{"id":427298,"date":"2011-05-20T10:36:21","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T10:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/05\/20\/nato-strikes-hit-libyan-warships\/"},"modified":"2011-05-20T10:36:21","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T10:36:21","slug":"nato-strikes-hit-libyan-warships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/05\/20\/nato-strikes-hit-libyan-warships\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO strikes ‘hit Libyan warships’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The NATO military alliance says it has\u00a0sunk eight warships belonging to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.<\/p>\n

The ships were targeted in co-ordinated overnight attacks on the ports of Tripoli, Al Khums and Sirte, the alliance announced on Friday.<\/p>\n

The deputy commander of the NATO mission in Libya said the air strikes were needed to protect civilians and NATO forces at sea.<\/p>\n

Shelling was also\u00a0heard in the Ghabat al-Qasr neighbourhood of the capital, Tripoli, in the early hours of Friday.<\/p>\n

NATO, acting under a UN mandate, has been carrying out air strikes on\u00a0Libya since Gaddafi used force to put down a revolt inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.<\/p>\n

In some of the latest strikes, NATO hit Gaddafi’s forces around 15km east of the opposition-held town of Zintan in the Western Mountains region. The town and the port city of Misurata have seen some of the heaviest fighting in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

‘Weakening’ Gaddafi<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary-general,\u00a0said the ongoing strikes have helped to weaken Gaddafi’s hold on power in Libya and will eventually topple him.<\/p>\n

“We have significantly degraded Gaddafi’s war machine. And now we see results, the opposition has gained ground,”\u00a0he told a news conference in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“I am confident that a\u00a0combination of strong military pressure and increased political pressure and support for the opposition will eventually lead to the collapse of the regime.”<\/p>\n

He also\u00a0stressed that the\u00a0NATO mission was restricted to enforcing a UN-mandated no-fly zone and that there were no plans for alliance troops to set foot on Libyan soil.<\/p>\n

Libyan officials, however, have described the NATO intervention as an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya’s oil.<\/p>\n

‘Decades of provocation’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rasmussen\u2019s comments were echoed by US president Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

“Time is working against Gaddafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organised a legitimate and credible interim council,” Obama said in Washington on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“When Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed,” he said, defending his decision to take military action against the Libyan leader’s government.<\/p>\n

But Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim criticised the US president’s remarks, saying “Obama is still delusional”.<\/p>\n

“It is not Obama who decides whether Muammar Gaddafi\u00a0leaves Libya or not, it is the Libyan people who decide their future,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim also said the government is offering to withdraw their fighters from cities if\u00a0opposition fighters\u00a0do the same, as part of a peace deal. He said that a Libyan envoy made the offer while meeting Russian leaders in Moscow\u00a0on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The spokesman added that the offer was the furthest the government had gone since fighting broke out against rebels seeking to overthrow the Gaddafi-led government.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim\u00a0said as part of the deal, NATO would also have to halt its strikes of Libyan targets.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate comment from opposition\u00a0leaders based in the eastern city of Benghazi.<\/p>\n

Opposition forces control eastern Libya and pockets in the west, but the conflict has effectively reached a stalemate in military terms, with opposition attempts to advance on Tripoli, Gaddafi’s stronghold, stalled.<\/p>\n

However, the conflict has claimed the lives of thousands, according to rights groups. Numerous media workers have also died, with a South African photographer being the latest casualty.<\/p>\n

A statement on a social networking site by the family of Anton Hammerl, a freelance photographer who had been missing in Libya for more than a month, said\u00a0they learned he had been killed on April 5 by pro-Gaddafi forces.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the family said Hammerl had been killed in an “extremely remote location” and injured to a degree that “he could not have survived without medical attention”.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Read More:
\nNATO strikes ‘hit Libyan warships’<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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