NATO Jets Bomb Headquarters of Qaddafi Unit Leading Attacks
April 19, 2011, 6:38 AM EDTBy Patrick Donahue and Jeffrey Donovan
(See EXTRA and MET for more on Middle East turmoil.)
April 19 (Bloomberg) -- NATO warplanes conducted multiple air strikes on Libyan military targets overnight, including the headquarters of an elite brigade south of Tripoli that’s been used to spearhead attacks, the alliance said.
The 32nd brigade, which has been commanded by Muammar Qaddafi’s youngest son, Khamis, “has been used to lead and coordinate military actions against the Libyan civilian population,” the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said in a statement on its website.
Fighting continued today around the western rebel- controlled city of Misrata, which has been besieged by Qaddafi loyalists for almost two months. NATO warplanes bombed a column of Libyan government forces headed toward the city, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing eyewitnesses who reported to rebel commanders. A NATO spokesman in Brussels wouldn’t comment on the report.
Rebels have struggled for weeks to take and hold cities in Libya’s central coastal areas, the focus of most of the fighting since the uprising began in February. NATO air strikes have so far failed to stop government forces from endangering civilians.
The campaign by rebels from the country’s oil-rich east to topple Qaddafi isn’t making progress and the regime still has “considerable” weaponry at its disposal, Italian Admiral Giampaolo di Paola, the chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, told reporters today in Rome. “I don’t know if it is a stalemate; certainly it’s not necessarily moving forward.”
Rebels Sell Oil
The Italian government said it’s helping Libyan rebels sell oil from the opposition-held parts of the country.
“We are working to allow the sale of oil products” from rebel areas “through the use of transparent financial instruments,” Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said at a press conference in Rome after meeting with the head of Libya’s rebel council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
The rebels have agreed to honor existing treaties between Italy and Libya, Frattini said. Oil exports from Libya, which has Africa’s biggest oil reserves, dropped by about 1.3 million barrels a day to a “trickle” of its normal level, the Paris- based International Energy Agency said last month.
Oil fell for a second day as signs of a worsening economic outlook in the U.S. stoked speculation fuel demand may falter. Crude oil for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange slid was down $1.02, or 1 percent, at $106.10 a barrel. Yesterday, it declined $2.54 to settle at $107.12, the lowest since April 13.
NATO Missions
Allied aircraft enforcing the United Nations-mandated no- fly zone and sanctions on Libya flew 60 missions to identify and engage possible ground targets on April 17, up from 42 a day earlier. The coalition destroyed seven ammunition bunkers in Tripoli and four air-defense radars in Misrata, NATO said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
Even without the allies putting troops on the ground, Qaddafi can be forced out, French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said in an interview yesterday with the newspaper Parisien. Qaddafi’s forces number no more than 10,000 men, he said.
In other news from the region, at least 10 people were killed as Syrian authorities moved to break up more than 20,000 activists holding a sit-in to demand the release of detainees and the departure of security forces from Homs, the country’s third-largest city.
--With assistance from Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Ayesha Daya in Dubai and Nadeem Hamid in Washington. Editors: Leon Mangasarian, Eddie Buckle.
To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net; Jeffrey Donovan in Rome at jdonovan26@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net; James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
