Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi launched a new armoured incursion into the besieged rebel city Misrata on Monday ahead of the funeral of his son, killed in a NATO-led air strike. AFP correspondents heard heavy shelling throughout the morning as loyalist tanks thrust into the western suburbs of Libya’s third largest city.
At least four people were killed and some 30 wounded in the fighting, medical sources said. Clashes overnight had killed another six and wounded dozens more. “The tanks are in Al-Ghiran et Zawiyat Al-Mahjub and have been halted by our men,” a rebel commander told AFP.
AFP correspondents heard one or more NATO aircraft overflying the city for more than two hours in the late morning but no air strikes were heard. The few residents who ventured out expressed exasperation at the lack of a military response from the Western alliance to Gaddafi’s armour. “NATO has to help us. What are they waiting for?” asked one resident in his 40s.
Unlike on previous days of the more than six-week-long siege, the resident declined to give his name, an indication of the mounting fear in the city that Gaddafi’s forces are poised to retake it. “We have seven intensive care beds but at the moment there are eight who need them,” a medic in the city’s main hospital told AFP. “The eighth is having to make do without a respirator and the nurses are having to help him breathe manually.
If we get another critically ill patient, he will die,” said the doctor, a Western volunteer. The last major rebel bastion in western Libya, Misrata is surrounded by pro-Gaddafi forces and entirely dependent on supply by sea. Loyalist troops have repeatedly pounded the port, killing two rebel fighters on Sunday alone, witnesses said.
In the capital, preparations were under way for the afternoon funerals of Gaddafi’s second youngest son Seif al-Arab, and three of his grandchildren. Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told reporters early on Sunday that the house of Gaddafi’s son “was attacked tonight with full power.
“The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Seif al-Arab Moamer Gaddafi, 29 years old, and three of the leader’s grandchildren,” Ibrahim added. Gaddafi and his wife were in the building with his son, Ibrahim said, calling the strike “a direct operation to assassinate the leader,” who he said “is in good health — he wasn’t harmed. His wife is also in good health.”
The children killed were a boy and a girl, both aged two, and a baby girl of four months, he added. Demonstrators torched vacant British and Italian diplomatic buildings in Tripoli in response, prompting Britain to expel the Libyan ambassador. Italy boosted security checks on Sunday when Gaddafi threatened to “bring the battle to Italy” after the Rome government’s decision to join the NATO-led air strikes.
But on Monday Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sought to play down the threats which he attributed to Gaddafi’s “disappointment” in Italy, Libya’s former colonial ruler. “I would not attach much importance to this statement,” Berlusconi said.
