NATO bombs wrecked Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi’s office in his immense Tripoli residence on Monday, while besieged rebel-held Misrata came under fresh attack by rockets which a doctor said had reduced civilian victims to little more than ashes.
Heavy explosions shook the centre of Tripoli shortly after midnight as warplanes overflew the Libyan capital. A Libyan official accompanying journalists shortly afterwards at Gaddafi’s compound said 45 people were wounded, 15 seriously, in the bombing. He added that he did not know whether there were victims under the rubble. “It was an attempt to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi,” he affirmed. Seif Al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son, described the bombing as “cowardly.”
“This cowardly attack on Moamer Gaddafi’s office may frighten or terrorise children but we will not abandon the battle and we are not afraid,” he said, claiming that NATO’s battle was “lost in advance.” NATO warplanes had already late Friday targeted the Bab Al-Aziziya district, where the presidential compound is located.\ At around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) smoke was still rising from part of the building that was hit, watched by dozens of people shouting slogans praising the Guide. A meeting room facing Gaddafi’s office was badly damaged by the blast.
In Misrata, 215 kilometres (132 miles) east of Tripoli, Libyan rebels made significant gains Sunday in a key street in the besieged city, where residents have lived under a rain of shells and sniper fire for 50 days. But the city was again rocked overnight by the crash of incoming rockets and incessant gunfire, despite a pledge by the Libyan regime to halt fighting. The fighting died down during the night and on Monday morning the streets were mostly deserted, with many residents tucked inside buildings marked with the wounds of weeks of fierce fighting, scarred by bullets and artillery fire.
The only sound cutting through the silence was the chant of the muezzin at a local mosque, who chanted repeatedly “God is greatest, He is my only guide.” Throughout a terrifying night, as salvos of Grad rockets and bursts of automatic weapons rocked the city, the muezzin continued his refrain. “He chanted for hours to calm people,” said Seilam Naas, 55, a resident of the Kharuba district of Misrata and one of a few locals out on the streets. In the Mujamaa Tibi hospital, Mohamed al-Fajieh recounted the results of the night’s fierce fighting, describing unusually severe wounds and corpses reduced to little more than ashes.
There were “completely charred corpses, some of them so badly burned that we aren’t sure they are human bodies,” he told AFP. “This is the first time we’ve seen such burns. “The injured described much stronger explosions than usual, we have wounds created by the force of the blast, which shows that the explosion was enormous,” he added. According to figures provided by sources at hospitals across the city, around a dozen people were killed and at least 20 injured overnight. Sources said those caught up in the violence were all civilians, men, women, and young children.
Rebel leader Taher Bashaga said: “It will take some time, I think, but then it will all go well and Misrata will be free for ever, God willing.” Two captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers told AFP that loyalist forces were losing their grip in the battle for Misrata. “Many soldiers want to surrender but they are afraid of being executed” by the rebels, said Lili Mohammed, a Mauritanian hired by Gaddafi’s regime to fight insurgents in Libya’s third city. Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim said the army had suspended operations against rebels in Misrata, but not left the city, to enable local tribes to settle the battle “peacefully and not militarily.” But Colonel Omar Bani, military spokesman of the rebels’ Transitional National Council (TNC), said Gaddafi was “playing a really dirty game” aimed at dividing his opponents. “It is a trick, they didn’t go,” Bani said in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
NATO bombs Gaddafi office, rebels advance in Misrata
