Afghan central bank chief quits, flees to US

The governor of Afghanistan's central bank, Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, says he is resigning because he thinks his life is in danger.

Speaking in the United States, he says he is in danger because of a corruption scandal which brought down the privately owned Kabul Bank.

The Kabul bank allegedly was engaged in years of fraud involving well-connected shareholders, including the brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Mr Fitrat says he has been prevented from holding a proper investigation into the embezzlement of around $500,000.

And he says the situation got worse when he exposed the alleged corruption in parliament.

"My life was in danger and also there were other conspiracies that I thought probably could happen," he said.

"That's why after I received that credible information I tried to leave Afghanistan and announce my resignation here, in Washington."

The US State Department has confirmed Mr Fitrat is in Washington.

"We do know that he is in Washington," spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"If there were to be a change of leadership at the Afghan Central Bank, we would continue to encourage that government to take all the necessary steps to reform and strengthen the financial sector."

Ms Nuland said she had no information about whether Mr Fitrat had asked for asylum.

 

Rebels have been engaged in fierce firefights with government forces in mountain plains about 80km (50 miles) south-west of Tripoli.

A BBC correspondent who was with the rebels was told by a volunteer medic two of them had died in the battle.

The rebels said government forces suffered far greater casualties, although that cannot be confirmed.

Meanwhile, Col Muammar Gaddafi has agreed to stay out of talks on ending the conflict, African leaders said.

In a communique after talks on Sunday in South Africa, the African Union panel on Libya said it "welcomes Colonel Gaddafi's acceptance of not being part of the negotiations process". The statement did not elaborate.

A young maid is facing death by beheading in Saudi Arabia for a crime she claims she did not commit.

Rizana Nafeek, who alleges she was a teenager at the time of the incident, was arrested in May 2005 on charges of murdering a four-month-old baby who was in her care.

She denies murder and claims she desperately tried to save the child who choked while she was looking after it.

Saudi Arabia have come under fire from Human Rights groups for the handling of her case after it was revealed there had been a mix-up involving the year she was born in.

The authorities have her date of birth as 1982 however her birth certificate states she was born in 1988 - making her 17 at the time of the alleged incident.

If Saudi Arabia went ahead with the execution it would be in breach of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it has ratified.

Human Rights groups claim Rizana had no legal representation before or during her trial.

Sri-Lankan born Nafeek's mother Rafeena said her daughter moved to the country so that she could send money home to help educate her three siblings.


Desperate: Her mother Rafeena, left, has begged King Abdullah, right, to pardon Rizana

Desperate for work she found a job as a domestic worker but was shocked when she was asked to look after a baby, Naif al-Quthaibi, because she believed she did not have the skills to care for him.

Just weeks into her employment tragedy struck and the infant choked while he was being fed.

Rafeena, who lives in a tiny village, has previously begged King Abdullah to pardon her daughter and asked him to allow her to return home.

If the execution goes ahead the now 23-year-old will dressed in a white robe and be marched into a packed town centre.

She will also be blindfolded, shackled and forced to kneel facing Mecca before she is prodded between the shoulders so her head is raised


Outrage: Ruyati binti Sapub, an Indonesian, was killed for murdering her employer after she claims she was repeatedly abused

naturally.

Rizana will then be executed, medieval style, with one sweep of a sharply-bladed sword.

Amnesty International has condemned the conviction and since revealed Rizana was not allowed to produce her birth certificate which shows her true age during an appeal trial.

The charity's Middle East director Malcolm Smart said at the time: 'It would be outrageous if Rizana Nafeek were to be executed for this crime.

'It appears that she was herself a child at the time and there are real concerns about the fairness of her trial.'

According to the Sunday Express, earlier this month Indonesia banned its citizens from working in the oil-rich country after another maid, Ruyati binti Sapub, 54, was beheaded after she confessed to killing her employer with a meat cleaver because of constant abuse.

The incident caused outrage and Saudi diplomats in Indonesia were forced to apologise for not informing them about the execution beforehand.

The bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan will no longer be honoured with a public parade but will be driven through back streets to avoid upset, it has emerged.

For several years, the flag-draped coffins of fallen servicemen and women have been met by large crowds who line the streets to pay their respects as they return to British soil.
But repatriation flights are to be diverted and will no longer be flown back to RAF Lyneham and through the small Wiltshire town of Royal Wootton Bassett, where they were saluted come rain or shine.
Instead, they will arrive back to RAF Brize Norton, where they will be driven through the back gate and then down side roads, neatly avoiding the nearby town of Carterton, as they make their way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Andrew Robathan, Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans, admitted that the decision to avoid public scenes of emotion had been taken deliberately.
“The side gate was seen by the Ministry of Defence and the police as the most appropriate way to take out future corteges,” he told Radio Oxford.

 

U.S. President Barack Obama announced Thursday to begin pulling out U.S. troops from Afghanistan in next July

While U.S. President Barack Obama announced Thursday to begin pulling out U.S. troops from Afghanistan in next July, the war-weary Afghans have shown mixed reaction towards the decision.

"The decision will not change the course of the war and will not convince the Taliban to give up fighting. In the presence of the U.S. and allied forces, we have suffered, and would continue to suffer in their absence," taxi driver Mohammad Musa in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, told Xinhua on Thursday morning.

He also doubted U.S. war on Taliban and troops drawing down, saying "The United States can withdraw a few hundred soldiers this morning and it can bring a few thousand tomorrow night if it likes to do so."

A student of Kabul University Mohammad Khan said that "the U.S. forces withdrawal from Afghanistan would bolster Taliban morale in fighting NATO-led forces in Afghanistan."

"Taliban-led insurgency like the past few years would continue in the years to come and it makes no difference how many foreign soldiers withdraw or how many are deployed, because it is a major game and the U.S. is a major stockholder in the game," Khan believed.

President Obama announced on Thursday that 10,000 U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of this year and another 23,000 will go home by September 2012.

"Pulling out troops is a positive sign that at least the night raids by foreign forces and harming civilians will be decreased in Afghanistan," Bashir Khan, a passerby in Kabul city, told Xinhua.

"It is for the Afghan government to ensure security for its citizens and above all it is for the international partners of Afghanistan to support Afghan national security forces in order to enable them to independently defend the country's interest," the 38-years old said.

"The forces of America and other countries should leave Afghanistan, but before leaving they should give more equipment and enough training to Afghan security forces at the level to defend the country's boundaries," said a roadside vender Mohammad Azam aged 26.

He also was of the view that "American forces withdrawal would decrease sensitivity towards foreign troops based in Afghanistan."

Related:

Obama lays out Afghanistan troops drawdown

WASHINGTON, June 22 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday night laid out his plans for Afghanistan troops drawdown that is set to begin next Month, ordering 10,000 troops from that country by year-end with a total of 33,000 troops to be out by next summer.

The plans would withdraw all the "surge troops" he sent to Afghanistan in late 2009 to strengthen the fight against the Talibans.

UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie meets with asylum seekers at detention centres in Malta and Lampedusa.

The Oscar-winning actress listened as the asylum seekers - many of them women from Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia and sub-Saharan Africa awaiting the processing of their claims - recounted the difficulties they had lived through before reaching the centres.
Thousands of people have been pulled from the waters around Malta.
Some of the women described how they had lost their babies during the violence. Others miscarried at sea, or in the case of one woman, in the detention centre.
The ongoing unrest in North Africa means thousands more are likely to attempt to establish a new life away from conflict in their home regions.
Jolie then travelled on with UN's High Commissioner for Refugees to the Italian island of Lampedusa ahead of World Refugee Day, where she was shown how refugees are processed by staff on the island.

 

Mohamed VI rewrites constitution and gives elected politicians greater power after biggest protests in decades

Morocco's king, Mohamed VI, has responded to the Arab spring by rewriting his country's constitution and giving greater power to elected politicians but leaving him with a firm grip on security, the army and religious matters.

The draft constitution, which will be put to referendum on 1 July, sees some power being shifted away from the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty and from the tight clique of palace officials who dominate Morocco.

Among other measures, the new constitution explicitly states that the king will now have to pick the country's prime minister from the party that wins elections to what, up until now, has been a largely rubber-stamp parliament.

While the government gains executive powers, the 47-year-old monarch has kept exclusive control over the military and over religion.

And analysts pointed out that while the prime minister would be in charge of domestic policy, he does so with the king's permission and with the monarch still able to pass his own decrees.

"He is sharing some executive powers with the PM [but] still retains significant ones," said the respected, if anonymous, Maghreb Blog on its Twitter feed. "The changes do nothing to his real discretionary, religious and military powers."

Mohamed VI presented the measuresto the country in a TV broadcast.

The king said the constitutional reform "confirms the features and mechanisms of the parliamentary nature of the Moroccan political system" and laid the basis for an "efficient, rational constitutional system whose core elements are the balance, independence and separation of powers, and whose foremost goal is the freedom and dignity of citizens.

After facing the biggest protests in decades, the king ordered a committee in March to draw up the new constitution after discussions with political parties, trade unions and NGOs.

Moroccans first took to the streets in February, but the country has not experienced the degree of violence seen elsewhere in Arab countries.

Officials claimed that respect for the king combined with a regime that is more liberal and less severely policed than elsewhere had helped prevent a Tunisian or Egyptian-style uprising.

But Moroccans are clearly fed up with rampant corruption which, according to US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks, stretches right into the heart of Mohamed VI's palace. Those cables show one former US ambassador to Rabat condemning "the appalling greed of those close to King Mohammed VI".

"Major institutions and processes of the Moroccan state are used by the palace to coerce and solicit bribes in the real estate sector," one senior Moroccan businessman complained to US diplomats

Corruption is also rampant in courts, business and health services, according to Transparency Maroc.

Many Moroccans would like to see their country enjoy the sort of economic growth that countries such as Tunisia or Turkey have had over the past two decades.

The king said a constitutional court would also be set up while "the draft constitution criminalises any interference, corruption or influence peddling with regard to the judiciary".

He said the constitution "criminalizes torture, enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and all forms of discrimination and inhuman, degrading practices" while also upholding "freedom of the press and of expression and opinion." within unspecified legally enforcable boundaries.

The reforms will be closely monitored by Gulf Arab monarchies, which have so far dodged calls at home for reforms and fret that major change in Morocco might fuel further demands from reformists in their countries.

In Muslim Morocco the monarch is formally considered the nation's religious leader with the title of commander of the faithful.

But the new constitution will see his status changed slightly, with the term "sacred" disappearing but the monarch still remaining "inviolable", the king said.

The referendum date gives Moroccans – 44 % of whom are illiterate – just two weeks to find out about and debate the new constitution's contents.

Few commentators doubted, however, that it would be passed even though pro-democracy activists from the February 20 movement dismissed many of the changes as cosmetic.

After the speech ended, cars flying Moroccan flags drove through the streets of the capital Rabat honking their horns, with passengers cheering into the night and young people marched along the wide boulevards banging drums and cheering.

Najib Chawki, a February 20 activist, said the constitutional reform draft "does not respond to the essence of our demands which is establishing a parliamentary monarchy. We are basically moving from a de facto absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy".

Activists claimed that the reform programme initially introduced by King Mohamed, who brought in greater freedoms and improved women's rights when he inherited the throne 12 years ago, had effectively ground to a halt.

Activists on Twitter said that pro-government mobs had attacked at least one pro-democracy activist

 

Tunisia began the trial on Monday of former president Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali,

Tunisia began the trial on Monday of former president Zine al-Abdine Ben Ali, whose ouster by protesters angry over corruption and police repression inspired the "Arab Spring" that has swept the region.

Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14, after mass protests against 23 years of rule in which he, his wife and their family built stakes in the country's biggest businesses and accumulated vast fortunes at what Tunisians say was their expense.



Tunisia's revolt electrified millions across the Arab world, who suffer similarly from high unemployment, rising prices and repressive rule. Ben Ali's trial will be watched closely in Egypt, where former president Hosni Mubarak is due to stand trial over the killing of protesters.

Judge Touhami Hafian, sitting in the Palace of Justice in the Tunisian capital, said the court would begin by hearing charges that Ben Ali was in unlawful possession of foreign currency, jewelry, archeological artifacts, drugs and weapons.

"This is a normal trial," the judge said.

Speaking to Reuters before the hearing began, Husni Beji, one of five lawyers representing Ben Ali, told Reuters: "We are going to ask for an adjournment ... I want to convince Ben Ali to attend the trial."

Since Ben Ali's departure, most Tunisians have been preoccupied with deteriorating law and order and political instability as the caretaker authorities try to guide the country towards democracy.

But there is still deep-seated anger at Ben Ali's rule, which many people say was characterized by repression and corruption on a grand scale involving members of Ben Ali's extended family.

The Tunisian press, enjoying unprecedented freedom after years of state control, has carried numerous reports saying "The Family", as Tunisians refer to them, had absconded from the country with large sums of money and gold.

More than 30 members of Ben Ali's family and that of his wife, Leila Trabelsi, were arrested in the days following the fall of his regime. Some have since been charged with economic crimes and abuse of power.

Angry protesters looted and vandalized the luxury villas they owned in upscale coastal suburbs early on.

Ben Ali and his family built up interests in many Tunisian companies and industries during his two decades in power, including in hotels, banks, tuna exports, construction, newspapers and pharmaceuticals.

Canadian warplanes have bombed the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the military confirmed Thursday.

CF-18 jet fighters took part in four days of targeted strikes over last weekend, said Col. Alain Pelletier, who commands Canada’s air contingent in Italy.

Pelletier could not say whether any of the strikes came close to hitting Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. He said he doesn’t get day-to-day intelligence on the movements of particular people, but added bombing runs target command and control elements of Gadhafi’s forces.

“So we’re not targeting specific persons,” Pelletier said via telephone to a short briefing of journalists at Defence Department headquarters.

“I cannot say whether or not we got close to a specific person or not, unfortunately.”

The Canadian jets were involved in day and night raids on Tripoli, which has recently been the focus of more intense NATO bombing.

“When we’re talking of targets that are in the vicinity of populations, we’ve been actually targeting at night for some of them, and some others were actually targeted during the day,” Pelletier said. “All of the attacks were extremely successful using our laser guided weapons.”

They struck at depots housing armoured vehicles, field headquarters and ammunition dumps in an attempt to hurt Gadhafi’s command-and-control structures.

It’s the first time the Canadian Forces has given specific details about the CF-18s involvement in NATO’s stepped-up attacks on Tripoli. The military refused to confirm participation in the Tripoli offensive at its last briefing in late May, citing the need to protect operational security.

The Tripoli attacks have sparked criticism in some quarters that NATO is straying from the United Nations resolution that has authorized the mission by targeting Gadhafi directly.

The UN authorized a no-fly zone to protect civilians from Gadhafi, who has pledged to crush the uprising against his four decades of iron-fisted rule.

CF-18s also targeted mobile gun systems, including those equipped with rocket launchers in order to keep Gadhafi’s forces from reaching Misrata, the rebel-held city that has faced renewed attacks recently.

Canadian jets had to be recalled to one target because the laser-targeting system on an allied jet failed. They were able to reset the required laser coordinates to help finish the attack, said Pelletier.

“It was a great demonstration of interoperability of our equipment and tactics with our partners.”

Canada has seven fighter jets taking part in the NATO-led bombardment, along with a warship, surveillance planes and aerial refuellers, some 650 military personnel in all.

As the mission enters its third month, Pelletier said the vote in Parliament this week that extended the mission to the end of September was a morale boost to Canadian personnel.

Royal Marines on alert to help with evacuation of British citizens in Yemen

The marines are said to be on board the support ship RFA Fort Victoria, according to the BBC.
The Fort Victoria is part of the navy’s response force task group which has been conducting a series of exercises in the Mediterranean.
The helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, which has been used as a launch pad for Apache attack helicopters engaged in operations in Libya, is part of the same group.
The auxiliary landing vessel RFA Cardigan Bay was also heading for Yemen where it will replace another support vessel, RFA Argus, the report added.
The Ministry of Defence said: ‘As part of routine deployment, UK military assets are in the region. Although we are not prepared to comment further on their exact operational tasking.’ Britons in Yemen have been urged by the Foreign Office to leave while commercial flights are still operating.
Foreign secretary William Hague warned at the weekend it was ‘extremely unlikely’ Britain would be able to stage an evacuation and remaining  nationals should not ‘plan for or expect’ Government assistance.
Meanwhile, at least 15 people were killed in fighting yesterday around the southern city of Zinjibar.
Clashes in Taiz were reported to have killed four people, including three children, who were said to have been killed by a tank shell.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in  Saudi Arabia recovering from surgery on wounds suffered in an attack on his palace in the capital Sanaa.
The US has urged him to stand down as more than 350 have people died in protests against his 33-year rule.

 

Russia 'key player' in move towards Afghanistan Taliban talks

An attempt by western powers to kickstart peace talks with the Taliban by overhauling the United Nations' sanction regime against the hardline movement and its al-Qaida allies hangs on whether Russia, India and China can be persuaded to drop their objections, a senior diplomat said.

Germany's ambassador to the UN, Peter Wittig, said his country was engaged in "intensive negotiations" with foreign partners over a range of changes to the UN's "1267 list", a collection of 450 people deemed to be associated with the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Under the proposed plans, two separate lists would be created, one for each militant organisation, giving the Afghan government much greater say over which Taliban would be on the new list, which - like the existing system - would make it hard for named individuals to travel internationally or to have a bank account.

Wittig said the split would recognise the "different fields of action" between the two organisations, with the Taliban "restricted basically to Afghanistan" while al-Qaida operates globally. "Separating those two things highlights the significance of the political efforts that are ongoing in Afghanistan," he said.

Wittig said the Afghan government, which supports the changes, would be given greater control over a "more flexible" Taliban list.

The negotiations about reform coincide with a request by the Afghan government to remove about 50 of the 138 names currently listed as Taliban. The proposed names are either no longer actively involved in the insurgency or are not regarded as posing a terrorist threat.

Particularly significant are five individuals who are members of the High Peace Council, a body established by the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to lay the grounds for peace talks. Last week the Guardian reported that the UK and US were backing the changes in the hope they would encourage the Taliban to engage in peace talks with Karzai's government.

Wittig, who is also chairman of the UN's al-Qaida and Taliban sanctions committee, said the proposals - which include "sunset clauses" to prevent individuals languishing on the sanction list indefinitely - remained controversial with some of the 15 members, and unanimous agreement would have to be achieved by 17 June.

Russia, which suffered heavy losses during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, is seen as the main block to the proposals. Moscow fears that the Taliban continues to maintain important links with al-Qaida, and is sceptical that the Islamist movement can be incorporated into a political settlement in Afghanistan.

Wittig said the Russians were still open to discussions and Afghan officials would be lobbying Moscow to back the changes. It is hoped that the other leading doubters, India and China, will follow Russia's lead.

It is unusual for the committee to consider delisting a large number of people with Taliban associations in one go. A decision on whether to remove them will be required by next Friday and Wittig predicted that it was very unlikely all of them would be struck off.

Delisting has long been plagued with difficulties, including the problem of collecting accurate information on many individuals, some of whom are believed to have been dead for many years.

"We have to manage expectations," Wittig said. "Not all of that 50 will be delisted but if we can come up with a couple of names that would send a good signal, I think."

The sanctions, which were first imposed in 1999 when the Taliban was still in power, have long angered former high-ranking officials in the Taliban regime now living peacefully in Kabul.

It is hoped that sanctions reform and the delisting will send a signal to insurgent leaders that the Afghan government is serious about allowing fighters to come out of hiding. It could also allow those with continued ties with the movement to travel to a proposed overseas Taliban "office" where it is hoped all sides of the conflict could hold discussions.

 

NATO warplanes dropped bombs in repeated low-flying raids Tuesday on targets in and around Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s compound

NATO warplanes dropped bombs in repeated low-flying raids Tuesday on targets in and around Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s compound in their most intense daytime strikes on the Libyan capital since the aerial campaign began two months ago
Multimedia

What appeared to be bunker-busting bombs laid waste to an area of about two acres, leaving a smoking, twisted mass of the steel remains of six or seven buildings that had stood three to four stories high.

Officials said that 10 to 15 people had died in the attack, but there was no way to verify that number. Western reporters taken to the area late in the afternoon by Libyan government handlers saw one body that had been pulled from the rubble. The authorities identified the remains as those of a man serving as a housecleaner.

“Who’s going to look after his children?” said one of the Libyan officials directing the tour, who refused to give his name. “Who is going to take revenge on Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy?”

There were no signs of rescue efforts, because of the difficulties of getting heavy equipment through the rubble, the officials said.

While the attack ended by mid-afternoon, NATO planes were still circling overhead, drawing nervous glances from the Libyans. But the planes seemed to be reconnaissance craft, and Western reporters had notified NATO officials of the impending tour of the destroyed area.

Among the ruined buildings was a grand reception house and accompanying V.I.P. guesthouse where the South African president, Jacob Zuma, had been received in early April on a brief diplomatic mission on behalf of the African Union. But that attempt proved fruitless, as did a second effort a week ago , because Colonel Qaddafi rejected any deal under which he would leave the country. The NATO attacks have been increasing in frequency since the second peace plan foundered.

Up until Tuesday, most NATO aerial attacks on Tripoli have been carried out during the night hours. NATO officials have been saying they would be increasing the pace and intensity of the attacks on targets linked to Colonel Qaddafi and his military forces as part of an effort to oust him from power and stop his forces from attacking civilians who have joined the organized revolt against him.

The special envoy to Africa for the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, arrived in the rebel capital of Benghazi on Tuesday with a similar mission, Reuters reported. The envoy, Mikhail Margelov, said he would try to establish a dialogue between Libya’s warring factions, but it seemed likely that his effort would founder on the same diplomatic shoals as Mr. Zuma’s.

Colonel Qaddafi’s regime has become increasingly isolated as the conflict has dragged on, beset by increasing numbers of high-level defections and evidence that support for him even among residents of Tripoli, his stronghold, has become fractured. On Tuesday, Libya’s labor minister, Al-Amin Manfur, added his name to the growing exodus, declaring at a meeting in Geneva of the International Labor Organization that he was now supporting the rebel government, the National Transitional Council, Agence France-Presse reported.

LIBYAN rebels are reported to have recaptured the town of Yafran, 100km south of Tripoli, adding to the sense that Muammar Gaddafi and his regime are beginning to lose their battle for survival.

Yafran is the most easterly of several towns stretched along the Nafusa mountains that are inhabited mostly by members of Libya's oppressed Berber minority who have been fighting government forces since the uprising began more than 15 weeks ago.

Rebel sources say Yafran's 70,000 inhabitants have been besieged since early April. British warplanes attacked Gaddafi's forces there late last week and a Reuters photographer who entered yesterday said the rebels appeared to have recaptured the town. "There's no sign of any Gaddafi forces," said the photographer, Youssef Boudlal. "I can see the rebel flags . . . We have seen posters and photos of Gaddafi that have been destroyed."

Asked about rebel gains in the Nafusa mountains, Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Khaled Kaim insisted that the regime's forces could retake lost territory within hours, but were holding back to avoid civilian casualties.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Gaddafi's forces had been so degraded that his removal was now inevitable. "It is not a question of if, but when, he will have to leave power," he said, adding coalition airstrikes had destroyed or damaged 1800 military targets, including 100 command-and-control centres, 700 ammunition stores and almost 500 tanks, armoured personnel carriers and rocket launchers.

His assessment echoed that of US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who said Gaddafi's removal was "only a matter of time".

"You see signs the regime is getting shakier every day . . . It's just a question of when everybody around Gaddafi decides it's time to throw in the towel and throw him under the bus."

British Apache helicopters strike Gaddafi's forces for first time

British Apache attack helicopters have launched their first strikes on Muammar Gaddafi's troops in Libya, including near the key coastal oil city of Brega, Nato has confirmed.

The RAF Apaches and French attack craft struck troops loyal to Gaddafi who were hiding in populated areas, giving a major boost to Libyan rebels on the ground and coming one day after government troops were forced from three western towns.

The Apaches hit two targets near the coastal city of Brega, the Ministry of Defence said in a statement., The helicopters took off from HMS Ocean, off the Libyan coast, and returned safely after completing their mission in the early hours of Saturday.

The French helicopters took off from the helicopter transport ship Tonnerre in the Mediterranean, said Col Thierry Burkhard. He said the French helicopters struck 15 military vehicles and five military command buildings and came under light fire, but were not hit or damaged.

Burkhard said the operation was aimed at putting "additional pressure on the Gaddafi forces who continue to threaten the civilian population".

Until now, Nato has relied on attack jets, generally flying above 15,000ft (4,500m) and pounding pro-Gaddafi targets in relentless overnight bombings. But the helicopters are a game-changer, giving the alliance an advantage in close-up combat, flying at much lower altitudes.

The decision to send four British Apache helicopters to Libya was made by David Cameron on 27 May. Their deployment via HMS Ocean means there should be less chance of civilian casualties in operations that previously relied on the use of Tornado and Typhoon aircraft. But the Apaches operate at lower altitudes and could be targeted by Libyan forces loyal to Gaddafi, who still have access to thousands of surface-to-air missiles.

Nato quoted Lt Gen Charles Bouchard, commander of the Libya operation, said as saying the engagement "demonstrates the unique capabilities brought to bear by attack helicopters".

The strikes came after Libyan rebels on Friday won control of four towns in the western Nafusa mountain range, where government forces have besieged and randomly shelled rebel-held areas for months. After weeks of siege, government forces drove about seven tanks and a number of armoured vehicles into Yifran in early May and surrounded its Galaa nearby, said Col Jumaa Ibrahim of the region's rebel military council.

Fighters who had fled then used their knowledge of area to chip away at the government forces, he said. On Friday, the rebels entered the town to find that the last government forces had left the day before.

The rebels also pushed government fighters from Shakshuk and Qasr al-Haj, two villages near a road that runs along the mountain range's northern edge, Ibrahim said. The latter holds an important power station for local towns.

Ibrahim said rebel forces took the towns on Thursday then moved north to clash with Gaddafi forces in the village of Bir Ayyad on Friday. There were no reports of casualties.

The small rebel force in the western mountains is unlikely to threaten Gaddafi's hold on Tripoli, 45 miles (70km) north-west, but the victories could bring relief to local residents by opening up roads between their communities. The western mountain population is tiny compared to the large rebel-held territories in east Libya.

The conflict in Libya is nearly four months old, but the situation on the ground appears to be a stalemate. Nato air strikes have kept the outgunned rebels from being overrun, but the rebels have been unable to mount an effective offensive against Gaddafi's better equipped armed forces.

Gaddafi's regime has been slowly crumbling from within. A significant number of army officers and several cabinet ministers have defected, and most have expressed support for the opposition, but Gaddafi's hold on power shows little sign of loosening.

Gaddafi has been seen in public rarely and heard even less frequently since a Nato air strike on his compound killed one of his sons on 30 April.

Rebels have turned down initiatives calling for ceasefires, insisting that Gaddafi and his sons must relinquish power and leave the country.

 

NATO has for the first time used attack helicopters in Libya,

NATO has for the first time used attack helicopters in Libya, striking military vehicles, military equipment and forces backing embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi, the military alliance has announced.

"Attack helicopters under NATO command were used for the first time on 4 June 2011 in military operations over Libya as part of Operation Unified Protector," NATO said in a statement on Saturday.

"The targets struck included military vehicles, military equipment and fielded forces" of the Gaddafi regime, said the statement, without detailing exactly where the strikes had taken place.

“This successful engagement demonstrates the unique capabilities brought to bear by attack helicopters,” Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, commander in chief of the NATO mission in Libya, said.

“We will continue to use these assets whenever and wherever needed, using the same precision as we do in all of our missions," he added.

France was contributing four Tiger attack helicopters for the NATO operation while Britain offered four Apaches, officials said, adding that the helicopters were being prepared to fly over sea and desert conditions.

Major advance


The NATO offensive came as Libyan opposition fighters made a major advance towards the capital, Tripoli, after claiming victory in western Libyan towns against forces loyal to Gaddafi.

An opposition military leader said on Friday that local fighters won control of four towns in the western Nafusa mountain range, where government forces had besieged and randomly shelled rebel-held areas for months.

Fighters who had fled then used their knowledge of the area to chip away at the government forces, Colonel Jumaa Ibrahim of the region's rebel military council told the Associated Press news agency via Skype.

"They know all the hills and valleys, so they were able to trick the brigades and destroy some of their vehicles," he said.

Opposition fighters also pushed government troops from Shakshuk and Qasr al-Haj, two towns near a key road that runs along the mountain range's northern edge, Ibrahim said.

After a brutal siege by pro-Gaddafi forces, Misurata, Libya's third largest city, is now in opposition hands. Opposition fighters there have now pushed halfway to the town of Zlitan, on the way to Tripoli, after taking control of Zintan.

At one stage, their advance came to within 60km of Sirte but the government troops held their line and repelled the attack.

Meeting with rebels 


Meanwhile, the Chinese foreign ministry said that China's ambassador to Qatar recently met with the head of Libya's opposition council, the first known meeting between the two sides.

A Chinese foreign ministry statement said Zhang Zhiliang, Beijing's ambassador to Qatar, had met and "exchanged views on developments in Libya" with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the chairman of the rebel council that is trying to offer itself as a credible temporary alternative to Gaddafi.

The ministry gave no details of the talks but the meeting itself was an indication that Beijing wants to keep open lines of communication with the rebel forces.

China abstained in the UN Security Council vote authorising NATO military action in Libya.

Gaddafi's government has been slowly crumbling from within. A significant number of army officers and several cabinet ministers have defected, and most have expressed support for the opposition.

Rebels have turned down initiatives calling for ceasefires, insisting that Gaddafi and his sons must relinquish power and leave the country.

Lunacy in Libya

They swore blind that there would never be foreign "boots on the ground" in Libya, but as NATO's campaign against Moammar Gadhafi's regime enters its third month it is getting a lot closer to the ground.

It started with Tomahawk missiles fired from over the horizon; then it was fighter-bombers firing guided weapons from a safe height; now it's helicopter gunships skimming the ground at zero altitude. They're getting desperate.

In London on May 25, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that "the president and I agree we should be turning up the heat on Libya." Standing beside him, U.S President Barack Obama declared that, "given the progress that has been made over the last several weeks," there will be no "let-up in the pressure that we are applying." And you have to ask, what progress? The front lines between Gadhafi's forces and the rebels are still approximately where they were two months ago, except around the city of Misrata, where the insurgents have pushed the besieging troops back some kilometres.

But there has been no overt, widespread defiance of the regime in Tripoli for many weeks.

Are Obama and Cameron deluding themselves, or are they just trying to fool everybody else?

Maybe both - and meanwhile they are cranking up the aerial campaign against Gadhafi in the hope that enough bombs may make their claims come true. They must have been told a dozen times by their military advisers that bombing alone almost never wins a war, but they have waded into the quagmire too far to turn back now, and they have no other military options that the United Nations resolution would allow them to use.

They are already acting beyond the limits set by UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which on March 17 authorized the use of limited force to protect Libyan civilians. It has become a campaign to overthrow Col. Gadhafi, and they hardly even bother to deny it any more.

"I believe that we have built enough momentum that, as long as we sustain the course we are on, (Gadhafi) will step down," said Obama in London. "Ultimately this is going to be a slow, steady process in which we are able to wear down the regime forces." Well maybe so, and maybe not, but in either case that's not what Resolution 1973 said. No wonder Russia condemned the latest air raids as a "gross violation" of the resolution.

Russia did not want to stand by and let Gadhafi massacre innocent civilians, which seemed imminent when the defences of the rebels in eastern Libya were collapsing in mid-March, so it let the resolution pass. So did China, India and Brazil, which would normally oppose any military intervention by western powers in a Third World country. But it was all decided in a weekend, and they did not think it through.

Neither did France, Britain, the United States, Canada and a few other NATO countries, which immediately committed their air forces to the task of saving the rebels. They destroyed Gadhafi's tanks and saved the city of Benghazi, but then what? There was no plan, no "exit strategy," and so they have ended up with a very unpleasant choice.

Either they stop the war and leave Gadhafi in control of the larger part of a partitioned Libya, or they escalate further in the hope that at some point Gadhafi's supporters abandon him. The U.S. air force had a name for this strategy during the Vietnam War: they were trying to find the North Vietnamese regime's "threshold of pain." They never did find it in Vietnam, but NATO is still looking for it in Libya.

We'll never know if Gadhafi would really have slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians if Benghazi had fallen. He was making blood-curdling threats about what he would do when the city fell, and he has certainly killed lots of people in the past, but with the eyes of the whole world on him he might not have done it this time.

Nevertheless, that threat was what created the extraordinary (though temporary) consensus at the Security Council. It was, for the West as well as for the other major powers that backed the original resolution, a largely humanitarian action with little by the way of ulterior motives. (And don't say "oil"; that's just lazy thinking.) Gadhafi has been playing by the rules for the last five years, renouncing terrorism and dismantling his fantasy "nuclear weapons program." He has been exporting all the oil he could pump. He wasn't threatening Western interests, and yet NATO embarked on a military campaign that it knew was likely to end in tears in order to stop him.

Let us give NATO governments credit for letting their hearts overrule their heads. Let's also acknowledge that they have been meticulous and largely successful in avoiding civilian casualties in their bombing campaign. But it isn't working.

So what do they do now? They can escalate for a few more weeks, and hope that the strategy that has failed for the last two months will finally succeed. That might happen, but it's not likely to. In which case the only remaining option will be to accept a ceasefire, and the partition of Libya between the Gadhafi regime and the "Transitional National Council" in Benghazi.

 

Libya's oil minister Shukri Ghanem has defected

Libya's oil minister Shukri Ghanem has defected and now supports the rebels, striking another blow to Muammar Gaddafi, as Nato and its partners decided to extend their Libyan mission for another 90 days.

Ansa news agency quoted Ghanem saying in Rome: "In this situation you can no longer work, so I have left my country and my work to unite myself with the choice of young Libyans to fight for a democratic country."

Ansa said he told its reporters he had left the regime two weeks ago and arrived in Rome on Tuesday. The Italian foreign ministry said it had no comment.

For several weeks, Libyan officials have insisted Ghanem, who as head of the National Oil Corp serves as Libya's oil minister, was on a business trip. Last week, Libya's foreign ministry said he would represent the Gaddafi government at the Opec meeting in Vienna next week.

Eight top Libyan army officers, including five generals, were presented to reporters in Rome this week by the Italian foreign ministry days after they fled Libya.

Another 13, including a colonel and four commanders, have fled to neighbouring Tunisia, the official Tunisian news agency reported.

Meanwhile in Brussels, Nato and its partners in the military campaign to protect Libyan civilians decided to extend their mission for another 90 days, an official said on Wednesday.

"This decision sends a clear message to the Gaddafi regime: we are determined to continue our operation to protect the people of Libya," said Nato's secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Former SAS soldiers in Libya

Former special forces soldiers working for private security companies are in the Libyan city of Misrata, advising the rebels and supplying information to NATO, the Guardian reported Wednesday.
Former members of the Special Air Service (SAS) are among those gathering information about the location and movement of troops loyal to leader Moamer Kadhafi, military sources told the paper.
They are passing that information on to NATO's command centre in Naples.
The former soldiers are in Libya with the blessing of Britain, France and other NATO countries, the sources told The Guardian.
They have been supplied with non-combat equipment by the coalition forces.
Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials denied the private soldiers were being paid by the government and insisted it had no combat troops on the ground.
The Guardian said the soldiers were reportedly being paid by Arab countries, notably Qatar.
London last week approved the use of its Apache attack helicopters in the operation.
The information being gathered by the rebel advisers was likely for use by British and French pilots during missions predicted for later this week, the paper reported.
Reports of their presence emerged after Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera on Monday showed video footage of six armed westerners talking to rebels in the port city of Misrata.
Libya on Tuesday accused NATO of having killed 718 civilians and wounded 4,067 in 10 weeks of air strikes.