(N. Y. Times) - Backed by NATO airstrikes and seasoned reinforcements, rebel fighters crashed through the gates of Col. Muammar Al QathafiÂ’s fortresslike compound Tuesday, running madly across its sprawling lawns, ransacking its barracks for weapons and carting off mementos of his 42-year dictatorship.
The victory was by no means complete, however. Colonel Al Qathafi and his family were nowhere to be found. And as crowds cheered into the night in the cityÂ’s Green Square, now MartyrsÂ’ Square, some Al Qathafi militiamen were still fighting around the city, and the rebels acknowledged that even the compound, Bab al-Azziziyah, was not yet under the rebelsÂ’ full control.
The storming of the compound represented the fruition of an oft-repeated rebel vow: “We will celebrate in Bab al-Azziziyah,” the ultimate seat of power in the Al Qathafi government.
The conquest was spearheaded by hundreds of experienced fighters from the port city of Misurata, who developed into some of the rebelsÂ’ best organized and most effective units after months of bitter fighting with elite loyalist forces.
Jubilant rebel fighters made off with advanced machine guns, a gold-plated rifle and the Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s golf cart. One took the distinctive fur that Colonel Al Qathafi wore in his first public appearance after the uprising began six months ago.
While the pillaging of Bab al-Azziziyah was the most conclusive evidence yet that Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s rule was at an end, it was not yet clear how much his fall would do to pacify Al Qathafi partisans who may feel they have much to lose from the rebelsÂ’ ascendance, especially while their leader remains at large.
As a reminder that he remained on the loose, Colonel Al Qathafi, in an address broadcast early Wednesday over a local Tripoli radio station, called his retreat from Bab al-Azziziyah “tactical,” Reuters reported.
He blamed months of NATO airstrikes for bringing down his compound and vowed “martyrdom” or victory in his battle against the alliance. It was the second such address by Colonel Al Qathafi, 69, since his forces lost control of Tripoli.
Rebel leaders acknowledged Tuesday that their forces in Tripoli are not under any unified command. Some are simply Tripoli residents who have taken up guns, and have little or no military experience. And rebels from the western mountains fight in independent brigades from each town or tribe, spraying its name - “Zintan” or “Nalut” - as they go.
Rebel military commanders said that, aside from the area around Bab al-Azziziyah, they believed that only two other neighbourhoods of Tripoli remained under the control of Al Qathafi loyalists. One is Al Hadba.
The other is Abu Salim, which includes the Rixos Hotel. A group of journalists have been trapped there for days, first by Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s guards and now by gunfire outside. On Tuesday the BBC reported that the hotel had come under attack as well, forcing the journalists to take shelter.
But gunmen and snipers hostile to the rebels continue to operate in many other neighbourhoods, and doctors at clinics and hospitals around Tripoli reported hundreds of gunshot wounds over the last 72 hours, even in neighbourhoods rebels consider well controlled.
The death toll was impossible to assess. Doctors at a small clinic in the relatively safe neighbourhood of Janzur reported receiving 30 patients injured in the fighting, six of whom died overnight.
It is also unclear how many rebel fighters are in Tripoli, in part because so many young men from the city are now brandishing automatic rifles. The rebels from the western mountains number a few thousand in tribal bands of 600 or more, and the Misurata fighters were said in unconfirmed reports to number around 500.
Rebel leaders struggled to explain how their leaders in the eastern city of Benghazi had misled the world two days ago when they falsely reported the capture of Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s son Seif al-Islam, one of the most powerful figures in his fatherÂ’s government.
He embarrassed the rebels early Tuesday by walking freely into the Rixos Hotel and boasting that his father was still in control and inside the city.
In a news conference in the Qatari capital, Doha, Mahmoud Jabril, a top rebel leader, said it was essentially a misunderstanding, suggesting that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, had mistaken an early notification of an unconfirmed rumour for an official report of Seif al-IslamÂ’s capture.
There was no explanation why the misunderstanding went uncorrected for two days.
The rebels’ reversal about the Al Qathafi son’s capture led to some finger-pointing among the rebels. “I learned not to trust the people from Benghazi who are telling me these stories,” said Anwar Fekini, a rebel leader from the western mountains who had repeated the news Monday.
As for the reported capture of another Al Qathafi son, Mohammed, Mr. Fekini confirmed reports that he had escaped and acknowledged some responsibility. Mohammed had played little role in the Al Qathafi political machine, so Mr. Fekini said he and others agreed to place him under house arrest.
“Unfortunately it was naïve,” he said. “We are too humane to be warriors.”
Rebel officials and others close to Colonel Al Qathafi both said Tuesday that they believed that he had not gone far.
“We believe that he is either in Tripoli or close to Tripoli,” Guma el-Gamaty, a spokesman for the rebels leadership, told BBC television. “Sooner or later he will be found, alive and arrested - and hopefully that is the best outcome we want - or if he resists, he will be killed.”
In addition to Seif al-IslamÂ’s boast about his father, Russian news agencies reported earlier that Colonel Al Qathafi had a telephone conversation with the Russian head of the World Chess Federation, Kirsan N. Ilyumzhinov, who is in Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s circle of foreign friends.
Colonel Al Qathafi had told his chess mate that he was alive and well in Tripoli, Mr. Ilyumzhinov reportedly said.
NATO officials in Brussels and London said the allianceÂ’s warplanes, which have been helping the rebels, were flying reconnaissance and other missions over Libya.
“Our mission is not over yet,” said Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, at a news conference in Naples, Italy, urging pro-Al Qathafi forces to return to their barracks. “Until this is the case we will carry on with our mission. The situation in Tripoli is still very serious and very dangerous.”
TripoliÂ’s two largest hospitals are in areas still under Al Qathafi control, so the rebels have set up makeshift clinics in homes around downtown to treat the wounded before moving them to other neighbourhoods or the rebel-held city of Zawiyah for care.
Elsewhere, rebels claimed they continued to edge along the coast from the east, though Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s loyalists remain in control of his tribeÂ’s strongholds, Sirte on the Mediterranean and Sabha to the south. On Tuesday, rebels seized control of Ras Lanuf, an important oil port.
Even amid the jubilation in Bab al-Azziziyah, though, such was the uncertainty about the control of Tripoli that the International Organisation for Migration in Geneva said it had delayed a seaborne mission to rescue hundreds of foreigners because “security guarantees and assurances are no longer in place,” said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the organisation.
A Tripoli-bound ship that left the eastern port of Benghazi on Monday would remain at sea until some level of safety for the mission could be assured, she said in a telephone interview.
As Libyan rebels secure Tripoli, search for Al Qathafi continues
(CNN)-The six-month battle for control of Libya was all but ended, a rebel leader said Tuesday, even though pockets of fighting remained inside and outside of Tripoli.
"The fall of the capital means the fall of the regime," said Mahmoud Jibril of the National Transitional Council. "I wouldn't be exaggerating to say that, within the next couple of days, many other liberations will happen."
He added, "In Libya, you say: Chop the head and the veins will dry up."
Earlier in the day, the symbol of that head was ransacked as rebels stormed the presidential compound in Tripoli after hours of heavy fighting. Celebratory gunfire rang out as rebels carted off weapons and knocked over statues depicting Libya's longtime leader.
But the most-sought-after prize, Col. Muammar Al Qathafi himself, remained elusive.
Where is Al Qathafi? "It doesn't matter," said NTC Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam, who said rebel forces controlled 90% of the country. "In a few hours, maximum a few days, we have a new Libya, a new, liberated Libya."
The fighting was not confined to Tripoli. Shammam said battles raged in several cities across the country. "We're fighting in three or four fronts right now," he said, adding, "our troops are limited."
Still, the business of transferring power was moving forward briskly, with plans to transfer the power base from Benghazi to Tripoli, he said. "Half of the government will be in Tripoli tomorrow morning," he said, citing the ministries of oil, communications, interior, defence and health.
A stabilization team will ensure that the city is supplied with electricity and clean water, Shammam said.
In addition, the Zawiyah refinery is working.
"The whole situation is not so bad," Shammam told CNN from Libya's border with Tunisia. "Things are going to get better every day." But, he added, the work is daunting. Al Qathafi left behind no institutions, no political parties, no civil society. "We have to build things from scratch," he said.
Critical to the rebels' ultimate success, he said, will be the release of money that has been frozen in international banks. "We need to provide ourselves with a lot of necessities and we cannot do this without money," he said.
The rebels' immediate needs are puny compared to what they have lacked for years, he said. "Please, please, please, let the international community know - we are hungry for freedom, we are hungry for democracy, we are hungry for a state of law and order and we would like everybody, everybody everywhere in Arab countries and in the international community to support us and help us to get that."
But Al Qathafi spokesman Moussa Ibrahim remained defiant. "Muammar Al Qathafi's rule is not just over Tripoli," he told Arrai Television. "Muammar is loved by millions! From the centre of Libya to western Libya to the mountains of Libya to everywhere. So the fighting will continue."
He said that Libya's tribes had organized a military leadership. "The tribes are organizing and heading to the capital in order to rescue it from gangs," he said in an apparent reference to the rebel forces.
In an interview Tuesday with CNN, former Al Qathafi aide Bashir Saleh called for an end to the violence. "I appeal to everybody who has his arms to think before shooting - from our side or from the Al Qathafi side. It's time to stop the bloodshed."
Asked what Al Qathafi had told him during the uprising when he made similar comments, Saleh said, "He say that he has a job and we have to continue our job. Job is to stop the rebellions, and we have the right to do so."
Gunfire was directed Tuesday evening into Al Qathafi's compound. Rebels said Al Qathafi's forces were firing into the compound. There was no way to confirm who was doing the shooting.
A CNN team evacuated the compound because of the incoming fire. "There was tracer fire and we could hear bullets coming past us," CNN's Sara Sidner said. "Everybody was running."
Earlier, rebels said they had disarmed and captured some of Al Qathafi's forces inside the Bab al-Azziziyah compound following an hours-long siege.
No members of the Al Qathafi family were found there.
Some buildings in the compound were knocked down and some were afire. Rebels seized weapons and munitions and carried them off.
A senior NATO official said the war was "not over yet, although it's close. We continue to watch for flare-ups from around the country, where there are still going to be pockets of resistance. We are also watching the chemical weapons and Scud missiles to make sure they are not used in the endgame."
Jibril said it is important to begin a smooth transition immediately. "We're all Libyans, and we're all sons of this nation," he said. "There is no need for any score settling."
Jibril said a planned meeting on Wednesday of international leaders would focus on organizing aid for Libya. The meeting will include officials from the NTC, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Turkey, he said.
The money would go toward paying salaries for Libyans and covering medical treatment for those injured in the fighting, he said.
A stabilization team comprising technocrats from the Al Qathafi regime is already inside Tripoli working to get the business of running a country on track, he said.
"We didn't want what happened in Iraq to be repeated in Libya," he said, referring to the looting and destruction of government offices and records in the wake of the overthrow of longtime leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Of particular importance will be the re-establishment of the security and military sectors, he said. "We're not focusing on the first layer of command, but on the second, third and fourth. Those are professionals who were not involved in any bloodshed, putting down uprisings, not known to be corrupt or involved in torture practices in the past."
What happens to Al Qathafi if he is arrested "will be left up to the Libyan legal brains," said Jibril. But he appeared adamant that the longtime ruler would be dealt with by his countrymen rather than handed over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has issued a warrant for his arrest for crimes against humanity.
"Libyans are best placed to do this," he said. "We pledge that he will be treated fairly in accordance with the law."
The country's top priority is to guarantee the security of the nation's oil wells and get production back on track, he said.
But much more remains to be done. "We are talking about rebuilding a whole nation," he said. "Al Qathafi was not only just the buildings, it was also the culture. And to get rid of this culture is not an easy task."
Doing that will require the dismantling and re-establishment of educational institutions "so that we rebuild a new culture."
In Al Qathafi's tribal home of Sirte, fighting continued Tuesday. NTC spokesman Shamsiddin Ben Ali told CNN that Sirte would probably fall Tuesday or Wednesday, in a peaceful way, through negotiations.
Al Jazeera aired an interview with a rebel colonel who said his forces were in negotiations with Al Qathafi forces in Sirte and were considering offering amnesty to any forces who cross over to the rebel side.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said a "reliable, affirmative" statement from Al Qathafi himself is needed to underscore that "the days of his leadership are over."
His whereabouts and those of his family were unknown.
His compound had been damaged in recent weeks by repeated NATO airstrikes. Mahmoud Shammam, minister of information for the NTC, said NATO hit targets Tuesday inside the compound. NATO would not comment on specific actions it was taking.
Earlier in the day, some Al Qathafi forces dressed like rebels and tried to infiltrate rebel forces. In the midst of the urban warfare, loyalties were not always clear.
A CNN crew at the nearby Rixos Hotel heard explosions coming from the compound throughout the day, likely the sound of artillery shells being exchanged.
Bullets were fired into the windows of the hotel, and the crew holed up inside along with dozens of other international journalists.
"We're upstairs. It's very hot in the hotel. We've all got body armour on. We don't know what to expect," CNN's Matthew Chance said.
Despite cheers of "victory" in the streets, some rebel officials have said the key to victory will be the capture of Al Qathafi himself.
Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, said Tuesday he had no idea where Al Qathafi was. But he added that it was not relevant. With the regime coming to an end, Al Qathafi is "not a key player anymore," he said.
Russia's Interfax news agency, meanwhile, quoted the head of the World Chess Federation as saying he had spoken with Al Qathafi and his son Mohammed by phone, and that Al Qathafi said he was "alive and well in Tripoli and not going to leave Libya."
NATO said Tripoli was no longer "under Al Qathafi control."
As the fighting raged Tuesday, those wounded faced a shortage of doctors, facilities and medical supplies.
One clinic "has 40 beds, and all of the beds are taken," said Robin Waudo of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tripoli. "Some of the people have been treated or discharged and taken to other houses nearby in order to be treated."
Around the key city of Zawiyah, a half-hour's drive west of Tripoli, tracer fire, anti-aircraft guns and artillery were seen and heard.
Al Qathafi had had a firm grip on Libya since a September 1969 coup. The rebellion against him began in February and has been aided by NATO airstrikes that began in March, under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians.
The Al Qathafi regime's fall would follow revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt this year in what has become known as the Arab Spring. A number of other countries in the region - including Bahrain, Yemen and Syria - have also seen protests by citizens demanding more freedom and a change in regime. In many cases, these demonstrations have been met with brute force.
The Libyan revolt gained momentum rapidly in the past two weeks, with rebel forces launching their push on Tripoli over the weekend.
(N. Y. Times) - Rebel fighters overwhelmed Col. Muammar Al QathafiÂ’s sprawling compound on Tuesday, crashing through its outer gates, running pell-mell through the grounds and ransacking caches of weapons abandoned by his shrinking retinue of defenders. Colonel Al Qathafi and his family were nowhere to be found.
While the crackle of gunfire and rumble of explosions could still be heard across a confused and wary Libyan capital, with the possibility of more fighting in days to come, the rebel invasion and pillaging of the Bab al-Azziziyah compound seemed to represent an important symbolic moment for the rebel movement seeking to oust Colonel Al Qathafi and his sons from power.
Hundreds of rebel fighters on foot and in pickup trucks moved quickly into the compound, where smoky fires shrouded the palm trees and bullet-scarred multi-storey buildings of what the rebels have called Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s last hideout.
Squads of rebels searched the buildings room by room. Many of the buildings were looted, and rebel fighters could be seen walking around with high-quality advanced machine guns and, in one case, a gold-plated rifle. Some of the looted weapons were still wrapped in plastic.
CNN showed images of fighters emerging from one building carrying what its reporter was told were medical files of the Al Qathafi family. Other footage broadcast by Al Jazeera and other networks showed rebels commandeering a Al Qathafi golf cart, which they hitched to a truck and paraded down a street.
In what could become a defining image of the day, video footage on Al Jazeera showed fighters scrambling to upend one of Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s favourite sculptures: a giant fist crushing an American warplane.
Colonel Al Qathafi installed the sculpture in front of a house in the compound that was bombed in 1986 on the orders of President Reagan, at a time when Libya was considered a pariah state. The wrecked building became Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s backdrop for major speeches, including his defiant challenge to the rebels at the start of their uprising six months ago.
Despite rebel claims of a new triumph, it was not clear by nightfall whether they had complete control of the compound - or for that matter, whether the rebel gains in Tripoli were the beginnings of a decisive victory in the conflict - or the start of potentially prolonged street fighting for control of the capital.
Overstated claims of advances by the rebels - including the arrests of two Al Qathafi sons that later proved false - have not helped their credibility.
Nonetheless it was clear that the stamina of the Al Qathafi regime had been exhausted.
A spokesman for the Transitional National Council, the rebel government based in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising began, said that the rebels assumed that Colonel Al Qathafi was still in Libya. “We believe that he is either in Tripoli or close to Tripoli,” the spokesman, Guma el-Gamaty, told BBC television.
“Sooner or later, he will be found, alive and arrested - and hopefully that is the best outcome we want - or if he resists, he will be killed.”
NATO officials in Brussels and London said the allianceÂ’s warplanes, which have been helping the rebels, were flying reconnaissance and other missions over Libya.
“Our mission is not over yet,” said Col. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, at a news conference in Naples, Italy, urging pro-Al Qathafi forces to return to their barracks. “Until this is the case we will carry on with our mission.”
Asked if the alliance knew where Colonel Al Qathafi was, he said: “We don’t know. I don’t have a clue.”
“The situation in Tripoli is still very serious and very dangerous,” Colonel Lavoie said.
He acknowledged that the urban environment in Tripoli, a city of some two million, was “far more complex” for airstrikes than past targets have been. But he said the alliance had precision weapons at its disposal to enforce its United Nations Security Council mandate, which is to protect civilians from attack.
Elsewhere, rebels claimed they had had seized control of Ras Lanuf, an important Mediterranean oil port, and that loyalist soldiers defending it had fled west to Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s home town of Sirte, according to news reports from Benghazi.
There was no confirmation of the reports about Ras Lanuf, which has changed hands previously in the seesaw pattern of the Libya revolt.
Additionally, Al Arabiya satellite television reported, rebels killed dozens of pro-Al Qathafi troops on Tuesday in a convoy from Sirte. There was no independent corroboration of the report. The Pentagon reported late on Monday that its warplanes had shot down a Scud missile fired from Sirte.
While rebel leaders said on Monday that they were planning for a post-Al Qathafi government, the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Tripoli was a vacuum of power: no cohesive rebel government was in place, and remnants of the Al Qathafi government were still in evidence.
Such was the uncertainty that the International organisation for Migration in Geneva said it had delayed a seaborne mission to rescue hundreds of foreigners from Tripoli because “security guarantees and assurances are no longer in place,” said Jemini Pandya, a spokeswoman for the organisation.
A ship that left the eastern port of Benghazi on Monday, bound for Tripoli, would remain at sea until some level of safety for the mission could be assured but would not dock in Tripoli as planned on Tuesday, she said in a telephone interview.
The BBC reported meanwhile that the Al Qathafi-controlled Rixos luxury hotel in central Tripoli, where most foreign reporters are based, had also come under attack on Tuesday, sending some reporters to take cover in a basement.
“There are still some pockets of resistance,” the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, said in a radio interview in Paris, but he said he believed “the fall of Al Qathafi is close.”
Along with the United States and Britain, France has played a central role in the diplomatic and military campaigns to oust Colonel Al Qathafi and Mr. Juppé said those efforts still needed time “to get to the end of this operation.”
On the diplomatic front, Oman, Bahrain and Iraq said on Tuesday that they formally recognized the rebel authorities, following Egypt, which took the same step on Monday, calling the Transitional National Council the “new regime.” Mohammed Amr, Egypt’s foreign minister, said that the council would take over the Libyan Embassy in Cairo, and would assume Libya’s seat on the Arab League, which is based in Cairo.
It was not clear if the renewed fighting was linked to the surprise reappearance of Seif al-Islam Al Qathafi, whose capture the rebels had trumpeted since Sunday but who walked as a free man to the Rixos Hotel early Tuesday.
He boasted to foreign journalists there that his father was safe in Tripoli, his government was still “in control” and that the rebels had been lured into a trap, the BBC and news services reported. The episode raised significant questions about the credibility of rebel leaders, who had claimed to be holding him prisoner.
It was not clear whether he had been in rebel custody and escaped, or was never held at all. Another Al Qathafi son, Muhammad, escaped from house arrest on Monday.
The struggle to a impose a new order on the capital presents a crucial test of the rebel leadershipÂ’s many pledges to replace Colonel Al QathafiÂ’s bizarre autocracy with the democratic rule of law, and it could have consequences across the country and throughout the Arab world.
Unlike the swift and largely peaceful revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the Libyan insurrection was the first revolt of the Arab Spring to devolve into a protracted armed struggle, and at times threatened to descend into a civil war of factions and tribes.
A rebel failure to deliver on their promises of justice and reconciliation here in the capital could spur Al Qathafi loyalists around Libya to fight on. And an ugly outcome here might discourage strong foreign support for democracy movements elsewhere.
For now, governments throughout the West and the Middle East welcomed the rebelsÂ’ successes and pledged to assist them in the transition. The Iraqi government announced Tuesday that it had recognized the Transitional National Council as the legitimate government of Libya.
The European Union said on Monday that it had begun planning for a post-Al Qathafi era, and TurkeyÂ’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, flew to Benghazi on Tuesday and met with the rebel leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil.
(Aljazeera.net) - National Transitional Council leader calls for restraint and says victims of Al Qathafi's rule will regain their rights.
Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) leader Mahmud Jibril is calling for all Libyans to be united [Reuters]
A senior member of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) has urged all Libyans to come together to rebuild the country.
Addressing a press conference in the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday, Mahmoud Jibril said "Libyans need to heal and be united together, from every city and every neighbourhood".
"After the transition and elections, people who suffered injustices will regain their rights," he promised.
Jibril urged the victims of Muammar Al Qathafi's 42-year rule to exercise restraint, saying "justice will restore your reputation, to show the world you can build a modern nation; we should prove that we are up to this revolution and are able to build a modern country".
Jibril spoke as Libyan rebels celebrated the seizure of Al Qathafi's fortified Bab al-Azziziyah compound in Tripoli.
He refuted accusations against the NTC over the reported arrest of Al Qathafi's son, Seif al-Islam - a claim that later turned out to be false. Jibril said a group of people posing as revolutionaries said they had detained Seif, and it was not confirmed by the NTC.
Seif Al Qathafi's appearance in Tripoli was a desperate last-minute plea and it was a "cinematic show," Jibril said.
Overall, his comments were directed more towards building a better future for Libya.
On Wednesday, he will be attending a summit in Doha with representatives from the USA, UK, France, Qatar, UAE and Turkey to seek funds to help rebuild Libya.
Jibril will also be meeting Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, in Milan on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of leading Arab states called on the Libyan people to avoid revenge "for the sake of building a new Libya".
The ministers of Arab states including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, convening in Doha for a meeting of the Arab League's peace process committee, also called on the UN Security Council to urgently release $2.5 billion in frozen Libyan assets to pay salaries and meet humanitarian needs in Libya.
They reviewed "recent developments there which signal that the Libyan people are near to realising their aspirations for freedom and human dignity", said an official statement released after the meeting and obtained by Reuters.
They proposed inviting the Libyan rebel council to an August 27 Arab League ministerial meeting to discuss events in the Arab world, including in Libya and Syria.
(Daily Star, Beirut) - Joyful Libyan rebels overran Muammar Al QathafiÂ’s Tripoli bastion Tuesday, seizing weapons and loot and destroying symbols of a 42-year dictatorship they declared was now over as they set about hunting down the fallen ruler and his sons.
“It’s over! Al Qathafi is finished!” yelled one fighter over a cacophony of celebratory gunfire across the Bab al-Azziziyah compound, from where Al Qathafi orchestrated eccentric defiance of Western powers and disdain for his own people for four decades.
The Western powers who backed the revolt with air power held off from pronouncing victory although a swift return to order is high on their priorities, given fears that ethnic and tribal divisions among the rebels could descend into the kind of anarchy that would thwart hopes of Libya resuming oil exports.
Rebel National Council chief Mustafa Abdul-Jalil cautioned: “It is too early to say that the battle of Tripoli is over. That won’t happen until Al Qathafi and his sons are captured.”
Armed men broke up a statue of Al Qathafi, kicking its face. Some seized the golf buggy the leader often used.
Another rebel sported a heavily braided, peaked military cap of a kind favoured by the colonel, who seized power in 1969. He said he had taken the hat from Al QathafiÂ’s bedroom after a brief few hours of resistance by a loyal rearguard died away.
Abdul Hakim Belhadj, a rebel commander, said he did not know where Al Qathafi or his sons were: “They ran like rats.” Other rebel officials said they believed the 69-year-old “Brother Leader” was probably still not far away, but in the rebels’ eastern bastion of Benghazi, where residents also poured onto the streets in celebration, commander Col. Ahmad Omar Bani said there had been no trace of Al Qathafi or his family at the compound.
“Bab al-Azziziyah is fully under our control now … Al Qathafi and his sons were not there; there is nobody,” Bani said. “No one knows where they are.”
Reuters correspondents in Tripoli said there still appeared to be some hostile fire around the city centre as darkness fell and looting continued.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “We’re in the death throes of this regime … But it’s still a very difficult and dangerous time. It’s not over yet.”
Senior rebel official Mahmud Jibril said the political transition in his country “begins immediately.”
“This is the new Libya, Jibril said. “This is the new Libya, where every Libyan works as a beloved brother, hand in hand, to serve the interests of the nation.”
“We have to be transparent in front of the whole world. Now we have to concentrate … on healing our wounds.”
The Russian head of the International Chess Federation, who had visited Tripoli in June, told Reuters that Al Qathafi had called him Tuesday.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said Al Qathafi told him he was in the capital and was “prepared to fight to the end.”
Al Qathafi had few places to make a stand. His home town of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast between Tripoli and rebel Benghazi, was expected to welcome rebel forces shortly, Abdul-Jalil said.
“It really looks like it’s pretty much over,” said David Hartwell, a Middle East analyst at IHS Jane’s in London.
“There might be a few diehards who would keep going until he is captured or killed, but not many. And if Al Qathafi didn’t have many places to hide before, he has even fewer now.”
“House to house! Room to room!” chanted some men, calling for a search of the sprawling complex of bunkers and tunnels in a mocking echo of the words Al Qathafi used six months ago when he threatened to crush early stirrings of the revolt.
Inspired by neighbours in Tunisia and Egypt, Libyans who rose up in the east found protection from the air forces of Western governments who abandoned a short-lived rapprochement with Al Qathafi to drive him from power and who now want to see order imposed and a swift restoration of Libyan oil exports.
After a meandering ebb and flow across the desert, rebel forces galvanized by Western advisers, NATO airstrikes and, it is widely assumed, Western special forces, swept into the capital at the weekend to be greeted by many residents.
Abdul-Jalil said that NATO bombs had helped his men breach the walls of the Bab al-Azziziyah Tuesday. “I thank all the countries that have helped us,” said the young man wearing the braided cap. “Now we should work together as Libyans.”
In the east of the country, government troops were pulling out of areas that are key to oil production, rebels said.
The U.S. State Department, in a signal of the kind of activity likely to gather pace in diplomatic meetings over the coming days, said it was seeking the immediate release of up to $1.5 billion of frozen Libyan government assets to the rebels.
In Tripoli, ordinary Libyans, or at least those with guns and guts to risk the chaos in Bab al-Azziziyah, were helping themselves to the bounty Al QathafiÂ’s inner circle had amassed in villas dotted around the city centre compound.
Flat-screen television sets and hi-fi systems, as well as vacuum cleaners and Cuban cigars, were all being hefted away along with the sort of trophy rifles and handguns favoured by the elite. One man shouted angrily at those taking away loot: “People have died and you are stealing!”
For many, as in other Arab nations where autocrats have been overthrown this year, the most important benefit was not tangible: “Al Qathafi is now gone and we are free,” said Turqi, a shopkeeper in the capital where civilians have stayed indoors during three days of sporadic sniper fire and skirmishes.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said he believed Al Qathafi was still in Libya and remained a threat. He also said the United States was monitoring chemical weapons sites in Libya given worries that groups hostile to Western interests could try to seize stocks once accumulated by Al Qathafi.
After Al QathafiÂ’s son and long-time heir-apparent Seif al-Islam confounded rebel claims of his capture by appearing to journalists at the Bab al-Azziziyah compound early Tuesday, several analysts said the credibility of the disparate opposition movement had suffered a serious setback.
Though Seif al-IslamÂ’s claims that his fatherÂ’s supporters were winning the war seem threadbare, confusion among the rebels, who seemed to have allowed two of Al QathafiÂ’s sons to escape Monday, embarrassed their supporters.
For Libyan rebels, conquest of Al QathafiÂ’s compound is a moment to savour
(Washington Post) - Muammar Al Qathafi ruled Libya for decades from behind the high walls and fantastically well-guarded steel gates of the Bab al-Azziziyah compound. For most Libyans, the only glimpse inside came during the meticulously choreographed rallies that aired on state television.
But on Tuesday, NATO bombs and rebel bullets conspired to bring the walls tumbling down and yank the gates open wide. The compound that had been the inner sanctum of Al QathafiÂ’s regime - a forbidden city at the heart of this seaside capital - became the setting for a rebel victory party and a prime opportunity to seize the spoils of a six-month-long war.
“This is freedom!” one man shouted as he emerged from the compound and squeezed the trigger of his freshly plundered assault rifle, unleashing fire skyward.
For the Libyans who have been battling Al Qathafi since February, the conquest of Bab al-Azziziyah on Tuesday marked the sweetest triumph to date. Al Qathafi was nowhere to be found, but the most potent symbols of his reign were there, and they quickly became targets for desecration.
A golden bust of the Libyan leader was hoisted in the air as if it were a trophy, after the rebels had taken turns kicking it in the dust. A rebel truck - with an antiaircraft gun mounted on it - carted off a massive statue of a spread-winged eagle.
The fight to get inside the compound had been perilous, even after its defences were weakened by precision-guided bombs dropped from NATO planes.
Earlier in the day, 20-year-old Tofiq Ghadda had stood aimlessly under an overpass near the winding entrance to Bab al-Azziziyah, which means “splendid gate” in Arabic. The ragtag rebel forces were spraying the compound with bullets from heavy machine guns mounted on their trucks.
Others stood ready to move forward on foot, assault rifles primed to fire. But Ghadda, a student who sported fashionable shades, was empty-handed. “I want to fight, but nobody has given me a gun,” he said, disappointed.
Thunderous booms from mortar rounds, rockets and other explosives caused the rebels to press their hands to their ears. They ate cakes and drank fruit juice, even though it is the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast, provided they are not fighting a war.
Amid the bangs and the black smoke billowing out of the compound, there was constant fear of pro-Al Qathafi snipers. Ambulances zipped past as the rebels clapped rhythmically to the beat of a heavy machine gun that fired repeatedly at what they said was a sniper holed up in a large concrete water tower.
Nobody harbored the illusion that Al Qathafi was still inside the compound, with most speculating that he had taken refuge in one of the many tunnels that snake beneath the city. “He is a rat, and rats crawl underground,” said Lehadi Afshoot, 47, the deputy commander of a group of 80 rebels who had come down from the Nafusa Mountains in the west to join the fight.
But the absence of Al Qathafi did little to dull the rebelsÂ’ enthusiasm when the compoundÂ’s defences finally crumbled. Or the enthusiasm of average Tripoli residents.
By the thousands, men in cars, on scooters and even on bicycles flooded through the blasted-out gates. They walked wide-eyed onto the green meadow of the compoundÂ’s inner ring.
Tents, Al QathafiÂ’s abode of choice, lay burned. Young men with long beards danced on the statue of a fist crushing a missile that Al Qathafi had erected to commemorate the 1986 U.S. bombing of his compound.
Others, too busy to celebrate, set to work looting.
Ghadda, the previously unarmed student, balanced three Beretta pistols, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a box of hand grenades in his arms. “I have weapons now!” he shouted cheerfully.
He was not the only one. Along the driveway leading away from the compound, just about everyone was leaving with something to show for the visit: brand-new Belgian sniper guns, golden pistols and lots of assault rifles.
“Welcome to the new Libya,” one man yelled, firing his pistol in the air. Others carried paintings, plasma television screens and a twin baby stroller.
“I should be so happy now, but I’m not,” said Khaled al-Ezromli, a doctor-turned-fighter. He said that he had been in several battles and that taking Al Qathafi’s compound was supposed to be the final one.
But watching the looters, he said he feared that Libya was descending into chaos: “What will our future be now that everybody has a gun?”
(UPI) - Libyan rebels fought their way into Muammar Al Qathafi's Tripoli compound Tuesday, overrunning troops loyal to the dictator.
Hours later, Al Qathafi said in a radio interview that was carried by state television his withdrawal from the compound had been a "tactical move" and he was willing to fight to the death against what he called NATO aggression, NBC News reported.
"We are resisting with all our strength," he said. "We will either win or become martyrs, God willing."
Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the Al Qathafi government, said on al-Orouba TV following Al Qathafi's interview that 6,500 Al Qathafi forces had entered Tripoli Tuesday to battle rebels, NBC said.
Al Qathafi forces used missiles and tanks early Wednesday in an assault on the town of Ajelat, west of Tripoli, al-Arabiya, based in Dubai, reported. The news service cited a witness who said dozens of missiles had been fired on Tripoli.
The New York Times reported hundreds of rebel combatants stormed the Bab al-Azziziyah compound, and gunfire and explosions were heard throughout the capital as the apparent end of the Al Qathafi regime played out.
However, Al Qathafi's exact whereabouts remained a mystery, the Times said.
A spokesman for the rebel government in Benghazi told the Times the rebels assumed Al Qathafi had not left Libya.
"We believe that he is either in Tripoli or close to Tripoli," rebel spokesman Guma el-Gamaty told the BBC. "Sooner or later, he will be found, either alive and arrested - and hopefully that is the best outcome we want - or if he resists he will be killed."
The Times said there was looting of the compound buildings and al-Jazeera aired video footage of rebels mounting one of Al Qathafi's favourite sculptures, a giant fist crushing an American jet fighter.
CNN showed footage of fighters emerging from one building with what it described as medical files of the Al Qathafi family.
One of Al Qathafi's sons, who had been reported arrested, taunted rebel forces, witnesses said.
Seif Al Qathafi conducted a news conference Tuesday at his father's compound before it was overrun, denying reports of being arrested by rebels as they stormed the capital, several media outlets reported.
The son, whose capture the rebels had trumpeted since Sunday, told foreign journalists his father's government was still "in control" and lured the rebels into a trap, the Times reported.
Seif Al Qathafi also went to the Rixos Hotel, one of the remaining strongholds of pro-Al Qathafi forces.
It was unclear whether he had been in custody and escaped or was never held at all.
Seif Al Qathafi said his father and several of his sisters were in a safe location in Tripoli, CNN reported.
Another son, Mohammed Al Qathafi, escaped from house arrest Monday. A government representative said he was rescued by Libyan government troops and was in a secure place, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
It was unclear whether Saadi Al Qathafi - a third son claimed to have captured - was in custody, CNN said.
Leaders of the rebel National Transitional Council, which had announced the captures of Seif and Mohammed Al Qathafi, declined to comment. However, a rebel leader in the town of Gharyan told Al Jazeera Seif Al Qathafi was arrested and managed to escape.
Muammar Al Qathafi's green flag flew in parts of Tripoli and over at least two major Al Qathafi strongholds - Sabha in the southwest and Sirte, the Libyan leader's birthplace.
Rebels said Al Qathafi's four decades of rule had ended but fighting continued. Clashes were reported in Zawiyah, a strategic city west of the capital that had been recently captured by rebels.
NATO confirmed three surface-to-surface missiles were fired from Al Qathafi's hometown of Sirte Monday. Initial reports indicated the missiles landed near Misurata, another city controlled by rebels.
Rebels controlled most of Tripoli and its suburbs and set up a network of checkpoints, Xinhua reported. Explosions could be heard near Al Qathafi's compound and clashes were reported in several locations of the city, with Al Qathafi forces using mortars and other heavy weapons.
People injured because of the clashes faced a shortage of doctors, facilities and medical supplies, CNN reported.
One clinic "has 40 beds and all of the beds are taken," said Robin Waudo of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tripoli. "Some of the people have been treated or discharged and taken to other houses nearby in order to be treated."
Relief for foreign nationals trying to flee Tripoli was delayed after a boat scheduled to arrive at Tuesday was delayed, the International organisation for Migration said.
The European Union said Monday it started planning for a post-Al Qathafi era. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said he would fly to Benghazi to meet with rebel leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil.
Egypt formally recognised Libyan rebels Monday. The country's foreign minister, Mohammed Amr, said the NTC would assume the Libyan Embassy in Cairo and Libya's seat on the Arab League, the Times reported.
U.S. President Barack Obama issued a cautious statement Monday saying, "This much is clear - the Al Qathafi regime is coming to an end and the future of Libya is in the hands of its people."
He pledged the United States would help Libya and its allies establish democracy.
The Pentagon said Obama's promise not to commit U.S. troops in the rebels' ground war would also rule out deployments after the battle against Al Qathafi.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he had been unable to contact Al Qathafi. Ban also said he wants to call a high-level meeting soon to discuss Libya with the African Union, the League of Arab States and the European Union.
He said the United Nations was prepared to help with any rebel-government request, from writing a new constitution to coordinating humanitarian assistance.
Covering Libya's conflict by way of 'Planet Rixos'
(L. A. Times) - In the waning days of Muammar Al Qathafi's rule, Tripoli's Rixos Hotel, home to the foreign press, was the surreal stage for a daily drama pitting edgy journalists against regime information managers.
Behind his aviator shades, the driver of the silver sedan had that hired-killer stare as he pulled up alongside our minibus. He kept pace as the bus, ferrying 13 journalists away from Libya's crazed capital in June, lurched toward the sanity of post-revolutionary Tunisia. He pointed his rifle directly at us.
We dived for the floor or crouched down in a pathetic bid for cover, but there was no escape: The Kalashnikov rounds would penetrate the bus' skin like hot arrows tearing through papier-mache.
The moment was both sinister and ridiculous, like so much in Muammar Al Qathafi's Libya.
We'd just gotten our release papers from the Rixos al Nasr Hotel, a pseudo five-star compound where all foreign press visiting Libya's capital were obliged to stay.
In the waning days of Al Qathafi's reign, "Planet Rixos" was the surreal stage for a daily drama pitting edgy journalists against a cadre of regime information managers, some true believers, others just hired hands.
The minders' singular sales job involved depicting Al Qathafi's Libya as a kind of egalitarian haven and Brother Leader himself as nothing more than a beloved figurehead, somewhat like the queen of England, eager to preside over Libya's transformation into a European-style social democracy.
In this narrative, anti-Al Qathafi rebels were traitorous, bloodthirsty fanatics, the foreign press corps a pack of liars and spies, and the NATO bombing campaign an imperialist, Strangelovian assault on Libya's people.
The Rixos boasted emerald lawns, a gym-sauna complex, serviceable Internet and an expansive deck where, each evening, guests dragged on cigarettes and shisha pipes while sipping coffee and tea in this agonizingly dry nation. But a palpable hint of menace lay beneath the veneer of gentility. Conversation tended toward the conspiratorial.
I was still a Rixos novice when I was approached by a Brit of beefy countenance and heavily tattooed arms. He worked as a "sound man" for a British television network, one of several martial blokes accompanying TV crews, and he bore a message of solidarity.
"Look here, we're all in this together: I know your room number," the chap confided in hushed tones. "At the end of the day, we're all Westerners."
He then outlined, unsolicited, a plan should our hosts move to take us hostage: We would all scamper out back, hurdle a wall or two, carjack a few vehicles, make our way to the port two miles away, commandeer a vessel and sail off into the Mediterranean - where we would find refuge on a NATO warship.
"It should work," he said. "Keep a small bag packed and ready to go."
The disembodied call to coverage piped into rooms at the Rixos soon became a tonal embodiment of journalistic frustration.
Journalists leaped from their beds at the sound of the Orwellian directive, inevitably issued after midnight, rushed out half-groggy to a waiting blue Mercedes bus - of the type normally associated with coach tours of Devon - and were soon hurtling toward an event approved for coverage.
On my first night at the Rixos, we were taken to a pair of government buildings engulfed in flames after a bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty organisation.
Officials swiftly acknowledged that one site (the Ministry of Fear, I dubbed it) was a security headquarters, seemingly a legitimate target for NATO and its charge to protect civilians. But the other structure was, according to the government, something else: an anti corruption bureau where fraud was tirelessly investigated.
Why had such a laudable institution (I thought of it as the Ministry of Truth) been targeted for annihilation? To conceal financial skulduggery by ex-ministers who had defected to the rebel side, Libyan officials explained. This seemed a stretch: Had NATO really been duped by insurgents into bombing a ministry to obliterate evidence of corruption?
A few days later, we were bused back to the site, where a supposed anti corruption czar pointed to salvaged boxes of files detailing ministerial wrongdoing. Given the apparently vast scope of graft, I asked whether any investigations were targeting members of the Al Qathafi clan, some noted for their extravagant spending.
The bureaucrat's gaze was that normally reserved for a naive child. "I can assure you," he responded, "that no one from the leader's family has ever stolen."
A renewed uprising in Tripoli is imminent: That was the whispered buzz from clandestine conversations in smoke-shrouded cafes amid the patter of songbirds - Libyans fancy the caged creatures.
As in Benghazi, the rebel capital to the east, entrepreneurs and Web-savvy youths seemed to be at the forefront of dissent. "It's happening soon," one businessman assured a colleague and me over tea, his eyes inspecting other patrons who might be eavesdropping. "Don't leave Tripoli yet."
Rumours spread of nightly attacks on police checkpoints, of clashes in restive districts. Every night, we heard gunfire. Yet the streets would be calm come daylight.
I started wondering whether some of our informants were themselves plainclothes agents, spreading misinformation or trying to discover what we knew, or whom we knew. In Al Qathafi's Libya, paranoia seemed the appropriate default reaction.
But in Tripoli, unlike in Benghazi, there was another side: Some people stood with Al Qathafi, or at least professed to be loyalists.
The celebrations that greeted the rebels in Tripoli notwithstanding, a lot of Libyans fear the kind of chronic instability and violence that have gripped Iraq since the ouster of Saddam Hussein.
Some believed the rebels would wreak revenge on Tripoli and slash social benefits in what had been a relatively stable society.
On one occasion, I went to an official women's rally; several of the participants bore portraits of sons or husbands lost in battles with the rebels. Their men did not die in vain, they vowed. It was a propaganda event, yet I didn't doubt the sincerity of these grieving widows and mothers.
Directing the official information strategy at the Rixos was the indefatigable Moussa Ibrahim, a singular fusion of Al Qathafi stalwart and British-educated technocrat. He speaks an idiosyncratic English with a trace of London hip.
Though his vision of truth may have been notional, the always sartorially correct Ibrahim skilfully parried the demands of perpetually irritated journalists (that is, until he dropped out of sight, along with the minders, as insurgents entered Tripoli).
"Guys, guys," he would sigh in exasperated fashion, as if addressing a group of unruly schoolboys. "Yes, you have to work with minders. We get it. Now let's move on."
Ibrahim lived at the Rixos with his German wife, Julia Ramelow, an ethereal redhead who doted on her infant son, carrying him about in a sling. The couple met while both were bicycle-loving peace activists studying in Britain.
As NATO bombs shook the Rixos, Ramelow too seemed a prisoner, wary of the cynical journalist crowd but also apart from the imperious pro-Al Qathafi crowd who came to the Rixos in increasing numbers, viewing the hotel as immune from NATO bombs.
She recently told the German magazine Stern, "We are drawn ever further into this sort of whirlpool."
Did she ever imagine that the poetry-loving, New Agey peacenik she fell in love with back in Britain would become Al Qathafi's chief interlocutor with the outside world?
The Rixos is conveniently situated less than a mile from Al Qathafi's Bab Azziziyah compound, a vast, walled-in fortress of official buildings, barracks and valiant Al Qathafi images.
We were taken amid great fanfare to Al Qathafi's inner sanctum the day that South African President Jacob Zuma visited Tripoli in late May. Inside the gates, civilians bearing pro-Al Qathafi banners and badges danced to piped-in African pop music. We waited five hours in this party atmosphere for a Al Qathafi appearance that never materialized.
NATO officials would get a bit defensive when asked why they keep hitting Bab Azziziyah - surely Al Qathafi wasn't foolish enough to frequent the site or its subterranean passages. "No, we are not bombing rubble," a testy NATO official told me by telephone one evening from the alliance base in Sicily, Italy.
The nocturnal bombings of Tripoli unfurled in three phases: the sound of unseen jets, flashes of light and ground-shaking concussions. After a while, we all got used to it.
But no one anticipated the nerve-jangling blitz of June 7, when NATO jets bombed Tripoli from early morning until late evening. The Rixos trembled. Late in the afternoon, there was a call for a bus trip to smoke-shrouded Bab Azziziyah. Most declined the offer, fearing the government was setting us up as human shields.
Fighter jets were still streaking overhead. Half a dozen buildings had been reduced to smouldering piles of smashed concrete and twisted metal. "We may all be doomed!" our shrieking host declared as fighters soared low in the skies, heard but unseen.
"Calling all journalists! Â… The bodies are still in the rubble!"
That was the summons in the early hours of June 19. Our transport sped through Tripoli's darkened streets, finally stopping near a determined crowd combing through floodlighted ruins in the middle of a residential block. neighbours in dressing gowns and flip-flops tossed aside stones with their bare hands, seeking victims, alive or dead. Many glared at us.
"I'm against Al Qathafi, but this was a mistake," whispered one witness. "I know the family who lived in this house. There was no military here."
The government was keen to disseminate the propaganda gift. Here, the regime argued, was proof that NATO was killing civilians, not saving them.
"Have you seen the bodies?" Ibrahim asked as we were all herded off to a hospital to view a handful of corpses, including that of a nine-month-old girl, clothed only in her diaper. All were caked in dust. NATO later acknowledged that one of its precision-guided munitions had probably gone astray.
Tripoli partings were laced with a touch of sorrow. Tempering the elation of escape was the melancholy sense of leaving behind both friends and a compelling story still awaiting its ending. Colleagues said goodbye in the style of inmates wishing the best to comrades about to embark on a jailbreak.
Our farewells complete, the minibus, featuring a martial image of Al Qathafi in the windshield, went through the Rixos gates and into the streets of Tripoli, poised to negotiate the many military checkpoints on the way to the Tunisian border. Later, several passengers recalled seeing a silver-coloured sedan pull out of the parking lot.
"He has a gun!" was the cry 15 minutes later when we saw the man in the aviator glasses pointing a rifle at us from the car window.
To my mind came the disagreeable recollection of a Baghdad minibus attack: The killers had stopped the vehicle with gunfire and then detonated a bomb inside in a coup de grace.
Belatedly, our driver made some mildly evasive manoeuvres. The sedan was behind us. We frantically dialled our cellphones seeking contacts at the Rixos. Word came back: The hit man from the B-movie dustbin had wanted only to scare us.
It was all a misunderstanding. "Dr. Ibrahim sends his apologies."
China says U.N. should lead efforts in post-war Libya
(Reuters)-The United Nations should lead post-war efforts in Libya, China's Foreign Minister told the U.N. chief, adding that Beijing was willing to help rebuild the north African country.
In a phone call with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi suggested Beijing wants bodies such as the U.N., rather than Western governments alone, to coordinate international involvement in post-war Libya.
This would give China a say in decisions, despite the leading role Western powers played in defeating the forces of long-time leader Muammar Al Qathafi.
"The United Nations should play a leading role in post-war arrangements for Libya, and China encourages the United Nations to strengthen coordination and cooperation with the African Union and Arab League," Yang said, according to the ministry website late on Tuesday .
China is "willing to work alongside the United Nations to promote a rapid stabilisation in Libya and a swift course toward reconciliation and reconstruction," said Yang.
"The international community should continue offering humanitarian aid to Libya," he added.
Beijing has yet to formally recognise the rebel forces as Libya's new leaders, but Yang's comments add to signs that Beijing wants a stake in guiding Libya's future as Al Qathafi's support crumbles and rebels take control of Tripoli.
On Tuesday, China urged Libya to protect Chinese investments and said their oil trade benefited both countries, after a Libyan rebel warned that Chinese oil companies could lose out after the ousting of Al Qathafi because Beijing did not offer enough support to the rebels.
China and Russia have a tradition of opposing intervention in sovereign states, even when Western governments favour military action on humanitarian grounds.
China did not use its U.N. Security Council veto power in March to block a resolution that authorized the NATO bombing campaign against Al Qathafi's forces, but it then condemned the strikes and urged compromise between his government and rebels.
Since then, Beijing has courted Libyan rebels by hosting their leaders and sending envoys for talks.
China is the world's second-biggest oil consumer, and last year it obtained 3 percent of its imported crude from Libya.
As the end is nigh for Al Qathafi, Washington steps back into the fold
(Deutsche Welle) - Having taken a decidedly back seat in the military campaign against Libya's Colonel Muammar Al Qathafi, the United States is now beginning to talk of its role in the Arab country's future.
As the battle for Tripoli continues to rage, the rebels who are fighting to take control of the Libyan capital are talking about "the end of an era."
That sentiment is shared by members of the international community including US President Barack Obama, who issued a statement on Monday in which he said the future of the Libya was now "in the hands of its people."
"The Al Qathafi regime is coming to an end," he said, and called on the embattled leader to prevent any further bloodshed by "explicitly relinquishing power to the people of Libya and calling for those forces that continue to fight, to lay down their arms."
Furthermore, Obama warned against violent reprisals, and called for "an inclusive transition that leads to a democratic Libya."
He insisted that America would be a "friend and partner" in the pursuit of that goal, and that his administration would provide necessary humanitarian supplies. What it is not prepared to do, however, is change its military stance toward North African country.
Military involvement?
Washington says there will be no US troops to help keep the peace in Libya
In a press statement, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said it remained to be seen whether there would be some kind of transitional mission, and if so whether it would be a UN or NATO initiative.
"But we still do not plan any US forces going on the ground in Libya," he stressed.
Some analysts have warned that Washington should rethink its decision to keep American boots out of the Arab country, as after more than four decades of Al Qathafi's iron-fisted rule, there is ample scope for the path to democracy to descend into the kind of chaos seen in post-Saddam Iraq.
Yet given the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, and given the fact that voters will go to the polls next year, it is seen as highly unlikely that Obama can be coerced into a change of tack.
Obama wants to be in the Libyan loop. So what exactly does the American President want for, and indeed from Libya now that the fighting appears to be drawing to a close?
Charles Gurdon, Managing Director of London-based political risk consultants Menas Consulting, told Deutsche Welle that Obama's aspirations for the North African country are much the same as those it has for Tunisia and Egypt.
"Washington wants to make sure that democracy takes hold and that there is no major tribal fighting, that radical Islam does not become a major force and has no effect as far as terrorism is concerned," Gurdon said.
He says it stands to reason that the US should want to become more involved in what is going on in Libya at this juncture.
"The US decided that it was a European battle and that Europe should take more responsibility for Libya since many more exports from Libya go to Europe," he said. "But now we are on the threshold of change, Libya will become more important for the US."
Only two percent of US oil imports come from Libya.
Gurdon rejects the idea that the new found American interest is motivated by the prospect of oil and gas, both of which Libya has in abundance. Not least because a number of US oil companies already have a presence there.
"Occidental, Marathon and ConocoPhilipps have been there since the 1960s, and in addition to that Exxon and Hess both have exploration projects in the country," the political consultant said. "Iraq is more important in new oil terms."
On Monday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to rebel leaders and members of the international coalition about what kind of help Washington might provide.
Areas of support which have been mooted are political training and logistical and intelligence support for the Transitional National Council (TNC). There is also talk of unfreezing the $30-plus billion (21 billion euros) in Libyan assets in order to make them available for reconstruction efforts, which are likely to be led by the United Nations.
(Irish Times) - Rebel leaders were scrambling last night to maintain law and order and restore basic services in Tripoli after they were taken by surprise by the speed of the cityÂ’s fall.
The opposition National Transitional Council said yesterday that guards from a specially trained Tripoli brigade, made up of fighters from the capital, were being stationed at the national museum and other cultural sites.
The council negotiated a deal with Tunisian authorities to increase the flow of electricity across the border, and carried out emergency repairs to an oil refinery in the coastal town of Zawiyah, allowing fuel to be pumped once more to Tripoli, where most vehicles had ground to a halt.
Mahmoud Shammam, a council spokesman, said half the members of the movementÂ’s executive board, functioning as an interim cabinet, would arrive in Tripoli today to co-ordinate work on maintaining basic services and food supplies, as well as law and order.
Speaking from Tunisia, Mr Shammam said the council was working as fast as it could to implement a Tripoli stabilisation programme, hammered out in recent months with international advice, particularly from British officials. He admitted the speed of the offensive, spearheaded by rebels from LibyaÂ’s western highlands, had outpaced the stabilisation effort.
“We are a bit late because we thought it would take longer. The swift movement of the battle has left our officials a little bit behind, but we are trying hard,” he said. “We have negotiated more electricity from the Tunisian government and we have got the Zawiyah refinery working. But it would help a lot, and we are screaming at our friends about it, if they could unfreeze some of Libya’s money.”
European governments have pledged to release millions of dollars of Libyan funds, frozen at the start of the conflict, as soon as stability is restored to the country. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said yesterday the release of funds would have to be approved by the UN, but noted the council would need quick access to funds to ensure civil servants were paid and the economy could be kick-started.
A meeting took place earlier yesterday in Dubai between council officials and experts from an international contact group on how to restore security as soon as possible after the fall of Muammar Al Qathafi, and on how to avoid a repeat of the chaos and looting that followed the end of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq in 2003.
The security blueprint was drafted with help from a UK stabilisation response team which visited Benghazi for three weeks in May. Their recommendations were largely adopted by the council.
Among the priorities are the assurance of continuity in the government bureaucracy and civilian police. To that end, messages have been sent to police stations in Tripoli appealing to officers to continue to enforce law and order. Liaison officers in the Tripoli brigade are expected to reassure the police personally that they will be respected in post-Al Qathafi Libya.
Mr Shammam said the council has been broadcasting public announcements, some by religious leaders, calling on the population to observe “international norms respecting law and order, public property and the collective memory of Libyan people”, a reference to the nation’s museums and cultural artefacts.
Speaking in Brussels yesterday, Ms Ashton said EU states stood ready to help with aid, medical supplies and fuel, as well as helping the council to disarm a population that had grown accustomed to carrying weapons.
Another pressing concern on the ground in Libya was the lack of an international mediator to whom soldiers from Al QathafiÂ’s army could surrender. Rebel forces, government columns and soldiers trying to return home are forced to use the same coastal roads, leading to confusion and unnecessary clashes.
Government soldiers taken prisoner have said they were convinced they would be slaughtered if they surrendered, and so rarely did so. Rebel officers said they would like a buffer force that would allow pro-Al Qathafi units to lay down their arms.
European officials said the new authorities in Tripoli would be able to draw on the EU’s €7 billion neighbourhood policy fund to help support civil society and governance in the newly democratic countries of north Africa.
Ms Ashton made clear that the UN would take the lead international co-ordinating role in Libya and a meeting is planned in New York on Friday involving the UN, EU, African Union and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to divide responsibilities in post-Al Qathafi Libya.
A UN spokesman said yesterday there had been no request for UN peacekeepers.
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