NATO launches fresh air raids on Tripoli
FE Team | Published: April 24, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
TRIPOLI, April 23 (AFP): NATO launched fresh air raids on Tripoli Saturday as Muammar Gaddafi's government said it was ready to withdraw from Misrata and let tribes deal with rebels in the besieged city.
The strikes hit a patch of bare ground opposite Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya residence in central Tripoli and what looked like a bunker. Authorities who took foreign correspondents there said they were "a parking lot" and "sewers."
They were launched after deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim said the Libyan army had been given an "ultimatum" to stop the rebellion in the western city, 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
"There was an ultimatum to the Libyan army: if they cannot solve the problem in Misrata, then the people from (the neighbouring towns of) Zliten, Tarhuna, Bani Walid and Tawargha will move in and they will talk to the rebels," Kaim told journalists in the capital.
"If they don't surrender, then they will engage them in a fight."
Misrata has for weeks been the scene of deadly urban guerrilla fighting between rebels and forces loyal to longtime Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.
Kaim accused Washington of "new crimes against humanity" after US President Barack Obama authorised deployment of missile-carrying drone warplanes over Libya for what his administration called "humanitarian" reasons.
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