Qaddafi Is ‘Effectively’ in Hiding as NATO Aircraft Attack Libyan Warships
Libyan Ships Attacked
Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
Flames engulf a ship in the port of the Libyan capital Tripoli following NATO air strikes on May 19, 2011.
Flames engulf a ship in the port of the Libyan capital Tripoli following NATO air strikes on May 19, 2011. Photographer: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images
NATO said its intensified air campaign over Libya has “effectively” pushed Muammar Qaddafi into hiding as the alliance turns its firepower on the regime’s navy, hitting eight warships.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization destroyed the ships after what it called a change of tactics by Qaddafi loyalists to mine the port of rebel-held Misrata and target NATO forces by sea, an alliance spokesman, Wing Commander Mike Bracken of the British Royal Air Force, said today.
“We have seen a significant and highly concerning increase in the activities of pro-Qaddafi maritime assets,” Bracken told reporters in Brussels after showing a video of a ship being struck. He said NATO’s decision to attack the vessels came after “long and careful deliberation.”
The strikes on Libyan naval ships took place overnight in the ports of Tripoli, Al Khums and Sirte. The U.K. Defense Ministry said its jets hit two Libyan corvettes at Al Khums and a facility constructing fast inflatable boats used by Qaddafi forces to lay mines.
The three-month fight between troops loyal to Qaddafi and opponents of his four-decade rule has cut the country’s oil exports and spawned the NATO air campaign against pro-government forces, leaving rebels mostly in control in the east.
Bracken said alliance air strikes have helped halt the regime’s progress on rebel-held territory in the east, stop attacks on civilians in Misrata and constrain Qaddafi and regime officials’ movements in Tripoli.
Wife, Daughter Flee
Qaddafi’s wife and daughter fled across the border into Tunisia in the past two days, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview on CBS yesterday. Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice president of the rebels’ National Transitional Council, said at a briefing in rebel-held Benghazi yesterday that Qaddafi’s wife, daughter and grandchildren have left the country.
“He’s trying to secure a safe passage for most of his family,” Ghoga said. “The noose has tightened.”
The unrest in Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, caused supplies from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to decline last month, the International Energy Agency said on May 12. Supplies from the North African nation “will remain absent from the market for the rest of 2011,” the agency said.
Crude oil for June delivery dropped $1.77, or 1.8 percent, to $96.67 a barrel at 9:54 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have dropped 3 percent this week and risen 42 percent in the past year. The June contract expires at the close of Nymex floor trading today. The more active July crude slipped $2.27, or 2.3 percent, to $96.66 a barrel.
Lost Control
President Barack Obama said that Qaddafi no longer has control of his country and that the Libyan leader would “inevitably” leave power.
“Now, time is working against Qaddafi,” Obama said yesterday in a speech in Washington on the Middle East and North Africa.
Qaddafi said in a telephone interview with Libyan state television last week that he’s in a place “you can’t reach and where you can’t kill me,” hours after Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he may have been wounded and left Tripoli.
“We’ve increased the pressure by striking military command and control centers,” NATO’s Bracken said. “This has limited Qaddafi’s ability to give orders to his forces. It has also constrained his freedom of movement. Effectively, he’s gone into hiding.”
While Bracken cited progress along Libya’s eastern coast and in Misrata, he said Qaddafi forces still threaten civilians in cities dotting the mountainous Berber highlands in the west, forcing Libyans to flee over the border into Tunisia.
Intensify Strikes
“We hope for greater intervention to protect our people and civilians,” Ghoga said. “As long as there is a threat to civilians, strikes must be intensified against the military machine” of the Libyan leader.
Rebel forces repelled an attack on Misrata by Qaddafi loyalists yesterday, Fawzi Abd El-Ali, a member of the rebel council for the city, said in a telephone interview. He said one rebel died in the fighting as Qaddafi forces tried to enter the city from its western gate.
In Benghazi, the rebels’ eastern stronghold, a few thousand residents gathered outside the courthouse to attend an anti- Qaddafi rally.
Gunmen manned rooftops and an effigy of Qaddafi with a rope around the neck hung from a wooden pole. Some chanted “Raise your head up high, you are free Libyans.”
“We are here to support our brothers in all the besieged cities,” said Besheer El-Houni, 27, an accountant. “The number one demand is for Qaddafi to leave and for him to be prosecuted.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Mariam Fam in Benghazi, Libya, at mfam1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net; Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
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