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Gaddafi on the run as revolt hits Tripoli - Lahore_Real_Estate - 02-22-2011 02:03 PM
Libyan warplanes were bombing indiscriminately across Tripoli on Monday as Muammar Gaddafi’s four-decade-old rule appeared in increasing jeopardy when days of anti-government protests reached the capital for the first time and security forces killed at least 160 people.
A resident of the Libyan capital told Al Jazeera television in a live broadcast “What we are witnessing today is unimaginable. Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead,” Adel Mohamed Saleh said.
Saleh, who called himself a political activist, said the bombings had initially targeted a funeral procession. “Our people are dying. It is the policy of scorched earth.” he said. “Every 20 minutes they are bombing.”
Asked if the attacks were still happening he said: “It is continuing, it is continuing. Anyone who moves, even if they are in their car they will hit you.” There was no independent verification of the report but Fathi al-Warfali, the Libyan activist who heads the Swiss-based Libyan Committee for Truth and Justice, who was taking part in a protest outside UN European headquarters in Geneva said he had heard the same reports.“Military planes are attacking civilians, protesters in Tripoli now. The civilians are frightened. Where is the United Nations, where is Amnesty International?” al-Warfali told Reuters. No independent verification of the report was immediately available.
Two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots defected on Monday and flew their jets to Malta where they told authorities they had been ordered to bomb protesters, Maltese government officials said.
They said the two pilots, both colonels, took off from a base near Tripoli. One of them has requested political asylum.The pilots are being questioned by the Maltese police. The two said they decided to fly to Malta after being ordered to bomb anti-government protesters in Libya’s second largest city of Benghazi, the sources said.
Clashes in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Monday have left 160 people dead, Arabiya television quoted eyewitnesses as saying. The Arab satellite channel gave the number in a newsflash, without providing further details.
Residents said several cities in the east appeared to be in the hands of the opposition as protests spread from Benghazi, the cradle of a popular uprising that threatens to overthrow one of the Arab world’s most entrenched governments. One of Gaddafi’s sons said the veteran leader would fight the revolt until “the last man standing.”
Protesters rallied in Tripoli’s streets, tribal and religious leaders spoke out against Gaddafi, and army units defected to the opposition in a revolt that has cost the lives of more than 200 people. Some analysts suggested Libya was heading for civil war. “Libya is the most likely candidate for civil war because the government has lost control over part of its own territory,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar.
Output at one of Libya’s oil fields was reported to have been stopped by a workers’ strike and some European oil companies withdrew expatriate workers and suspended operations. Most of Libya’s oil fields are in the east, south of Benghazi.
Anti-government protests have also broken out in the central town of Ras Lanuf, the site of an oil refinery and petrochemical complex, Libya’s Quryna newspaper said on its website Monday. A Libyan man, Soula al-Balaazi, who said he was an opposition activist, told the network by telephone that Libyan air force warplanes had bombed “some locations in Tripoli.”
An analyst for London-based consultancy Control Risks said that indicated the end was approaching for Gaddafi.
“These really seem to be last, desperate acts. If you’re bombing your own capital, it’s really hard to see how you can survive,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, Control Risks’ Middle East analyst.
Meanwhile, Telegraph quoting credible Western intelligence reports said on Monday that Muammar Gaddafi had fled Libya and was on his way to exile in Venezuela, according to William Hague, the foreign secretary. William Hague said he had seen information to suggest Gaddafi had fled Libya and was on his way to the South American oil-exporting nation.