN (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Britain voiced optimism on Friday that NATO allies would supply more combat planes for the Libyan mission, but Italy ruled out ordering its planes to open fire.

Britain and France are urging other NATO allies to provide more planes capable of hitting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's ground forces after Washington cut back its role in the operation and passed command onto NATO on March 31.

"We have got indications that nations will deliver what is needed ... I'm hopeful that we will get the necessary assets in the very near future," Rasmussen told a news conference at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin.

The leaders of France, Britain and the United States published a jointly-written newspaper article on Friday vowing to keep up their military campaign until Gaddafi leaves power. Some countries, such as Russia, say that goes beyond the terms of a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the campaign.

Libyan rebels have pleaded for more air strikes, saying they face a massacre from government artillery barrages in the besieged city of Misrata.

The United States and European NATO allies have so far rebuffed French and British calls to contribute more actively.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who has been lobbying other NATO allies to provide more strike aircraft, also said after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he was hopeful more strike assets would be made available.

Asked if Britain might be prepared to contribute more combat aircraft if other allies did not step forward, Hague said: "We'll always keep that under review but ... as of today this question doesn't arise."

 

HELPING THE REBELS

Clinton said NATO allies were searching for ways to provide funds to Libya's rebels and looking into how the rebels could sell oil from territory under their control.

"The opposition needs a lot of assistance, on the organizational side, on the humanitarian side, and on the military side," Clinton told reporters in Berlin.

"There have been a number of discussions about how to best provide that assistance ... who's willing to do what. We're also searching for ways to provide funding to the opposition.

"In addition to looking at how we can free up assets that could be used by the opposition, we're also looking at how the opposition could sell oil from sites that are under their control," she said.

Libyan rebels say they have been able to export only a small amount of crude oil with the help of OPEC member Qatar but that they need international help to continue overseas shipments.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said France and Britain wanted to extend air strikes to logistics and decision centres of Gaddafi's army.

Italy, seen as a key candidate to increase NATO firepower but which is also the former colonial power in Libya, ruled out ordering its aircraft to open fire.

Rome has made air bases available for NATO forces and has contributed eight aircraft to the mission but only for reconnaissance and monitoring.

"The current line being followed by Italy is the right one and we are not thinking about changing our contribution to the military operations in Libya," Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa told reporters in Rome.

Russia used the meeting with NATO in Berlin to spell out its concerns that Western governments had overstepped the mandate of a United Nations resolution authorizing a Libya no-fly zone.

"Today we see actions that in many cases go beyond the framework set by the Security Council ... We talked openly about it today with our (NATO) partners," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news briefing.

"We think it is extremely important not to support the moves in favor of using an excessive military force in order to resolve problems in Libya or any other country in the region."

Russia abstained but did not veto the U.N. Security Council resolution last month authorizing force to protect civilians.

NATO officials say the alliance is short of about 10 aircraft for air strikes. A French official named Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden as countries that could do more.

On Thursday, Spain said it had no plan to join the seven of the 28 NATO states that have been involved in ground strikes.

Canada will not decide whether to contribute more fighter jets to NATO operations over Libya until after a May 2 federal election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Friday.

Canada has six fighter jets in the region and Harper said he wanted legislators to have a say over any further deployment. The Canadian parliament does not sit during an election.

NATO and UK hope for more Libya strike aircraft, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-libya-nato-idUSTRE73E20U20110415

Mubarak to be moved

to Egypt army hospital in days

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt | Fri Apr 15, 2011
1:37pm EDT
Reuters
By Marwa Awad

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt's ousted president Hosni Mubarak will be moved to a military hospital until he is well enough to face interrogation in a corruption investigation, the prosecutor said on Friday, as the army rulers seek to show they are serious about putting him on trial.

Little is known about what ails the 82-year-old Mubarak, who was admitted to a hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday, shortly after he was questioned by prosecutors over corruption allegations.

State media said he suffered a "heart crisis" but medical sources at the hospital said on Friday Mubarak was in good health. A senior security source said he would be transferred to a military hospital just outside Cairo within days, where he would be under guard.

"Hosni Mubarak will be transported to the International Medical Center along the Cairo-Ismailia road given his need for special medical care," the source told Reuters.

"He will likely be transported in a day or two."

Mubarak denied any wrongdoing on Sunday in his first public comments since stepping down.

The ruling military council, in place since popular protests deposed Mubarak in February, has been under intense pressure to punish the former president.

Earlier this week, the generals won some respite from mass demonstrations after ordering Mubarak detained for 15 days for questioning into accusations he abused power, embezzled funds and was involved in the killing of protesters.

Cairo's Tahrir Square, where protesters had gathered to accuse the army of thwarting popular demands to put Mubarak on trial, remained quiet on Friday.

Mubarak's sons, Gamal and Alaa Mubarak, have also been added to a list of those detained and have been moved to Torah prison on the outskirts of Cairo where presidential aides, ex-ministers, former party officials and executives are held.

A spokesman for the prosecution told the state news agency MENA that Mubarak's health did not, as yet, permit his transfer to the medical facility at Torah prison.

"But it is imperative the prosecutor be informed once his health improves so that he can be transferred to prison," the MENA report said.

A nurse at the glass-walled, pyramid-shaped hospital where Mubarak is staying said he was watched over by at least eight plainclothes guards. The facility is also ringed by a heavy police presence, but there were no demonstrators outside.

Mubarak was the former commander-in-chief of the military and some in the army view his detention as a humiliation of a man who once led the air force and who they see as a hero of Egypt's 1973 war with Israel.

But many Egyptians see Mubarak as a repressive autocrat whose lengthy rule benefitted only a few, while driving the majority of the country's 80 million people into poverty.

(Writing by Miral Fahmy, Editing by Janet Lawrence)

    Mubarak to be moved to Egypt army hospital in days, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-egypt-mubarak-idUSTRE73E2LQ20110415

Rockets rain on Misrata;

allies say Gaddafi must go

TRIPOLI | Fri Apr 15, 2011
12:37pm EDT
By Mussab Al-Khairalla
Reuters

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - More than a hundred government rockets crashed into Misrata on Friday after Western allies denounced a "medieval siege" of the city and vowed to keep bombing Muammar Gaddafi's forces until he stepped down

A local doctor told Al Jazeera at least eight people died and seven others were wounded in the second day of intense bombardment of Misrata, a lone rebel bastion in western Libya.

An Amnesty International researcher in the city said several people were killed as they queued for bread on Thursday.

Residents told Al Jazeera at least 120 rockets had hit the city, where hundreds of civilians are reported to have died in a six-week siege.

The attack followed intense fire from Russian-made Grad rocket launchers into a residential district on Thursday when rebels said 23 people died, mostly women and children. They said more than 200 missiles fell in the port.

The leaders of Britain, France and the United States said in a joint newspaper article that they would press on with their three-week-old air campaign until Gaddafi left power.

"It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government."

The suffering of Misrata is heaping pressure on Western allies to step up air attacks to stop the bombardment, but NATO is split over providing more planes for the task.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen voiced optimism that allies would supply more combat planes, but Italy immediately ruled out ordering its aircraft to open fire.

The clear intention of Britain, France and the United States to achieve regime change in Libya goes beyond the explicit terms of a United Nations resolution authorizing air strikes to protect civilians and other allies have misgivings.

Russia warned the alliance not to use excessive force and called for a political settlement to end the civil war.

Gaddafi's daughter Aisha told a rally in Tripoli that demanding his departure was an insult.

 

STRONGLY WORDED ARTICLE

Libyan state television said NATO planes had attacked Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, and Al-Aziziyah south of Tripoli on Friday.

In their strongly worded article, published on both sides of the Atlantic, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama said leaving Gaddafi in power would be an "unconscionable betrayal."

"So long as Gaddafi is in power, NATO and its coalition partners must maintain their operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds," they said.

The statement seemed intended both to paper over cracks in the Atlantic alliance and increase resolve to stick with the air campaign despite increasing differences.

The United States has taken a back seat after handing command to NATO on March 31, and France has suggested Washington needs to resume a more robust combat role in the campaign.

This would bring to bear U.S. precision ground attack aircraft that analysts say could tip the balance against Gaddafi while providing stronger safeguards against hitting civilians.

France and Britain, NATO's hawks on Libya, have led the air campaign but are growing impatient with lack of commitment and provision of ground strike aircraft from other members.

Italy has made several bases available for operations against Gaddafi, but as the former colonial power in Libya is ambivalent about the campaign. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had a personal friendship with Gaddafi before his violent suppression of protests in February.

NATO's Rasmussen said after a foreign ministers' meeting in Berlin: "We have got indications that nations will deliver what is needed."

 

INSULT

Aisha Gaddafi told a rally in Tripoli marking the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Gaddafi's compound there by U.S. President Ronald Reagan: "Talk about Gaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Gaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans."

On the fluid eastern front in Libya's two-month civil war, rebels said Gaddafi forces advancing from the oil port of Brega had opened fire on the western edge of the insurgent-held town of Ajdabiyah on Friday, killing one of their fighters.

Fighter Mansour Rachid said Gaddafi's forces were spread out in the desert and hard to locate.

The rebels have begged for more air strikes to avert what they say is a potential massacre in Misrata.

A rescue ship carrying nearly 1,200 Asian and African migrants, many needing urgent medical attention after weeks with little food or water, left Misrata on Friday for Benghazi.

In their article, the U.S., British and French leaders said Misrata was "enduring a medieval siege as Gaddafi tries to strangle its population into submission."

Al Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, has urged Muslims in a video message to fight NATO forces in Libya, according to the SITE monitoring group.

(Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Peter Graff)

    Rockets rain on Misrata; allies say Gaddafi must go, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-libya-idUSTRE7270JP20110415

Syria protests sweep into capital,

defying Assad

AMMAN | Fri Apr 15, 2011
12:22pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad swept into the capital, Damascus, on Friday for the first time since a growing wave of pro-democracy unrest began to put pressure on his 11-year rule.

Thousands of protesters marched elsewhere across the country despite a fierce crackdown and some political concessions announced by Assad in an attempt to quell spreading unrest.

Shouting "God, Syria, Freedom," protesters repeated the same demand for democratic reform and freedoms across many cities.

In Damascus, security forces used batons and tear gas to prevent thousands of protesters marching from several suburbs from reaching the main Abbasside Square.

"I counted 15 mukhabarat (secret police) busloads," one eyewitness said. "They went into the alleyways just north of the square chasing protesters and yelling 'you pimps, you infiltrators, you want freedom? we will give it to you'."

A witness who accompanied marchers from the suburb of Harasta said thousands chanted "the people want the overthrow of the regime" and tore down posters of Assad along the route.

Assad's use of force, mass arrests and accusations that armed groups have instigated the unrest, mixed with promises for reform and concessions to minority groups and conservative Muslims, have not placated protesters inspired by popular uprisings which toppled the leaders in Tunisia and Egypt.

On Thursday, he unveiled a new government, which has little power in the one-party state, and ordered the release of some detainees, a move one human rights lawyer said was a "drop in the ocean" compared to the thousands of political prisoners still held.

Nevertheless, protesters gathered in even larger numbers on the Muslim day of prayer.

 

DEFIANCE

Rights activists reported protests in the city of Deir al-Zor near the Iraqi border, the restive coastal city of Banias and the southern city of Deraa, where the first demonstrations began against the detention of teenagers who had scrawled revolutionary graffiti on school walls.

Protests also broke out in Latakia and Homs.

In Deraa, "demonstrations came out from every mosque in the city, including the Omari mosque... The number of people is above 10,000 protesters so far," an activist said by phone.

Rights groups say at least 200 people have been killed since the protests started. Authorities blame "infiltrators" for stirring up unrest at the bidding of outside players, including Lebanon and Islamist groups.

Syrian state television reported what it said were relatively small, peaceful demonstrations in several cities. Emergency law in force since the Baath Party swept to power in a coup in 1963 bans public gatherings of more than five people.

The protests entered their fifth week following a familiar pattern. The biggest gatherings -- and the most bloody -- have taken place after Friday prayers, often in defiance of concessions announced by authorities the day before.

The protests would have been unthinkable in a state known for its pervasive security apparatus before the wave of uprisings which have shaken the Arab world.

Al-Jazeera channel aired footage on Friday showing Syrian security forces beating with sticks, kicking and walking over detained protesters in the coastal city of Baida. It said the pictures were shot a few days ago.

 

"THIS IS NOT 1982 HAMA"

Some of the tension has sectarian overtones in the mostly Sunni Muslim country ruled by minority Alawites, members of an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Irregular forces loyal to Assad, known as "al-shabbiha," killed four people in Banias on Sunday.

Assad has said the country -- which is at the heart of the Middle East conflict -- was the target of a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife.

His father used similar language when he crushed a leftist and Islamist challenge to his iron rule in the 1980s.

"This is not 1982 Hama. The uprising is not confined to a single area," a leading opposition figure said, referring to an attack by Hafez al-Assad's forces to crush an armed revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama that killed up to 30,000 people.

The younger Assad's promises of reform, including a salary increase for public workers and a reconsideration of emergency rule in place for 48 years, has been dismissed by protesters hungry for change.

His decision last Thursday to grant citizenship to tens of thousands of stateless Kurds, as well as announcements about lifting a ban on veiled teachers and closing Syria's sole casino, failed to prevent protests erupting the next day.

The West, which had been trying to coax Syria away from its anti-Israeli alliance with Iran and support for militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, has urged Assad to refrain from violence.

A panel drafting anti-terrorism legislation to replace emergency law is expected to complete its work by April 25. But critics say the new law will probably grant the state much of the same powers contained in the current legislation.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut;

Writing by Dominic Evans and Yara Bayoumy)

    Syria protests sweep into capital, defying Assad, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110415

Analysis:

Western powers dig in

for long war in Libya

LONDON | Fri Apr 15, 2011
9:40am EDT
Reuters
By William Maclean

LONDON (Reuters) - Western powers spearheading air strikes against Libya have vowed to oust Muammar Gaddafi come what may, but it is far from clear the wider coalition can stomach a long war or even that his rule is under mortal threat.

A joint article by leaders of the United States, France and Britain on Friday said they would strike loyalist forces until Gaddafi quits, lending support to a widely held view that the time for peace talks is not yet and more bloodshed lies ahead.

"They are digging in for a long conflict," said Firas Abi Ali, senior forecaster for the Middle East and North Africa at Exclusive Analysis.

"They are saying (to Gaddafi) 'We can play the long game as well'," said Alex Warren of Frontier, a Middle East and North Africa research firm.

"These three countries don't want dialogue yet. They are trying to play for time to encourage an internal collapse in Tripoli by defections or by an internal coup."

The message published in three leading newspapers by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron appeared intended to boost the morale of the militarily fragile rebels and send an intimidating message of resolve to close aides of Gaddafi.

A mention in the article of The Hague war crimes court also appeared to be a veiled threat to pursue cases against any Gaddafi aides with blood on their hands who decide to stay loyal.

But Gaddafi, for one, was giving no sign this week that his morale was under a cloud.

Libyan state television on Thursday broadcast footage of the veteran leader, ever the showman, driving around Tripoli in an open-top vehicle. The broadcaster said he went on the outing while the Libyan capital was being bombed by NATO.

His daughter Aisha told a rally in the capital that demanding his removal was an insult.

"Gaddafi isn't even considering departing," said Abi Ali.

ITALIANS WON'T OPEN FIRE

It is not only Gaddafi loyalists coalition leaders have to convince of the wisdom of their goals. It is their own allies.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Friday Britain had made progress in persuading other countries to supply more strike aircraft for NATO operations in Libya.

But Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said Italy would not order its aircraft taking part in operations over Libya to open fire, despite pressure from Britain and France.

France and Britain, the NATO hawks on Libya, have led the air campaign but are growing impatient with lack of commitment and provision of ground strike aircraft from other members.

Friday's article restated, in more forceful terms, an April 13 statement by a much larger group of coalition countries meeting in Qatar that called for Gaddafi to step aside.

But the fact that the leaders of only France, Britain and the United States put their names to Friday's commentary seemed to underline an impression of disarray in coalition ranks.

Exclusive Analysis's Abi Ali said he expected that Libya was facing another six months of stalemate at the very least.

Jon Marks, chairman of UK political risk consultancy Cross-border Information, agreed that the standoff in Libya had the makings of a lengthy conflict.

MEDIATION WOULDN'T HAVE A CHANCE

"The situation in Misrata and Ajdabiya is terrible, as it is in the Berber towns of the Jebel Nefousa where there are signs of an ethnic cleansing policy at work, but otherwise the fighting broadly around the country is actually at a low level, to judge by the casualty figures and the extent that people are traveling around."

"In this context, the standoff looks like it could go on for a painfully protracted period."

An African mission failed last week to secure a ceasefire after Gaddafi's forces continued to shell a besieged city and the rebels rejected any deal not including Gaddafi's removal.

Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya, said the West hoped that over time the rebel-held east would grow stronger and Gaddafi-controlled parts of the west would grow weaker, prompting at some point a renewed popular uprising against him.

"But for now, neither side thinks it is going to lose: No mediator has an earthly chance in such circumstances," he said.

Others have disagreed.

In an article on British policy, analyst Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute argued that Britain's insistence on Gaddafi's ousting was a mistake and Gaddafi family members should be allowed to take part in an interim government.

"Goals must be commensurate with (limited) resources and resolve," he wrote. "The objective ought to be regime modification rather than regime destruction. Unless we wish to invite a horrific siege of Tripoli..."

For now there is little sign this argument holds sway.

Asked by Reuters whether there were any moves afoot to encourage talks between one of Gaddafi's sons and the rebel interim National Council, Hague replied:

"I'm not aware of any new effort in that regard ... We do not have the basis yet for a political process to take place."

(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft)

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

    Analysis: Western powers dig in for long war in Libya, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-libya-demand-idUSTRE73E3UB20110415

Zawahri says Muslims

should fight NATO in Libya

DUBAI | Fri Apr 15, 2011
6:34am EDT
Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri has urged Muslims in North Africa to fight NATO and American forces in Libya, the SITE Intelligence Group reported on Friday.

The monitoring group said the video message by the group's second in command appeared to have been recorded before NATO and Western forces began air strikes to support rebels against Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

"I want to direct the attention of our Muslim brothers in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and the rest of the Muslim countries, that if the Americans and the NATO forces enter Libya then their neighbors in Egypt and Tunisia and Algeria and the rest of the Muslim countries should rise up and fight both the mercenaries of Gaddafi and the rest of NATO," Zawahri said.

In the video lecture, divided into three parts, Zawahri also accused the United States of standing behind the former Tunisian and Egyptian presidents and supporting their removal only when the leaders were no longer beneficial to U.S. interests.

Leaders of Britain, France and the United States promised on Friday to keep up their military campaign in Libya until Gaddafi left power, and rebels said his forces pounded the city of Misrata with missiles.

Algeria said in April it was concerned by a noticeably increased al Qaeda presence in neighboring Libya and worried that militant groups might lay their hands on weapons circulating in the country.

Al Qaeda's most influential English-language preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, said in March that revolts sweeping the Arab world would help rather than harm its cause by giving Islamists freed from tyranny greater scope to speak out.

(Reporting by Martina Fuchs; Editing by Andrew Hammond)

    Zawahri says Muslims should fight NATO in Libya, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-libya-qaeda-idUSTRE73E1TH20110415

Syria tortures protesters,

beats journalists: HRW

AMMAN | Fri Apr 15, 2011
5:50am EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria's security forces have arrested hundreds of people arbitrarily since pro-democracy protests erupted a month ago and subjected them to torture and ill-treatment, a Human Rights Watch report said Friday.

The forces, which include al-mukhabarat (secret police), also detained and tortured rights campaigners, writers and journalists who have reported or supported the protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, the international New York-based organization said.

"There can be no real reforms in Syria while security forces abuse people with impunity," Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"By silencing those who write about events, Syrian authorities hope to hide their brutality. But their crackdown on journalists and activists only highlights their criminal behavior," he added.

The group said at least seven journalists were detained.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian authorities, who have come under mounting Western criticism for using force to put down protests that have spread across several parts of Syria since they erupted in the southern city of Deraa on March 18. An estimated 200 people have been killed.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 19 freed detainees, including three teenagers. All but two detainees said mukhabarat operatives beat them and that they witnessed dozens of other detainees being beaten or heard screams of people being beaten.

"In addition to three children interviewed by Human Rights Watch, witnesses reported seeing children detained and beaten in the facilities where they were held," the report said.

Many described how they were tortured with electro-shock devices, cables, and whips and held in overcrowded cells while being deprived of sleep, food, and water. Several were blindfolded and handcuffed the entire time, the report said.

A Syrian writer told Human Rights Watch he was "kidnapped" off a Damascus street after he commented critically about the government's response to the protests in the media.

"I saw a white unmarked van on the street, and when I came directly beside it, the sliding door opened and three big men grabbed me," he told Human Rights Watch.

His captors, who were State Security agents, beat and kicked him on the way to and during interrogation, using a whip, the report said. It added that a non-Syrian Arab journalist said that he was also beaten during interrogation.

 

FORCED CONFESSIONS

Assad has ordered the release of detainees who have been arrested during the protests except those who committed crimes "against the nation and citizens."

A human rights lawyer said several hundred have been released but they were just "a drop in the ocean" compared with the thousands of political prisoners in Syria, whose numbers have swelled since the protest began.

The report said most detainees interviewed were forced to sign confessions without being allowed to read them, and sign pledges not to participate in protests.

"None were allowed to have any contact with relatives or lawyers ... and their families were not informed of their whereabouts. One, a 17-year-old, could hardly move -- he needed assistance sitting down and standing up," the report said.

Human Rights Watch said it reviewed video footage showing evidence of severe beatings to the face and arms of a 12-year-old from Douma, a suburb of Damascus.

The report quoted a protester from Tel, a town just north of Damascus, describing his experience at a State Security branch on Baghdad Street.

"They lined us up in the corridor along the wall, and beat us. Then they dragged us to the basement -- I lost consciousness for some time, they beat me very hard on my head," the freed protester was quoted as saying.

"I was hooded at the time," he said. "They first kept all 17 of us in one room, and took (us) out for interrogations from there -- they beat us with a cable, and accused us of being Israeli and Lebanese spies."

    Syria tortures protesters, beats journalists: HRW, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-syria-protests-torture-idUSTRE73E1K920110415

France wants more strikes

on Gaddafi logistic centers

PARIS | Fri Apr 15, 2011
4:34am EDT
Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) - France and Britain want to extend air strikes to the logistics and decision centers of Muammar Gaddafi's army, rather than start arming Libyan rebels, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said on Friday.

Asked if it was time to send weapons to the rebels, Longuet said: "This is the reason France and Britain want to show our determination, including with strikes on military decision centres in Libya or on logistics depots which today are being spared."

"Why? Because if we want to avoid civil war... the force of the other side must be neutralised, and so the strikes we are asking for are aimed at not having to arm the insurgents. Our goal is not to organize a front, it's that Gaddafi's troops go back to their barracks," he told LCI television.

France, Britain and the United States vowed on Friday to keep up their military campaign in Libya until Gaddafi leaves power, although the rebels say their action so far is failing to stop Gaddafi's troops killing civilians.

A member of the opposition transition council told Reuters on Thursday that the West must ramp up its operations and consider arming the rebels or sending in troops to fight Gaddafi's forces, if it wants to stop civilian deaths in the besieged western city of Misrata.

Suliman Fortea said during a brief visit to Paris that weapons were getting through to the rebels, and defectors from Gaddafi's army were training them to use them. But he said more help was needed to stop Gaddafi's assault.

Longuet said France appreciated it was difficult for the United States to get more involved in Libya given its long-running engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, and reiterated the importance of a political solution to the crisis.

(Reporting by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Jon Boyle)

    France wants more strikes on Gaddafi logistic centers, R, 15.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-libya-france-idUSTRE73E19E20110415

President Obama Meets with Amir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani

President Obama

and Amir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar

speak to the press after meeting in the Oval Office.

April 14, 2011.

YouTube > White House

https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=Un99AnSX4UY&feature=channel_video_title  

U.S., allies see Libyan rebels

in hopeless disarray

Thu, Apr 14 2011
WASHINGTON | Thu Apr 14, 2011
6:51pm EDT
By Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Too little is known about Libya's rebels and they remain too fragmented for the United States to get seriously involved in organizing or training them, let alone arming them, U.S. and European officials say.

U.S. and allied intelligence agencies believe NATO's no-fly zone and air strikes will be effective in stopping Muammar Gaddafi's forces from killing civilians and dislodging rebels from strongholds like Benghazi, the officials say.

But the more the intelligence agencies learn about rebel forces, the more they appear to be hopelessly disorganized and incapable of coalescing in the foreseeable future.

U.S. government experts believe the state of the opposition is so grave that it could take years to organize, arm and train them into a fighting force strong enough to drive Gaddafi from power and set up a working government.

The realistic outlook, U.S. and European officials said, is for an indefinite stalemate between the rebels -- supported by NATO air power -- and Gaddafi's forces.

"At this point neither side is able to defeat the other and neither appears willing to compromise," said one U.S. official who follows the Libyan conflict closely.

"The opposition needs time to do what they need to do -- forming a government, bringing together key opposition figures, getting on the same page and building a new generation of leaders," the official said.

There is no sign the CIA or any other U.S. agency is organizing arms supplies for the rebels. But U.S. officials say privately that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are willing to provide weapons and other support to Gaddafi's foes.

There are "indications" that Qatar has begun to supply some easy-to-use weapons, including shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets, to the opposition, a U.S. official said on Thursday. Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani was meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday.

 

PROLONGED STALEMATE

Pentagon officials say NATO air strikes, combined with enforcement of an arms embargo, will degrade Gaddafi's fighting ability. The hope is this may create cracks in his regime and open the way for a political solution to the crisis.

One Western official compared the no-fly zone to a greenhouse that hopefully will allow for the gradual growth of a national opposition movement in Libya that draws together the disparate rebel factions.

Several weeks ago, President Barack Obama signed a secret order -- a "covert action finding" -- authorizing the CIA to consider a range of operations to support Gaddafi's opponents.

But the order requires the CIA to seek extra "permissions" from the White House before specific measures such as providing training, money or weapons.

CIA operatives on the ground are aggressively collecting information on the rebels, their structure, leadership and military capabilities, U.S. officials said.

But analysts believe the rebels are in dire shape and that there is no easy way to transform them into a coherent military or political force, three U.S. officials said.

Other U.S. officials said the rebels have no sense of a unifying identity or any critical mass beyond Benghazi, lacking an effective structure that would be a prerequisite for providing training, money or sophisticated weapons.

Washington also has been reluctant to side with the rebels due to concerns that Islamic extremists might be among them, although there is debate here about the extent of the militant involvement in the Libyan uprising.

The head of U.S. Africa Command said it was the stated intent of al Qaeda's affiliate in the area, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), to aid Libya's opposition.

"We would need, I think, necessarily to be careful about providing lethal means to a group unless we are assured that those U.S.-provided weapons would not fall into the hands of extremist organizations," General Carter Ham said.

A Western intelligence official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said one concern was that elements of the Al-Magharba tribe in the Ras Lanuf region of Libya may include radical Islamists.

 

LITTLE EVIDENCE OF AL-QAEDA LEADERSHIP

U.S. and European counter-terrorism officials said there was intelligence suggesting that people aligned with anti-Gaddafi forces once were involved with militant groups that sent fighters to Afghanistan and Iraq.

But there was little evidence those people are playing a leadership role or are a distinct presence in the Libyan rebel movement, they said.

Some high-profile members of Congress, including senior members of the intelligence committees in both chambers, have publicly expressed reservations about sending any weapons to the opposition until more is known about them.

At the Pentagon, officials said there were discussions about providing non-lethal U.S. support to the rebels such as personnel protection vehicles and medical supplies.

But U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have said if the rebels are going to be armed and trained, other countries should do it.

French officials have privately urged NATO allies to figure out some way to arm the opposition.

But the British government, which has aligned itself with French President Nicholas Sarkozy in urging other NATO members to take on a greater burden in air operations, has been cautious in public about arming the anti-Gaddafi forces.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain was giving "non-lethal support to the rebels, the opposition" -- including telecommunications equipment but "we're not giving them arms."

Hague said Britain believes U.N. resolutions "allow in certain limited circumstances defensive weapons to be given but the United Kingdom is not engaged in that."

"Other countries will interpret the resolution in their own way," he added.

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell;

Editing by John O'Callaghan and David Storey)

    U.S., allies see Libyan rebels in hopeless disarray, R, 14.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-libya-usa-rebels-idUSTRE73D68S20110414

Demanding Gaddafi step down

is "insult": daughter

TRIPOLI | Thu Apr 14, 2011
11:11pm EDT
Reuters

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi's daughter said the West's demand that her father leave power was an "insult" to all Libyans in a defiant appearance before a crowd of his chanting supporters in Tripoli early on Friday.

"In 1911 Italy killed my grandfather in an air strike and now they are trying to kill my father. God damn their hands," Aisha Gaddafi told the flag-waving crowd who had gathered at her father's Bab Al-Aziziyah compound in the capital.

The event, broadcast live on state television, marked the 25th anniversary of American strikes on the huge complex, which includes military barracks.

Then President Ronald Reagan said the 1986 attack was in retaliation for what he called Libyan complicity in the bombing of a Berlin night club.

Gaddafi, wearing a green headscarf and black leather jacket, said she had been five years old at the time.

"They rained down on us their missiles and bombs, they tried to kill me and they killed dozens of children in Libya," she said, her speech several times interrupted by the cheering crowd.

"Now a quarter of a century later the same missiles and bombs are raining down on the heads of my and your children."

Hours earlier, state television said NATO warplanes launched air strikes on Tripoli on Thursday.

At a meeting in Doha on Wednesday, a group of Western powers and Middle Eastern states called for the first time for Gaddafi to step aside.

"Talk about Gaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Gaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans," his daughter said.

Addressing the Western powers who are carrying out air strikes under a U.N. resolution to protect civilians against her father's forces, she said:

"Who are the civilians you are protecting? Are they the people who have automatic weapons and hand grenades? Are they the innocent civilians you are trying
to protect?"

"Leave our skies, take away your aircraft and missiles."

A rebel supporter in the western city of Misrata, which is besieged by government troops and scene of daily clashes, dismissed her speech as a sign of despair.

"Gaddafi ruled Libya with an iron fist for 41 years and killed anyone who tried to oppose him," Marwan, 22, said.

"What she said is a sign of the despair of the Gaddafi family and his inner circle. They know their days are numbered," he told Reuters by phone from the coastal city.

 

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin, Mussab al-Khairalla in Tripoli and Marie-Louise Gumuchian in Tunis; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Michael Roddy)

    Demanding Gaddafi step down is "insult": daughter, R, 14.3.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-libya-gaddafi-daughter-idUSTRE73E00O20110415

Syria's Assad seeks

to curb prayer protests

AMMAN | Thu Apr 14, 2011
7:49pm EDT
Reuters
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's efforts to contain an unprecedented wave of protests face a key test on Friday, after he unveiled a new cabinet and ordered detainees released in a bid to ease tensions.

Assad's measures were unlikely to satisfy many protesters demanding political freedoms and an end to corruption. The cabinet has little power and the release of detainees excluded those who committed crimes "against the nation and citizens."

Syria has thousands of political prisoners, whose numbers swelled after protests against Assad's authoritarian rule broke out in the southern city of Deraa exactly four weeks ago after the main Friday prayers.

Prayers, funerals and weddings are the main chances Syrians have to gather legally -- and every Friday since has seen large demonstrations, bloodshed, and mass arrests.

The official news agency said the releases cover detainees arrested in the recent wave of protests, but human rights defenders said there had been more arrests in the city of Deraa on Thursday.

A Syrian rights group said this week that more than 200 people had been killed during the protests. They have posed the biggest challenge to Assad since he assumed power in 2000 upon the death of his father Hafez, who ruled the country for 30 years.

There are sectarian overtones to the tensions arising from the protests.

Rights campaigners said Alawite irregulars, loyal to Assad and known as "al-shabbiha," killed four people in the seaside city of Banias and were used to quell protests in other areas.

Syria is a mostly Sunni Muslim nation ruled by minority Alawites, adherents to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

 

"PLAYING ON SECTARIAN FEARS"

A senior opposition figure said Assad, who is Alawite, has been trying to stoke sectarian fears by saying that the protesters were serving a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife.

His father used similar language when he crushed a leftist and Islamist challenge to his iron rule in the 1980s.

"This is not 1982 Hama. The uprising is not confined to a single area," an opposition figure said, referring to an attack by Hafez al-Assad's forces to put down a revolt led by the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama that killed up to 30,000 people.

"But we have seen apathy from Alawites and Christians," added the opposition source, who did not want to be further identified.

"The regime has banned independent media, which makes it easier to spread lies and play on Alawite fears. But the Syrian people as a whole are realizing that nonviolent resistance to oppression is nonsectarian by nature," the source said.

Assad has tried to face down the protests, which have spread from Deraa to the Mediterranean coast, the Kurdish east and the central city of Homs. He has used a mixture of force, promises of reform and concessions to minority Kurds and conservative Muslims.

But his decision last Thursday to grant citizenship to tens of thousands of stateless Kurds, as well as announcements about lifting a ban on veiled teachers and closing Syria's sole casino, failed to prevent protests erupting the next day.

Hours after the announcement that detainees would be released, a pro-democracy demonstration erupted in Sweida, Syria's Druze heartland, a witness said.

 

CALLS FOR RESTRAINT

The United States, France and Britain have urged Assad to refrain from violence. Rights campaigners say the protests have been inspired by intensifying repression over the last several years and by uprisings which toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia and challenged others from North Africa to the Gulf.

Demonstrators have been seeking reforms including an end to emergency law, which bans gatherings of more than five people and has been in force since the Baath Party took power nearly 50 years ago. Thousands also echoed the refrain of the wider Arab uprisings, demanding "the overthrow of the regime."

Authorities blame "armed groups" and "infiltrators" for the bloodshed, saying police and security forces have been killed.

In the restive Mediterranean town of Banias, which security forces had sealed off and surrounded with tanks after a demonstration last week, authorities freed hundreds of people on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The move was part of a deal struck in Damascus between a Baath Party official and imams and prominent figures from Banias, intended to help calm the city ahead of Friday prayers.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

    Syria's Assad seeks to curb prayer protests, R, 14.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110414

When AK-47s meet mobile phones:

Syria's web activists

BEIRUT | Thu Apr 14, 2011
1:48pm EDT
Reuters
By Yara Bayoumy

BEIRUT (Reuters) - In Tunisia and Egypt, "Facebook" vied with "Down with the regime" on graffiti-filled walls -- so central were social media to mobilizing mass protests that overthrew their authoritarian rulers.

But in tightly-controlled Syria, with a pervasive security apparatus, Internet penetration of less than 20 percent and heavy restrictions on foreign media, cyber activists are mostly using the web just to illustrate the extent of unrest.

"What we saw in Egypt and Tunisia was huge online activism turning offline (onto the streets)," said Wissam Tarif, a human rights activist who has been closely following the protests against President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

"In Syria, online cyber activity is reporting what is happening offline," he told Reuters from Syria.

A Syrian activist who goes by the name Abu Adnan coordinates a network of like-minded 'citizen journalists' across the country who film protests that, more often than not, end in a crackdown by security forces, according to witnesses.

Their mobile phones may be no match for an AK-47 assault rifle, but they have trained the world's eyes on usually hidden corners of one of the Middle East's most secretive countries.

Authorities blame "armed groups" for the violence.

Abu Adnan said there were many people who were eager to film protests and clashes but did not have the experience or resources to do so. They were also fearful of a state that routinely monitors users' web activity.

Using his connections with the media and organizations that promote citizen journalism, Abu Adnan set up fellow activists with secure connections, satellite telephones, smartphones and cameras.

"Four friends of mine died. One was in Douma (a Damascus suburb), filming with me. A sniper on rooftop chose him. He could have chosen me. One was executed after he refused to stop on his motorcycle. One was arrested and released dead and one was shot in Deraa," Abu Adnan told Reuters from Syria.

"The state media are fabricating what is happening in Syria and if I can help these guys show what is happening, then I should. If I don't use my connections (with the media) now, then there's no use to them."

 

"THERE COULD HAVE BEEN A MASSACRE"

Nearly a month into demonstrations that have posed the most serious challenge to Assad's 11-year rule, it is not yet clear whether increasing violence against protesters will eventually force them to stay home or incense them further.

For Abu Adnan, one particularly bloody confrontation two weeks ago was a turning point, convincing him it was better to record the demonstrations than try to instigate them.

"We organized one protest in Douma and there were 11 martyrs. So we decided to stay away from organizing protests and instead focus on covering the events," he told Reuters.

Even that, he says, comes with risks.

"Personally, I don't mean to change (the regime). What is important to me is to document what is happening, the crimes that are being committed," he said. Syria's main human rights group has put the death toll at 200.

Media face severe restrictions inside Syria. Authorities expelled Reuters Damascus correspondent last month and three other foreign Reuters journalists were expelled after being detained for two or three days. A Syrian Reuters photographer was held for six days.

The lack of access means independent media rely heavily on footage recorded by activists. Abu Adnan said that without their efforts the state would have felt less vulnerable.

"At the same time, I see what we do as protecting the young men from more brutal acts by the regime. If it weren't for our documentation, there could have been a massacre."

The bloody episode of Hama -- when Bashar's father President Hafez al-Assad crushed an armed Islamist uprising in 1982 by sending in troops who killed thousands and destroyed many parts of the city -- is never far from Syrians' minds.

"I heard security forces telling each other be careful, there are cameras, don't draw your weapons," Abu Adnan said.

 

"WE CONFRONT THEM WITH MOBILE PHONES"

His friend, an activist who is a 23-year-old student at Damascus University, agrees on the importance of documenting events in Syria which would have been unthinkable just a few months ago, before the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

"When the media report a news item, and there isn't documentation, audio and visual, then it's just ink on paper. But when there are images, there's credibility to the news."

State media have aired footage of what they said were gunmen firing into a crowd from behind a wall in Deraa, the southern city where protests started in March.

Syrian media, and Assad himself, have criticized "satellite channels" for what they consider biased and false reporting of the unrest.

Activists say that makes it vital to authenticate videos they receive from their networks before publishing them. They do that by comparing several clips of the same protest, contacting the people who post the items, checking dates and trawling the web to see if the footage could be old.

Syrian authorities have employed tactics tried by embattled rulers attempting to quell uprisings elsewhere: turning off the Internet and telecommunications in areas that have seen major protests or before security forces enter a city.

Deraa, cradle of the uprising in Syria, is largely offline. A poor, tribal town, not many of its people were Internet-savvy anyway. Yet despite an intense crackdown -- most of the deaths happened there -- footage of enraged people smashing statues of Assad's family members made it online.

"They confront us with Kalashnikovs, we confront them with mobile phones," said Abu Adnan.~

(editing by Paul Taylor)

    When AK-47s meet mobile phones: Syria's web activists, R, 14.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-syria-protests-activists-idUSTRE73D5YE20110414

Clinton urges NATO

to maintain unity over Libya

BERLIN | Thu Apr 14, 2011
7:54am EDT
Reuters
By Matt Spetalnick

BERLIN (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged NATO on Thursday to maintain unity, saying Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was trying to test the alliance's resolve in the Western-led air campaign against his forces.

"As our mission continues, maintaining our resolve and unity only grows more important," Clinton said in prepared remarks to a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Berlin amid signs of strain within the alliance. "Gaddafi is testing our determination."

Clinton spoke after France and Britain said NATO needed to do more to stop Gaddafi's forces assaulting rebel-held cities and towns.

She said the international coalition was "escalating the pressure and deepening the isolation of the Gaddafi regime." She called for efforts to "sharpen the choices facing those around him."

"We need to tighten the squeeze on Gaddafi's inner circle through asset freezes, travel bans and other penalties. We need to work with Libya's neighbors to aggressively enforce the arms embargo so that Gaddafi cannot resupply his forces."

Clinton reaffirmed the United States' commitment to the military campaign against Gaddafi but stopped short of signaling a stronger U.S. role after Washington relinquished command of the operation to NATO last month.

"The U.S. is committed to our shared mission. We will strongly support the coalition until our work is completed," she said.

She reiterated U.S. demands that Gaddafi cease attacks and withdraw his forces, restore vital services to Libya's citizens and allow unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid.

"Gaddafi knows what he must do. As long as he does not comply with these demands, NATO will strike his forces inside these areas," she said.

Clinton expressed concern about what she described as "atrocities" unfolding in the town of Misrata, saying: "We are taking actions to respond, and those responsible will be held accountable."

She urged intensified political, diplomatic and economic pressure to force Gaddafi from power. "We must see Gaddafi go. Only then can a viable transition move forward."

(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Andrew Dobbie)

    Clinton urges NATO to maintain unity over Libya, R, 14.4.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-libya-nato-clinton-idUSTRE73D26P20110414

Big five emerging powers

urge end to Libya fighting

SANYA, China | Thu Apr 14, 2011
7:01am EDT
Reuters
By Ray Colitt and Alexei Anishchuk

SANYA, China (Reuters) - Five big emerging powers expressed misgivings on Thursday about NATO-led air strikes in Libya and urged an end to the fighting which, together with turbulence elsewhere in the Arab world, has added to global uncertainty.

The United Nations-authorized air campaign against the forces of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was one of the issues on the table when the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) met in southern China for a one-day summit.

While expressing their concern about Libya, the strength of the leaders' public comments varied, suggesting that they did not emerge from their summit with a firmly united stance.

"We are deeply concerned with the turbulence in the Middle East, the North African and West African regions," the leaders said in a joint statement issued after the summit in the resort of Sanya.

"We share the principle that the use of force should be avoided," they added while urging a peaceful settlement of the Libyan conflict and praising the mediation efforts of the African Union.

"We are of the view that all the parties should resolve their differences through peaceful means and dialogue," they said.

"They all condemned the bombings," said a government source who participated in the meeting of the BRICS leaders.

But the public comments from the leaders after the summit suggested differences on how to handle the conflict, which has raised the possibility of a divided and war-torn Libya, and intensified recent rises in oil prices.

EXCEEDING MANDATE?

Western warplanes began hitting Libyan government forces last month, but long-time leader Gaddafi has refused to yield to calls from rebel groups and other governments to step down. His forces remain locked in combat with the rebels.

China, Russia, India and Brazil all abstained on March 17 from a United Nations Security Council vote that authorized the air strikes. China and Russia could have used their veto power as permanent members of the Council to veto the authorization.

South Africa, on the other hand, voted in favor of the Security Council resolution for the strikes. But during a visit to Tripoli on Sunday, South African President Jacob Zuma called for NATO to stop air strikes.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested that Western governments backing the air campaign in Libya had gone beyond the U.N. mandate.

"We agreed to ... close the air zone (over Libya) and prevent the basis for the intensification of the conflict ... What did we get as a result? We got a military operation," he told reporters traveling with him. "But the resolution does not say anything about it," said.

"The resolution is totally correct, but (countries) should execute resolutions without trying to exceed their mandate."

Other leaders were more muted in their criticism.

"The developments in west Asia and north Africa, and the aftermath of the huge tragedy that befell Japan, have introduced fresh uncertainties in the global recovery process," said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Chinese President Hu Jintao did not mention Libya in his comments to reporters

(Writing by Chris Buckley;

Editing by Ken Wills and Robert Birsel)

    Big five emerging powers urge end to Libya fighting, R, 14.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-brics-libya-idUSTRE73D22W20110414

France not in favor

of arming Libyan rebels

BERLIN | Thu Apr 14, 2011
6:03am EDT
Reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) - France is not currently in favor of arming Libyan rebels engaged in combat with troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Thursday.

Juppe also said that the U.N.-mandated military intervention by the Western-led coalition would not be enough in itself to end Gaddafi's 41-year authoritarian rule, and a political resolution was essential.

Asked if the coalition should arm the rebels, Juppe told a news conference "France is not currently in that frame of mind."

In Berlin for a NATO foreign ministers meeting, Juppe reaffirmed the need for a political solution for Libya, where three weeks of coalition air strikes have failed to end a deadlock in the civil war between Gaddafi's forces and rebels.

"We thought a military intervention was necessary... It is continuing," he said. "But there will not be a military solution to the problem, there can only be a political solution."

Juppe said the only differences with Germany over Libya concerned exactly how to get Gaddafi to quit. "The difference of opinion is over the means of achieving this objective," he said.

A French presidential source said late on Wednesday, after a Franco-British meeting on Libya, that France did not plan to start arming rebels but did not oppose others doing so.

"It doesn't seem necessary today because the national transition council is not having problems finding the weapons they need and friends to show them how to use them," the source said, adding that France believed arming the rebels would be permitted by U.N. resolution 1973.

"We are not doing it. And nor are the British as far as I know," he added. "It's a decision that's been taken but that does not mean we oppose those that do."

Last week Bernard-Henri Levy, a celebrity philosopher who has close ties with the Libyan opposition and was a catalyst for France leading the western intervention, said weapons were being smuggled to the rebels overland, but would not say from where.

Britain has sent the rebels 100 satellite phones and will also send them 1,000 sets of body armor.

(Reporting by Brian Rohan;

Writing by Catherine Bremer;

editing by Tim Pearce)

    France not in favor of arming Libyan rebels, R, 14.4.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/14/us-libya-france-juppe-idUSTRE73D1R920110414