Two Canadians are among those killed in a devastating terror attack on a crowded cafe in the historic central square of Marrakech, Morocco on Thursday.

Two Canadians are among those killed in a devastating terror attack on a crowded cafe in the historic central square of Marrakech, Morocco on Thursday.

A statement from the Moroccan government Friday said two Canadians, two French citizens, a citizen of the Netherlands and two Moroccans were among the 15 dead.

According to a report from a Montreal radio station the two Canadians were a married Montreal couple.

As of Friday morning, the Department of Foreign Affairs said it was "aware of news reports that Canadians were wounded in the explosion" but said it had no official confirmation of Canadian casualties.

"Consular officials in Rabat are working closely with local authorities to obtain additional information," said a statement emailed to CTV.ca.

The suspected suicide bombing at the cafe, which is popular with foreigners, was the worst terror attack the North African country has experienced in eight years.

The death toll was originally listed as 16. More than 20 people were wounded.

According to Morocco's state news agency MAP, two of the injured died in hospital.

Moroccan police and authorities were working to restore calm in Marrakech, a major tourist destination for the country.

The attack occurred in the legendary central square Djemaa el-Fna that leads to the city's open air souk, or market. The massive square is packed with snake charmers, magic potion ingredient-sellers and storytellers during the day, and by open-air food stalls at night.

11 rebel fighters have been killed in a Nato air strike in the besieged Libyan port city of Misrata,

11 rebel fighters have been killed in a Nato air strike in the besieged Libyan port city of Misrata, say reports.

A rebel commander and witnesses told reporters a Nato warplane had carried out Wednesday's bombing, but Nato refused to confirm or deny the reports.

A doctor told Reuters news agency seven rebels had also been killed in fire from government forces.

There has been intense fighting over Misrata's strategically crucial port.

Rebel fighters, backed by Nato air strikes, claim they have driven back soldiers loyal to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.

The port is a vital lifeline, permitting aid deliveries and refugee evacuations, but they have been interrupted by the fighting - prompting residents to warn that supplies of food and water are dwindling.

bomb attack in the main square in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh has killed at least 14 people and injured 20, some of them foreigners

bomb attack in the main square in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh has killed at least 14 people and injured 20, some of them foreigners, officials say.

The explosion ripped through the Argana cafe in Djemaa el-Fna square, a popular tourist destination.

The interior ministry said evidence now pointed to a bomb attack after initial reports suggested a gas explosion.

Morocco has seen two months of protests against King Mohammed VI amid a tide of uprisings across the region.

The last major terrorist attack in Morocco was in 2003 in the city of Casablanca - 45 people, including a number of suicide bombers, were killed.

'Sounded like a bomb'
Moroccan government spokesman Khalid Naciri told French television that Thursday's casualties involved a number of nationalities but he would not confirm any as yet.

"We worked... on the hypothesis that this could... be accidental. But initial results of the investigation confirm that we are confronted with a true criminal act," he said.

An interior ministry statement added: "Analysis of the early evidence collected at the site... confirms the theory of an attack."


A medical source told AFP news agency that 11 of the dead were foreigners, including five women, but this has not been independently confirmed.

Witnesses described hearing a huge blast that sent debris flying into the air.

Briton Hugo Somersham-Jones told the BBC he was at his Marrakesh home, close to the square, when he heard the explosion.

"It sounded like a bomb. I went outside and saw smoke and got to the cafe and saw falling masonry. I came out to the main square and saw the first floor of the cafe in ruins.

"People had fire extinguishers, trying to put out the fire, and others were pulling people out from the building - it was pretty bad."

Mr Somersham-Jones, a hotel owner who has been running his business in Marrakesh for six years, said the square was the main area where people congregate and that there had been a deadly gas explosion last year.

Portuguese tourist Alexandre Carvalho told the Associated Press news agency that he had seen injured people being carried away.

"I believe the injured were mostly tourists, judging by what they were wearing," he said.

The UK Foreign Office said it was aware of the blast and that consular staff had been deployed to offer assistance to any British nationals.

It advised UK nationals to stay away from the square.

Djemaa el-Fna square is a Unesco World Heritage site and is popular with foreign tourists, particularly Europeans.

Analysts say the blast could have a serious effect on Morocco's important tourism sector.

One French businessman told Reuters: "You can't find a more emblematic target than Djemaa el-Fna square. With this attack and amid the worrying unrest in the region, tourism

Terror reigned in the Syrian city of Daraa on Wednesday as intermittent gunfire rang out overnight and snipers held their positions on rooftops

Terror reigned in the Syrian city of Daraa on Wednesday as intermittent gunfire rang out overnight and snipers held their positions on rooftops, a witness there said.
He said the situation "is worsening day after day" where the country's recent anti-government protests started.
Five people were killed by sniper fire on Tuesday, including a 6-year-old girl, said the witness, who is not being identified for security reasons. But no funerals have taken place, he said, because the cemetery is occupied by security forces.
Half a world away, United Nations Security Council will be briefed Wednesday on the crisis in Syria when it meets in a private session, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
Syria's ambassador to the United Nations rejected Tuesday a call for an independent investigation into the reported killings of hundreds of demonstrators by government forces.
"Syria has a government, has a state," Bashar Jaafari told reporters at the world body. "We can undertake any investigation by our own selves, with full transparency. We have nothing to hide. We regret what is going on, but you should also acknowledge that this unrest and riots, in some of their aspects, have hidden agendas."

Afghan forces have recaptured at least 65 of the 480 inmates who escaped from the south's largest prison

Afghan forces have recaptured at least 65 of the 480 inmates who escaped from the south's largest prison, the government said on Tuesday.

Prison officials discovered early on Monday morning that the inmates – nearly all of them Taliban militants – were missing from their cells, and then found the tunnel through which they appeared to have made their getaway.

The Taliban said the jailbreak was five months in the making, with diggers starting the tunnel from under a nearby house while they arranged for inmates to get cell keys.

The Kandahar provincial governor's office said that Afghan and international forces are working together to recapture the missing prisoners. It said the troops have already caught 65 and killed two who tried to resist. Authorities have biometric data on each prisoner, the statement added.

The prison break came less than two weeks after the Kandahar police chief was killed by a suicide bomber inside his heavily defended office compound.

"How can we trust or rely on a government that can't protect the police chief inside the police headquarters and can't keep prisoners in the prison?" asked Islamullah Agha Bashir, who sells washing machines and other appliances in Kandahar city. "Last night while we were eating dinner I told my two sons not to go out as much because I am afraid that now when the morale of the Taliban is high, they will attack more."

In Kabul, officials started to piece through the details of the escape and place blame. The justice minister, Habibullah Ghalib, sent a formal letter to President Hamid Karzai acknowledging that it was likely that prison officials or guards acted as accomplices but adding that Afghan and international security forces should have detected the plot.

"The escape of all the prisoners from one tunnel ... shows that collaborators inside the prison somehow provided an opportunity," it said.

However, Ghalib also noted that Afghan police searched the compound from which the tunnel originated about two and a half months before the prison break and he said that Canadian and US forces have been responsible for security improvements to the prison. A full investigation was under way.

Kandahar city has been a major focus of the international troop surge over the past year, with Nato officials saying that establishing security there will be key to securing the region. Last summer, Afghan forces created a ring of checkpoints around the city and started pushing out into Taliban areas on its outskirts in a plan to establish the government's authority before the rise in attacks that usually comes with warmer weather in the spring and summer.

The Taliban have responding by starting off the spring fighting season with a string of attacks apparently designed to undermine trust in the capabilities of the Afghan government. Within the past two weeks, Taliban agents have also launched deadly attacks from inside the defence ministry a shared Afghan-US military base in eastern Laghman province.

The attacks have exposed weaknesses that have also raised doubt over the readiness of the Afghan government to start taking over authority for security parts of the country as planned.

Nato-led coalition forces announced on Tuesday that a key al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan had been killed in an air strike on 13 April in Dangam district of eastern Kunar province.

Nato said Abu Hafs al-Najdi, also known as Abdul Ghani, was a regional commander in charge of suicide bombings and cash flow. The strike also killed a number of other insurgents, including another al-Qaida leader known as Waqas.

In eastern Paktia province on Tuesday, the provincial governor narrowly escaped an apparent assassination attempt by insurgents. A roadside bomb exploded just behind a vehicle taking Juma Khan Hamdard to his office, said Rohallah Samon, a spokesman.

Hamdard was not hurt, but three policemen who were in a chase vehicle were slightly injured, Samon said.

Rebels and residents of Misrata said bodies lay scattered in the streets of the city

Rebels and residents of Misrata said bodies lay scattered in the streets of the city and medics struggled to cope with the wounded on Monday after some of the bloodiest fighting of a two-month-old siege.

People emerged from homes after daybreak to scenes of devastation after Muammar Gaddafi's forces pulled back from the city under cover of blistering rocket and tank fire, said witnesses contacted by phone.

Medics said more than 20 people were killed in clashes on Sunday and 28 on Saturday

More than 400 prisoners, including members of the Taliban, have escaped a jail in Afghanistan after insurgents tunnelled in to free them.

Kandahar is known as the birthplace of the Taliban 
The majority of the 476 prisoners who fled the 1,200-inmate Sarposa Prison were Taliban militants, according to prison supervisor Ghulam Dastagi Mayar.
It is the second major jailbreak from the prison in Kandahar province, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, in three years.
It is supposed to be the most secure jail in the country.
The Taliban, known for exaggerating its successes, claimed that 541 prisoners, including many commanders, had escaped through an extensive tunnel which took months to create.
A Taliban statement said: "Mujahideen started digging a 320-metre tunnel to the prison from the south side, which was completed after a five-month period, by-passing enemy check posts and (the) Kandahar-Kabul main highway leading directly to the political prison."
The provincial governor's spokesperson Zalmay Ayoubi confirmed the jailbreak, saying: "We have the report that hundreds of Taliban managed to escape from the prison."
Waheed Mujhda, a Kabul-based expert on the Taliban, said it would have been impossible to dig the tunnel and free hundreds without collaboration with the guards.
"It is either a case of the jailers being financially motivated and being bribed or a case of them being politically motivated," he said.


The security breach comes just months before the start of a transfer of responsibilities from foreign to Afghan forces as Nato troops begin their withdrawal from the country.
Afghan forces will take over from foreign troops in stages and should be in charge of the whole country by 2014.
In 2008, Taliban insurgents blew open the gate of the prison, allowing up to 1,000 prisoners to escape.
Days later, Taliban fighters took many villages close to Kandahar, sparking fierce fighting with the Afghan army.
The Taliban said the tunnel was completed late on Sunday night and hundreds of insurgents escaped over a four-and-a-half hour period.
"Mujahideen later on sent vehicles to the inmates who were led away to secure destinations," said the statement.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said international troops were on standby to provide assistance.
"We have no involvement at this point," said ISAF spokesman Major Michael Johnson in Kabul.
"If we're asked to assist in any capacity, we would certainly be standing by to do that."

At least three people were killed Thursday when part of a mosque collapsed in Morocco.

At least three people were killed Thursday when part of a mosque collapsed in Morocco.

The mosque in the town of Fes had been undergoing renovation and construction workers were working inside of it when it fell to the ground.

A witness said the building started shaking when suddenly a huge chunk of the roof came down.

Dozens of people helped dig for survivors in the rubble.

Tameen office block, the city's tallest building, with a view across Misrata, was captured after relentless pounding by rebel forces. Numerous snipers were either killed or captured.

Rebels in the besieged city of Misrata have won a significant victory by retaking several key buildings that had been occupied by Muammar Gaddafi's forces for over a month.

The Tameen office block, the city's tallest building, with a view across Misrata, was captured after relentless pounding by rebel forces. Numerous snipers were either killed or captured.

Several other buildings nearby were also cleared, leaving the rebels in control of the northern end of Tripoli Street, the city's main thoroughfare, which Gaddafi's forces have been desperate to capture. The snipers had caused havoc in the city after they were sent in on 19 March, picking off civilians and rebels at will, as well as firing missiles from the roof of the buildings into civilian areas.

On Friday morning, rebel forces were moving freely around the area near the Tameen building, which is littered with abandoned tanks, burnt cars and spent ammunition.

Firefighters were cleaning the streets.

"In this area, all the families had to leave because of the threat of the snipers," said Hadi Tantoun, a journalist and rebel. "Capturing this building was very important."

The snipers had been cut off from the rest of Gaddafi's forces for a week or more, unable to receive supplies. Entering the Tameen building through the pitch-black reception, strewn with debris, it was possible to get a glimpse of how they had been living.

Mattresses and blankets indicated that several snipers had been sleeping in the stairwell on the first floor, relatively safe in the centre of the building. Their cooking pots still stood in the atrium area nearby.

The once-smart offices on the sides of the building, whose tenants were mostly insurance agents, had been trashed by the snipers, with files on the floor and upturned sofas.

In some offices, cabinets had been pushed against windows for protection. Many glass panes had been shattered by rebel fire.

"Every night we attacked them with our RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and Kalashnikovs," said Abdula Hafid, 24, a member of the "City Centre" rebel cell that finally liberated the building. "They killed a lot of civilians." On higher floors there were empty tins of tuna and tomato paste, blankets, mattresses and sandals, and a few discarded green uniforms.

According to rebel fighters, the few dozen snipers that still occupied the building this week had changed into civilian clothes before trying to escape down Tripoli Street on Thursday, towards their main base in the vegetable market.

A sniper's chair had been placed under a small window, which offered a view down the main street. Dozens of spent bullet shells and cigarettes littered the floor around the chair.

In an office that had belonged to an architect there were graffiti written in green ink – Gaddafi's colour – in Arabic.

It read: "If we survive, we are warning you gays and dogs. We will not forgive anybody from Misrata. We will fuck your daughters and your wives." One of the rebels had already penned a riposte: "Misrata is strong. We will win in the end."

On the top floor, several Gaddafi soldiers had been sleeping on dirty mattresses next to the elevator works. A torn photograph of a woman – a wife of one of the snipers perhaps – lay on the floor.

On the roof there were thousands of spent bullet shells, and numerous discarded cases of anti-tank missiles that had been fired into the city. Up here the snipers would have had a clear view of the city, and everything that moved down below.

They would have seen the destruction in the area nearby – buildings pockmarked by gunfire, featuring gaping holes where shells had struck, blackened by smoke. Glass and tyres and twisted metal on the streets.

At the foot of the building lay the body of a sniper, covered with a blanket. It had been burned. One of the rebels said that if Gaddafi's forces could not get their dead back to base, they set them on fire.

A few civilians ventured cautiously on to Tripoli Street, which housed some of the city's best coffee shops, several banks, and the Italian-built hotel where Mussolini once stayed.

A rebel with a loudhailer warned them not to try to enter any of the shops: "This is not your property. Even if it is government property, it is for all the people". He then cleared the area, saying it was still dangerous.

The rebels had learned their lesson on Thursday night. After taking over the Tameen building, they dropped their guard while celebrating.

Several fighters were killed, prompting scenes of grief at the main hospital, where brothers, fathers and colleagues of the victims wept and swore to avenge them.

Large explosions and the sound of jets over Tripoli Thursday night indicated NATO has likely increased the intensity of its air strikes on Moammar Gadhafi's key command and control military sites.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, reporting from Libya, heard at least three major explosions.
The alliance has issued a new warning to Libyan civilians to stay away from military areas, foreshadowing plans for attacks on targets seen as strategically significant in stopping the government's attacks against civilians, a NATO military official said Thursday.
The next phase will largely involve increased air strikes on key Gadhafi command, control and communications sites in and around Tripoli, although targets in other areas could be hit as well, said the official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
'Slippery slope' in Libya mission Zawiyah is a ghost town Veteran photojournalist killed in Libya Libya rebels react to Hetherington death
NATO now has the use of armed U.S. Predator drones at its disposal.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates disclosed that the drones saw their first use in Libya Thursday, but poor weather forced them to return.
Unmanned aerial vehicles offer more precise targeting, because their low-flying capability allows for better visibility, "particularly on targets now that have started to dig themselves into defensive positions," Gates said.
The Predators bring "capabilities to the NATO commander that they didn't have before," he said. President Barack Obama approved their use.
Rebels, who have complained that NATO was not being aggressive enough to protect civilians, said Thursday they had gained control of a key border crossing into Tunisia.
The crossing at Wazen, Libya, could prove key to access to the city of Nalut, under siege by Gadhafi's forces for the past month. Thousands have fled the fighting through Wazen to the nearby Tunisian town of Dehiba, where temporary camps have been set up for the displaced.
The Tunisian state-run news agency, TAP, also reported the rebel takeover of Wazen after early morning fighting.
Paris promises made to aid Libya rebels Will NATO jets sway fight for Misrata? UK military in Libya Caught in Libya's crossfire

About 100 forces loyal to Gadhafi, including a high-ranking officer, fled across the border into Tunisia, said Mohammed Ali Abdallah, spokesman for National Front for the Salvation of Libya. He said the rebels detained 14 members of Gadhafi's forces.
TAP reported that 13 Libyan officers have been detained by Tunisian military authorities.
Also Thursday, a third ship chartered by the International Organization for Migration made its way back from the besieged city of Misrata to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in the east.
More than 1,000 rescued migrants were on board, as were the bodies of photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, killed in Misrata on Wednesday, the organization said. The ship also repatriated the body of an Ukrainian doctor.
Several banners were displayed as the Ionian Spirit docked late Thursday in Benghazi.
One read: "We feel for the families of the deceased, your blood was mixed with us in Misrata and with your loss you shared with us the price for freedom." Another said, "US and UK with your loss, you shared with us the price of freedom." Hondros was American and Hetherington had dual British and U.S. citizenship.
Twenty rebel fighters stood in military formation as the vessel arrived.
The reported rebel takeover Thursday of Wazen comes at a time when many are questioning whether a military victory over Gadhafi is possible. France and Italy announced Wednesday that they will send military officers to Libya to advise the rebels.

Tributes have been paid to an award-winning British photographer killed in an apparent mortar attack in the besieged Libyan city of Misrata.

Tim Hetherington, an Oscar-nominated film-maker and conflict photographer, was capturing images of fighting between Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces and Libyan rebels when he was reportedly hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
His American colleague Chris Hondros, 41, was also killed in the attack.
Liverpool-born Mr Hetherington, 41, who worked for Getty Images and lived in New York, had covered conflict zones since the late 1990s.
A number of other journalists, including British photographer Guy Martin, were injured when they were hit by shrapnel.
Mr Martin, a 27-year-old part-time university lecturer from Cornwall, is being treated at a hospital in Misrata, where he is in a critical but stable condition. His family wants him to be medically evacuated but he is not yet well enough to be moved.
Mr Hetherington was a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair magazine and studied at Oxford and Cardiff universities. He had written of the dangerous position he was in on Twitter, saying: "In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Gaddafi forces. No sign of Nato."
In a statement issued through the magazine, his family members said: "It is with great sadness we learned that our son and brother, photographer and film-maker Tim Hetherington, was killed in Misrata, Libya, by a rocket-propelled grenade.
"Tim will be remembered for his amazing images and his Academy Award-nominated documentary Restrepo, which he co-produced with his friend Sebastian Junger. Tim was in Libya to continue his ongoing multimedia project to highlight humanitarian issues during time of war and conflict. He will be forever missed."
Mr Hetherington, who had dual British and American nationality, was best known for his work in Afghanistan and won the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year Award in 2007. His work there led to his creation of the 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo.

US deploys armed drones over Libya

Armed US Predator drones are carrying out missions over Libya, Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said.

Mr Gates said their use had been authorised by President Barack Obama and would give "precision capability" to the military operation.

US drones are already used to target militants along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Libyan rebels have been battling Col Gaddafi's troops since February but have recently made little headway.

"President Obama has said that where we have some unique capabilities, he is willing to use those," Mr Gates told a news conference.

He said two armed, unmanned Predators were being made available to Nato as needed, and marked a "modest contribution" to the military operations.

Mr Gates denied that the drone deployment was evidence of "mission creep" in Libya and said there were still no plans to put US "boots on the ground" in Libya.

"There's no wiggle room in that," he said.

Gen James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first mission had taken place on Thursday but turned back due to bad weather.

He said the drones - which can fly at a lower altitude than conventional fighter jets - were "uniquely suited for urban areas", providing improved visibility of tanks and other potential targets.

 

Tim Hetherington, a leading British photojournalist, has been killed while covering the fighting in the Libyan city of Misurata, the Foreign Office has confirmed.

Tim Hetherington died from a mortar round while on the front line

Mr Hetherington, who had won a World Press Photo of the Year award for his coverage of Afghanistan and had also made prize-winning film documentaries, was said by friends and colleagues to have died from a mortar round while on the front line.
The photographer, who was on assignment for the news agency Panos, is the first known British casualty of the Libyan conflict.
An American colleague, Chris Hondros, who was working for Getty, was reported to be in a critical condition after sustaining brain injuries in the attack. Two other journalists were said to have been injured in the incident.
One of those injured was reported to be Guy Martin, a British photographer with Panos, who was receiving treatment in hospital last night.
The photographers were among a group caught by mortar fire on Tripoli Street, the main thoroughfare leading into the centre of Misurata, according to reports.

Spanish photographer Guillermo Cervera said: “It was quiet and we were trying to get away and then a mortar landed and we heard explosions.”
A colleague who was with them and was at the hospital confirmed the death on a Facebook page, prompting condolences from other foreign correspondents.
Mr Hetherington, 40, who was from Liverpool but had dual British and American nationality, read English literature at Oxford University before becoming a photographer and film-maker.
He spent eight years in West Africa, covering the Liberian and Sierra Leone civil wars there, before working in Afghanistan.
His first film, Restrepo, which covered the lives of a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan, which was last year nominated for an Oscar.
Mr Hondros, 41, had been nominated for a Pulitzer prize in 2004 and also lectured and wrote on war in the United States.
Both men lived in New York.
James Golston of ABC-TV News USA, who worked with Mr Hetherinton on Nightline, a documentary about the war in Afghanistan, described him as “one of the bravest photographers and filmmakers I have ever met”.
He said: "During his shooting for the Nightline specials he very seriously broke his leg on a night march out of a very isolated forward operating base that was under attack.
“He had the strength and character to walk for four hours through the night on his shattered ankle without complaint and under fire, enabling that whole team to reach safety.”
Mr Hetherington last year described some of his experiences in Afghanistan as “pretty traumatic events”.
He said: “The thing about the wars in Afghanistan, they've been known as the ghost wars, you know, because not often does one really see the enemy.”
Mr Hetherington, who is reported to have recently married, wrote on his Twitter profile last night, saying: “In besieged Libyan city of Misurata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of Nato.”
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are offering consular assistance to the family.”

Gaddafi envoy holds talks in Morocco

Morocco hosted a visit by a Libyan deputy foreign minister on Monday, a rare diplomatic link between Muammar Gaddafi's government and one of the staunch allies of the Western coaltion determined to overthrow him.

Morocco has been one of the small number of Arab countries and the only North African state openly involved in talks with Western powers over the Libyan crisis.

State-run 2M television said Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi Fihri met Omran Boukraa, the Libyan deputy foreign minister in charge of Arab relations, in Rabat on Monday.

"(Fihri) ... reiterated Morocco's commitment to full respect for Libya's territorial integrity and national unity ... It is within that spirit that Morocco took part in international meetings in Paris, London and recently in Doha," 2M quoted the foreign ministry as saying in a statement.

Foreign ministers of Western powers and Arab states called at a meeting in Doha last week for Gaddafi to leave power. Britain, France and the United States say they will not end their air campaign in Libya until Gaddafi leaves power.

The Moroccan foreign ministry statement said Boukraa had given "detailed accounts of various aspects of the tragic situation that prevails in Libya".

It added: "Morocco considers that ... the solution can not be military. It can only be political, forward-looking and allowing the Libyan people to democratically determine their future."

The ministry did not say how Boukraa had reached Rabat. Travel from Libya is restricted by a no-fly zone imposed by the coalition.

Fihri said the Moroccan government and people were concerned about "the painful and delicate situation of the Moroccan community in Libya". Moroccan authorities have so far brought home only a few thousand of an estimated 100,000 Moroccan expatriates living in Libya.

Memos show oil motive in Iraq war

Government ministers discussed plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves in the months before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, documents have revealed.

The secret papers, obtained by an oil campaigner and published by The Independent, are minutes of meetings between senior oil executives and Labour cabinet members, and highlight for the first time the hollow nature of Western governments' public denials of national self-interest in the decision to invade Iraq.

The documents, which have not been provided to the continuing Chilcot inquiry into Britain's involvement in the Iraq war, appear to contradict statements made by Shell in 2003, just before the invasion, that reports of meetings between the oil giant and Downing Street about Iraqi oil were ''highly inaccurate''.


BP also denied it had any ''strategic interest'' in Iraq, while the then prime minister, Tony Blair, dismissed what he called ''the oil conspiracy theory'' as absurd.

The published papers cover October and November 2002 and show that just five months before the invasion, Baroness Symons, then the British trade minister, told BP that the government believed British energy firms should take a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Mr Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The minutes reveal that she also agreed to lobby the Bush administration on behalf of BP because it feared being ''locked out'' of discussions and deals purportedly being thrashed out between the US, France and Russia, and their oil companies.

''Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis,'' one minute, from October 2002, said.

The minister pledged to report back before Christmas on her lobbying campaign.

In November the same year the British Foreign Office invited BP to discuss opportunities posed by ''regime change'', describing Iraq as the big oil prospect and noting that ''BP is desperate to go there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity''.

Another minute quotes Edward Chaplin, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, who noted that Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in Iraq for the sake of their long-term futures, adding that ''we were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq''.

Uncovering the documents, obtained under freedom-of-information laws, was the result of five years' work by an oil campaigner, Greg Muttitt, and show that at least five high-level meetings were held on the topic in late 2002.

Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on Fire is published next week, said that before the war the British government went to great lengths to deny any interest in Iraq's oil.

''These documents provide the evidence that gives the lie to those claims.''

Since the invasion the 20-year contracts signed have been described as the biggest in the history of the oil industry, covering half of Iraq's reserves.

The Independent said this stake, representing about 60 billion barrels of oil, was bought up by companies including BP and the China National Petroleum Corporation, whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403 million ($623 million) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

 

British military personnel will be sent to Libya

At least ten senior officers will be sent to Benghazi to try to forge the rebels trying to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi into a credible fighting force.
Ministers insisted that deploying the “military liaison advisory team” was not a sign of mission creep, but MPs of all parties said the move showed Britain is being dragged ever deeper into a Libyan civil war.
The announcement came after David Cameron urged Cabinet ministers to draw up new measures to help the rebels break the military deadlock in Libya.
After more than a month of air strikes, the rebels have failed to make significant progress against Col Gaddafi. British commanders have told the Prime Minister that the rebels lack the organisation to challenge the dictator’s forces.
Mr Cameron, who personally led international efforts to launch the Libyan intervention, is said to be becoming “increasingly impatient” and anxious about the stalemate.

 

Migrant train delay causes European diplomatic rift

The Italian and French governments were both trying to defuse an escalating diplomatic row Monday after France refused entry to a train carrying North African migrants from Italy.
Italy complained to France on Sunday after authorities blocked a train with Tunisian migrants from the border city of Ventimiglia entering Menton on the Cote d'Azur. The Tunisians had been issued resident permits by Italy, allowing them to travel freely in many European countries.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said Monday in Bucharest that France did not want any continuing tensions with Rome regarding the train incident.
Gueant said Rome's decision to give temporary resident permits to more than 25,000 Tunisian migrants arriving in Italy since January had been "heavily contested by many countries in the European Union."
Gadhafi accused of using illegal weapons Inside Libya's rebel movement Gadhafi rallies support in Tripoli 'Rebel rap' in Libya


Some 300 French and Italian protestors from a group named "Train for dignity," were also aboard the train in a show of support for the 60 Tunisians who were hoping to enter France.
Gueant said that although France accepted this decision, there were conditions - namely that the migrants had to prove they could support themselves financially.
Since the mass political unrest started in North Africa and other Arab states in January, a large number people have fled Tunisia and Libya to Europe, where governments have been trying to prevent a refugee crisis.
Italy's coast guard said at least 1,623 migrants landed on the island of Lampedusa over a 24-hour period in mid-March alone.
Italy's foreign minister has estimated that as many as 300,000 Libyans could try to leave and could potentially end up in his country.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said Saturday that it had evacuated nearly 100 people by boat from Misrata in Libya and on Monday the UK Department for International Development (DFID) said that it would help 5,000 migrants trapped by fighting in western Libya.
The DFID said £1.5 million ($2.43 million) would be made available to charter ships to get people out of the rebel-held town of Misrata and transfer them to Benghazi.
Andrew Mitchell, the UK International Development Secretary, said his department would help fund their evacuation in ships chartered by the International Organization for Migration, which says the majority of unauthorized immigrants arriving in Lampedusa are Tunisian.
Italy for its part has issued temporary resident permits to thousands of Tunisian migrants and the country on Sunday said it was angered after trains were stopped at the border for around six hours until traffic resumed later that evening.
However, at a briefing with journalists Monday, a spokesman for the Italian Foreign Minister Maurizio Massari, tried to play down the issue: "The situation was clarified and the incident resolved yesterday (Sunday). On the immigration issue, there is a continuous dialogue taking place between the Interior Ministers of the two countries to deal with the problem. We are working together. There is no tension. We are working together to find steps to take to solve the immigration problem.'
According to a spokesman for the French Interior Ministry the border was never closed but circulation was "temporarily halted in order to avoid any risk of an accident," because of an unauthorized protest in support of the Tunisian migrants.
Claude Gueant insisted that France had respected the Schengen agreements to the letter and a first analysis by the European commission on Monday showed that France's decision to stop the trains was in line with the Schengen rules.
The Schengen agreement allows people to travel between 25 European countries without the need of a passport.

. "Gaddafi is a cunning devil," confided one Whitehall deep throat. "Anything is possible."

Muammar Gaddafi has always flaunted the Great Man-Made River project as one of the many wonders of his 41-year rule – and as one of the wonders of the modern world. The largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, costing a whopping $33bn, it extracts water from beneath the Sahara at a depth of 1,600 to 2,500ft, purifies it and transports it to the Mediterranean coast where most of Libya's 6.5m people live. But are its huge concrete tunnels also coming in handy to keep Libyan tanks and missiles out of sight of Nato air attacks?

Not surprisingly, the Atlantic alliance is reluctant to reveal too much of what it knows about Libyan deployments. It claims to have already destroyed about a third of Gaddafi's military capabilities – though officials in Tripoli insist there is still plenty of lethal hardware left. Nato's biggest public beef is that the regime's armour and rocket launchers are being deliberately positioned in civilian areas next to mosques, schools and hospitals – especially in the besieged coastal city of Misrata – inhibiting air allied attacks for fear of causing "collateral damage". But western intelligence officials have now suggested that the concealment of heavy weapons in the 15ft-wide tunnels is causing them problems – not least because strategic targets like these, which Britain and France would like to hit, fall outside what was agreed by the UN security council to protect Libyan civilians.

Claims of weapons and, according to some reports, gold bullion hidden in the GMMR's tunnels conjures up a Bond villain-type scenario. But there is evidence that Gaddafi has gone underground before. In the mid-1990s facilities built by North Korean workers at Tarhuna, 50 miles south-east of Tripoli, were used to house chemical weapons factories in the side of a mountain and were protected by a thick layer of reinforced concrete. Libya claimed at the time that those tunnels were innocent and formed part of the GMMR.

Earlier this month, the Libyan government warned that Nato attacks on the project could result in a humanitarian disaster, especially in the area between Sirte and Benghazi, where water networks and gas pipelines overlap and many raids have taken place. So there will be alarm in Tripoli at suggestions that Libya's pride could now become a legitimate military target – and perhaps a suspicion that psychological warfare is being waged by Nato. "Gaddafi is a cunning devil," confided one Whitehall deep throat. "Anything is possible."

Fierce fighting kills 17 in Libya

Under intense shelling and sniper fire, rebels in Misrata, their last major foothold in western Libya, fought Muammar Gaddafi's forces in close-quarter battles in the city centre.
Seventeen people were killed, a non-governmental organisation worker and an opposition activist said.
Government troops have been laying siege to the city on Libya's Mediterranean coast for weeks, prompting repeated international warnings of a dire humanitarian situation as well as calls for Nato forces to intensify air strikes on Gaddafi's forces there.
On Sunday government troops who have pushed into the city centre from the outskirts in recent days pounded Misrata with mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades, said resident Abdel-Salam.
Rebels fought government forces from an area around a central produce market, regaining a small sliver of territory, said Rida al-Montasser, a local activist. He said a hospital report that he received from a doctor, showed 17 people, including rebels, were killed and 74 others injured. He said Gaddafi forces had fired at the city's hospital on Sunday.
A worker for a foreign NGO who visited the hospital also said 17 bodies were brought in, including that of a girl shot in the head. Other children who had been shot were among the wounded, he said, speaking anonymously because he feared for his safety.
The Nato-led air campaign authorised by the United Nations to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone has failed to stop government shelling that, according to residents and witnesses, has hit Misrata's hospital, the port and residential areas.
The international air strikes have kept rebels from being defeated on the battlefield by the better trained and equipped government forces, but it still has not been enough to turn the tide in the war. In the eastern half of Libya, rebels in control of most of that part of the country since the uprising began on February 15 have been unable to advance westward toward the capital.
The Libyan government has come under sharp international criticism for its assault on Misrata and has been accused by human rights groups of using heavy weapons, including shells, missiles and cluster bombs. Such bombs can cause indiscriminate casualties and have been banned by many countries.
In Tripoli, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim denied the allegations on Sunday, telling a small gathering of foreign diplomats: "Don't believe the lies."

 

Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have continued their heavy bombardment of residential areas of Misrata

Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have continued their heavy bombardment of residential areas of Misrata amid mounting concern that the army has fired cluster bombs into the besieged rebel stronghold.

At least 100 Soviet-designed Grad rocket rockets were fired into the eastern city today, a rebel spokesman said. "They fired Grads at an industrial area this morning, at least one hundred rockets were fired. No casualties are reported," Abdelbasset Abu Mzereiq told Reuters.

The Grad, which launches multiple rockets from mobile launchers, has been blamed for a number of civilian deaths in recent days. More than 100 of the rockets landed in the city yesterday as pro-Gaddafi forces reached the city centre, the rebels said.

"Witnesses said they saw pro-Gaddafi soldiers on foot in the city centre today. Except for snipers, they usually stay in their tanks and armoured vehicles," the rebel spokesman added.

The intensifying bombardment came as Human Rights Watch reported that four cluster bombs exploded in the city yesterday and on Thursday, and two Libyan residents of Misrata told the Guardian that they suspected the munitions, banned in most countries, were being used. Cluster bombs explode in midair, indiscriminately throwing out dozens of high-explosive bomblets which cause damage and injuries over a large area. The submunitions often fail to explode on impact but detonate when stepped on or picked up.

Pro-Gaddafi authorities said a Red Cross team had arrived in Misrata to assess the situation at the invitation of the government. "The Libyan army took them to a specific place into the city and the Red Cross went to the other side [the one controlled by the opposition]," said government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim.

The team would issue a report on its preliminary findings, he added. The team was invited before the use of cluster bombs was reported.

The worsening seige of the rebel stronghold follows a commitment by the leaders of US, Britain and France to pursue military action until Colonel Gaddafi has been removed from power. In a joint letter yesterday, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy described the onslaught on Misrata as a "medieval siege … to strangle its population into submission".

The former head of the UK's armed forces, Lord Dannatt, urged the international coalition to seek a fresh UN security council resolution specifically authorising the training and arming of the rebels, warning that a stalemate would create a vacuum likely to be filled by Islamist extremists.

"We want to act within the law, within international agreement and therefore we should be arguing the case to not accept a stalemate, not to put our own boots on the ground, but to properly arm those boots that are on the ground.

"They are Libyan boots. Let the Libyan people have the wherewithal to choose a new government for themselves," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"We have got to move this one on, we have got to be innovative about the way we do it. I have thought about it long and hard: go back to New York, get a strengthened UN security council resolution and arm, equip and train the opposition."

The use of cluster bombs had further weakened Gaddafi's position, Dannatt added. "If we thought that Gaddafi had lost the moral right to rule this country a month ago, he has lost it in the last 24 hours, that's for sure."