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| Africa North |
| Libya rebels make new gains |
| 2011-05-14 |
[Magharebia] Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mahmoud Jibril on Friday (May 14th) will visit the White House to meet with US President Barack B.O.Obama's national security advisor. The meeting comes amid renewed attempts to push for the recognition of the rebel council as "the sole legitimate interlocutor of the Libyan people". "All we need is for the world to understand our cause and help us get our legitimate rights realised," Jibril told CNN. "If I meet President B.O., first of all I would really thank him for the role the United States has played so far, and I would strongly urge him to play a more active role, because there is a lot at stake strategically for the United States if that role is not played properly," Jibril said. "There is a lot to be lost." A couple of days earlier, rebels secured fresh gains, seizing the strategically important Misrata airport and capturing large quantities of weapons. "Misrata is fully freed from the Qadaffy brigades," NTC front man Abdelhafed Ghoga said at a Thursday presser in Benghazi. "His battalions are only present 40 kilometres away from the city." The rebel front man on Thursday met with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, the first European chief diplomat to visit the rebel stronghold. "My presence here is proof that Poland has forged practical contact with the council," said Sikorski. Though no accords were signed, the European official pledged full support for the Libyan people and agreed that Muammar Qadaffy ... Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years ... must step down. "The whole world has agreed on Qadaffy's departure," Ghoga said. "We support his trial for crimes against humanity and genocide." Sikorski's visit came in co-ordination with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... countries. Ashton announced that the union would open an office in Benghazi "to move forward on the support" for rebels. Meanwhile, ...back at the fist fight, Jake ducked another roundhouse, then parried with his left, then with his right, finally with his chin... a wave of anti-government protests swept across Tripoli this week. A source familiar with NATO confirmed that Qadaffy troops are "re-deploying around the capital to contain the uprising in the city and prevent it from linking up with rebel lines in the future". The Tripoli protests spurred celebrations in Benghazi and other rebel-held towns, including Darnah, Tobruk, al-Bayda and al-Marj. Four powerful kabooms on Thursday rocked downtown Tripoli, two of them reaching the fortified compound of Bab Aziziyah. A source from Tripoli said NATO aircraft hovered for two hours above the capital before firing missiles. The strikes came hours after Qadaffy made his first public appearance in two weeks. Libyan TV late Wednesday released footage of Qadaffy receiving a delegation of tribal elders from the east of the country in a Tripoli hotel. Some, however, questioned the authenticity of the screening, claiming that the footage was old. Several Qadaffy loyalists reportedly tried to detonate a bomb in eastern town Wadi El Kuf. According to a ranking officer in al-Bayda, the perpetrators belong to a major cell of the revolutionary committees, numbering more than 300 people. |
| Posted by:Fred |