Al Jazeera reports that rebels had an easy time taking Sirte:
Shamsi Abdul Molah, a spokesman for the opposition's National Council, told Al Jazeera that opposition forces had moved into the city at approximately 11.30pm last night (local time)."They found it an unarmed city. They had no problem getting in there, they did not encounter any resistance," reported Sue Turton, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Benghazi. Celebratory gunfire was head in Benghazi, the opposition's stronghold in the east of the country, as news filtered in of the taking of Gaddafi's hometown.
(Reuters) - Libyan state television broadcast on Sunday what it said was live footage of Muammar Gaddafi in a car in his Tripoli compound where hundreds of supporters waved green flags and chanted slogans.
Gaddafi could not be seen in the white car but the television said the Libyan leader was in it.
The short footage showed bodyguards pushing away supporters to prevent them from getting too close to the car.
Gaddafi has not been shown on television since he made a speech on Tuesday.
AP: Libyan state television reports that international air strikes are targeting Muammar Gaddafi's hometown and stronghold of Sirte for the first time.
Foreign journalists in the city reported loud explosions and warplanes flying overheard.
Sirte is strategically located about halfway between the rebel-held east and the Gaddafi-controlled west along a key coastal highway. Rebels were advancing rapidly west on the highway Sunday toward Sirte after international air strikes eased their way.
The AP reports:
In a sign of U.S. confidence that the weeklong assault on Libya has tamed Muammar Gaddafi's air defenses, the Pentagon has reduced the amount of naval firepower arrayed against him, officials said Sunday. The move, not yet publicly announced, reinforces the White House message of a diminishing U.S. role -- a central point in President Barack Obama's national address Monday night on Libya.
At least one of the five Navy ships and submarines that have launched dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan targets from positions in the Mediterranean Sea has left the area, three defense officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive military movements.
That still leaves what officials believe is sufficient naval firepower off Libya's coast, and it coincides with NATO's decision Sunday to take over command and control of the entire Libya operation.
| @ REUTERSFLASH : NATO agrees to implement all aspects of U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya - NATO official |
The AP has more:
NATO will assume command of all aerial operations -- including ground attacks -- in Libya from the U.S.-led force that has been conducting air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, officials said Sunday.
The North Atlantic Council -- the alliance's top body -- approved a plan to expand the previously agreed mission to enforce the U.N. arms embargo and no-fly zone by agreeing to protect civilians from attack.
"NATO Allies have decided to take on the whole military operation in Libya under the U.N. Security Council resolution," Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement.
"NATO will implement all aspects of the U.N. resolution. Nothing more, nothing less," he said.
As rebel forces, supported by allied airstrikes, retake towns in their push west, Time reports that the fighting has turned many contested cities into ghost towns, and describes the carnage that residents find as they return:
For a number of people, the missiles that freed Ajdabiyah after a week of stalemate came far too late. Much of the town is now silent and abandoned; the bullet holes and collapsed walls of apartment blocks and storefronts bear witness to the city's scourging by Gaddafi.Charred, shattered dishes, pots, pans, and the heavy metal shards of some armament lie in the blackened rubble of one anonymous family's kitchen in a first floor apartment in the 7th of October neighborhood. A crushed baby carriage and television set lie in the ruin of another room. And the charred refrigerator door hangs open to a swarm of flies, allowing someone's asthma medication to incubate on a rack beside the remains of rotting food.
Read more here.
The Guardian's Chris McGreal reports:
Libyan rebels are advancing on Muammar Gaddafi's home town, Sirte, after retaking all the ground lost in earlier fighting as government forces broke and fled under western air strikes.Revolutionary forces rapidly moved more than 150 miles west along Libya's coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as the first witness accounts emerged of the devastating effect on Gaddafi's army and militia of the aerial bombardment that broke their resistance at Ajdabiya on Saturday.
A doctor treating wounded government soldiers described hundreds of deaths, terrible injuries and collapsing morale.
Read more here.
The AP reports:
NATO's top decision-making body is likely to expand its air mission over Libya on Sunday to take over command of U.S.-led air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi's military.
After nearly a week of deliberations, the North Atlantic Council agreed Friday that NATO should enforce a no-fly zone in keeping with a U.N. Security Council mandate. But the decision to also allow air strikes -- which the United States-led international force has been conducting since last week -- was postponed until today's meeting to allow the 28 national envoys to consult with their capitals.
Washington has been eager to hand off responsibility for air strikes to the alliance, whose military staff have already drawn up the necessary operational plans. An official who spoke under the usual condition of anonymity said the council may issue an order to execute those plans late Sunday or during a follow-on meeting on Monday.
NATO expects to start enforcing the U.N.-authorized no-fly zone on Sunday or Monday, as well as coordinating naval patrols in the Mediterranean to enforce a U.N. arms embargo against Gaddafi's forces.
A Canadian three-star general, Charles Bouchard, is expected to take charge. He will report to an American admiral, Samuel Locklear, commander of NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples.
Hillary Clinton And Robert Gates made the talk show rounds Sunday, to discuss the U.S. Operation in Libya.
Gates said the no-fly zone was fully in place and could be sustained with "a lot less effort than it took to set it up." He said the Pentagon was planning how to draw down resources that will be assigned to European and other countries pledging to take on a larger role.
But asked on ABC's "This Week" if that would mean a U.S. military commitment until year's end, Gates said, "I don't think anybody knows the answer to that."
The lack of clarity on that question reflects a worry for lawmakers clamoring to hear fuller explanations from the administration on why the U.S. was embroiling itself in another Muslim conflict and what the ultimate goals of the intervention are.
Clinton and Gates insisted that the objective was limited to protecting civilians, even as they hoped the pressure of concerted international penalties and isolation might strip away Gadhafi's remaining loyalists and cause his government to crumble.
Read more here.
LA Times examines comments made by GOP presidential hopefuls at Saturday's conservative gathering in Iowa:
Likely Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich conceded Saturday that he made conflicting statements about U.S. involvement in Libya, but he blamed them on contradictions in President Obama's policy.The former House speaker called for a no-fly zone early this month after Obama said that Moammar Kadafi "must leave." Last week, Gingrich backtracked, saying he would not have intervened using U.S. and European forces.
Read more here.
In an appearance on "Face The Nation" set to air Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates cited intelligence reports that show Gaddafi is planting dead bodies at sites attacked by allied forces. He told CBS News chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer:
"We do have a lot of intelligence reporting about Qaddafi taking the bodies of the people he's killed and putting them at the sites where we've attacked."
WATCH:
The New Yorker's Andrew Solomon, who explored Libya's regime in a May 2006 piece, argues now that Gaddafi must be removed from power:
As we lose Libyan lives, we endanger American ones. Having long backed terrible dictators in the Arab world because they sell us oil, the U.S. needs to show that we will support the will of the people, because our support of those dictators has caused so many Arabs to hate us. It makes our high-minded rhetoric about democracy look as absurd as Qaddafi?s. If we had established a no-fly zone two weeks ago, we could have arrested the progress of the anti-rebellion forces. If we don?t drum Qaddafi from power, we allow Al Qaeda?s depiction of the United States as wealthy, self-interested, and corrupt to ring scarily true.
Read the whole thing here.
Jonathan Miller reports to Channel 4 News that journalists felt helpless as Eman al-Obeidi was dragged off out of the hotel. He says, "There was nothing that anybody standing here could do about it... They threatened us. We were unable to protect her. We have no idea what her fate will be now."
More here.
WATCH:According to the Guardian, Kenneth Clark, Britain's lord chancellor, warns of another Lockerbie incident:
Kenneth Clarke has ratcheted up government pressure to depose Colonel Gaddafi by warning that the Libyan leader could stage a Lockerbie-style attack in revenge for Britain's role in the enforcement of the UN resolution if he is left in power.The lord chancellor told the Guardian: "We do have one particular interest in the Maghreb [the western region of North Africa], which is Lockerbie.
"The British people have reason to remember the curse of Gaddafi ? Gaddafi back in power, the old Gaddafi looking for revenge, we have a real interest in preventing that."
More here.
According to Reuters, Libyan rebels report that they have taken over the oil port of Brega:
"Brega is 100 percent in the hands of the liberating forces," Shamsiddin Abdulmolah, a rebel spokesman in Benghazi, said. He said forces opposed to leader Muammar Gaddafi had been driven out late on Saturday afternoon in what would have been a signficant success for the rebels.There were no journalists in the town and no immediate independent confirmation of the rebel breakthrough.
More here.
Reuters reported yesterday that, according to officials and hospital workers, civilians were killed in Western air strikes on Tripoli.
On Thursday night, journalists were shown 15 bodies at Tripoli Central Hospital. It was impossible to independently verify the information, but morgue worker Ahmed Hussein claims, "Those bodies were from (attacks) air strikes today and yesterday where they attacked civilian and military sites."
More here.
The Washington Post reports that the State Department helped arrange for Khamis al-Gaddafi, Moammar Gaddafi?s youngest son, to visit the U.S. this year.
While the State Department acknowledges that U.S. officials greeted Khamis, they state that the government did not officially sponsor the visit.
At the time of the January visit, State officials held a mild view of Khamis al-Gaddafi, calling him a reformer who should be exposed to American customs and business practices, a spokesman for the company said.?They said it would be beneficial if he came away from the visit with a positive view of the U.S.,? said Paul Gennaro, spokesman for AECOM, an engineering and architectural design firm based in California that had business contracts with the Libyan government.
More here.
Al Jazeera provides the following report from pro-democracy activist Ahmed Al Misrati, describing the scene in Misurata. Misrati reports that Gaddafi's troops are spreading out across the city:
As a matter of fact, the city of Misurata since morning has been under heavy gunfire and heavy bombardment ... by tanks or mortar shells. This bombardment is indiscriminate and arbitrary, sometimes targeting residential plots and one entire family was killed - the father and his children.They are also stationed in other rooftops, especially the high buildings ... Anybody in the street comes under heavy gunfire and now the situation is exacerbating and is very, very dire.
Read more here.
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