NATO strikes target compound Gaddafi: witnesses

TRIPOLI  - NATO carried out a number of attacks of missiles on targets in the region of Tripoli Tuesday that appeared to include leader compound Libyan Muammar Gaddafi, said witnesses.

Gaddafi is not appeared publicly since April 30, when an air strike by NATO on a house in the capital killed his youngest son and three grandchildren.

Libyan officials said four children were wounded, two of them seriously, by shrapnel of glass caused by explosions of NATO strikes in the region of Tripoli of the day to the next day.

Officials showed foreign journalists a hospital in the Libyan capital, where some Windows were reeling, apparently because of the waves from the explosion of a NATO strike that toppled a nearby communications tower.

Journalists have also been taken to a government building housing the High Commission for children which had been completely destroyed. The old colonial building had been damaged before what officials said was a NATO bombardment on April 30.

"The direction of at least an explosion suggests composed of Gaddafi has been taken to target," said a witness.

No other information is immediately available. But Tripoli explosions occurred on a backdrop of an impasse in the insurgency to unseat Gaddafi and the dilemma resulting for the Western powers on the desirability to provide clandestine aid to the rebels.

Monday, said rebels deposits of weapons of NATO bombed Government four times in the day, about 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Zintan, a town in the region of the Western mountains near Tunisia, where the conflict intensifies.

"The site has a few underground hangars 72 in reinforced concrete." We do not know how many have been destroyed. But every time that the aircraft struck, we have heard multiple explosions, a spokesman for the rebels, who gave his name as Abdulrahman said by telephone.

An another rebel spokesman said aircraft also struck around Tamina Chantine, East of Misrata, where the besieged rebels hang on in the last city they control in the West of the Libya.

The forces of Gaddafi led a fierce attack on Misrata, and hundreds have been killed in weeks of fighting.

Brnieq said rebel Libyan opposition newspaper were leading an uprising in the suburbs of Tripoli after being supplied with arms by agents of the security cancellation of the registration service.

The report on the Web site of the log cannot be verified independently. A Reuters reporter said he could not hear shots and a government official denied the report.

After two months of uprisings this year conflicts in other countries Arab, rebels take Benghazi and other towns in the East while the Government controls the capital and most of the West of the State in North Africa.

The Government says that most Libyan support Kadhafi, the rebels are armed criminals and militants for al-Qaeda and NATO intervention is an act of colonial aggression by the Western powers eager to steal oil reserves of the country.

Reinforced Libyan State television this point of view, saying NATO warships bombarded ""military and civilian targets"in Misrata and in the nearby town of Zlitan Monday."

WESTERN DILEMMA

The military stalemate confronts allies, including Britain, the United States and the France with a choice on whether to exploit loopholes in the sanctions regime, that they designed in February and March to help the rebels, analysts and diplomats of the Nations United said.

Another option would be to circumvent sanctions secretly, but both courts risk angering the Russia and China. They exercise a veto of the United Nations Security Council and are more critical of the NATO operations under a resolution to protect civilians.

The rebels are facing a Government with the superior firepower and resources, but they reported a financial breakthrough Monday, selling oil for $ 100 million paid by a bank Qatar in U.S. dollars.

A rebel military commander said its fighters killed 57 troops and destroyed 17 military vehicles during a major battle in the West of the city held the insurgents of Ajdabiya Monday.

The Commander, which the statement could not be verified immediately, also told Al Jazeera television two rebels were killed in the fighting at halfway between Ajdabiya and Brega oil port, where Gaddafi forces are entrenched.

In view of the failure of the rebels their main target, the war of failover Gaddafi focuses on a Libyan border near the Tunisian town of Dehiba, Zintan and Misrata.

Two rebel spokesman Misrata spoke of intense fighting in the city and the airport of its strategic importance.

Rebels were trying to extinguish fires at a Government fuel storage depot bombed Friday.

A ship chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived in Misrata, providing medical supplies, baby food and spare parts to repair water and electrical systems.

The war has killed thousands and caused significant suffering, not less than tens of thousands of economic migrants from sub-Saharan Africa forced to flee by land or by boat.

Dozens have died trying to reach the Italy and migration creates not only the possibility of a humanitarian crisis, but also poses political headache for the NATO and the European Union.

Witnesses: Kill Syrian forces 30 demonstrators (AP)

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By ZEINA KARAM and ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Zeina Karam And Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press – 6?mins?ago

BEIRUT – Syrian security forces opened fire Friday on thousands of protesters demanding regime change, killing more than 30 people in a sign that President Bashar Assad is prepared to ride out a wave of rapidly escalating international outrage.

The U.N. said it is sending a team into Syria to investigate and the European Union is expected to place sanctions on Syrian officials next week — both significant blows to Assad, a British-educated, self-styled reformer who has tried to bring Syria back into the global mainstream over his 11 years in power.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. was pressing the Syrian government to cease "violence against innocent citizens who are simply demonstrating and trying to state their aspirations for a more democratic future."

Friday's protests spanned the nation of 23 million, from the capital to the Mediterranean coast and the arid northeast. The bloodshed was the latest spasm in what has become a weekly cycle of mass protests followed by a swift and deadly crackdown.

But pressure was mounting on Assad, who insists the unrest is a foreign conspiracy carried out by "terrorist groups." More than 580 civilians and 100 soldiers have been killed since the revolt began, rights groups say.

"What it looks like here is a systematic attack on a civilian population, a political decision to shoot to kill unarmed demonstrators and that could very well be a crime against humanity," Human Rights Watch counsel Reed Brody told AP Television News.

Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, is determined to crush the revolt that has now become the gravest challenge to his family's 40-year dynasty.

He has tried a combination of brute force, intimidation and promises of reform to crush the unrest, but his attempts have failed so far.

Still, Syria is a highly unpredictable country, in part because of its sizable minority population, the loyalty of the military and the regime's web of allegiances to powerful forces including Lebanon's Hezbollah and Shiite powerhouse Iran.

Serious and prolonged unrest are likely to hurt the regime's proxy in Lebanon — Hezbollah — and weaken Iran's influence in the Arab world.

Even as protests were raging on Friday, Syria's prime minister announced the formation of a committee to study ways to combat corruption. In the past, the overtures would have been seen as significant concessions. But protesters were largely unmoved, inspired by the uprisings sweeping the Arab world and enraged at the mounting death toll in Syria.

Now, the protesters are seeking the downfall of the regime.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets Friday despite a security chokehold on the most volatile areas along with a stepped-up intimidation campaign.

"The regime has resorted to scare tactics used by Assad's father in the 1980s," said Radwan Ziadeh, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.

Assad's father, Hafez Assad, kept Syria under rigid control for three decades. His most notorious act was crushing a Sunni uprising in 1982 by shelling the town of Hama, killing 10,000 to 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates. Conflicting figures exist and the Syrian government has made no official estimate.

But for the next two decades, until his death, Hafez Assad ruled uncontested and the massacre was seared into the minds of Syrians.

Though Bashar Assad has not done anything on the scale of the Hama massacre in his 11 years in power, his crackdown has evoked memories of his father's brutal legacy.

The tactics include a policy of "collective punishment" by arresting entire families to pressure their relatives into turning themselves in. The regime also has turned flashpoint areas into security zones, flooded with soldiers, tanks and snipers.

But Ziadeh said the mere fact that people staged protests despite all these measures shows that the regime's strategy is backfiring.

"They may have succeeded in suppressing the protest movement for a while, but in the long run, these tactics will only backfire," he said. "The regime is damaged and it will be very hard for it to stay in power."

Rallies were held in major areas including the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs, Banias on the coast and Qamishli in the northeast.

A prominent human rights activist told The Associated Press that 30 people were killed Friday, all of them protesters.

The toll included 15 people in Homs, six in Hama, five in the seaside city of Latakia and one in Deir El-Zour, the activist said. He asked that his name not be published out of fear for his personal safety.

A resident of Saqba, a suburb of Damascus, said security forces shot and killed a man riding a motorcycle as he approached a checkpoint.

"They fired so many bullets, around seven ... Then they took the body, put it in a van and washed away the blood on the street," the resident said, who also requested anonymity for security reasons.

Footage posted on YouTube showed protesters in Hama frantically trying to resuscitate a man lying on the ground with a bloodied face and shirt, while people shouted "God is great!"

State-run television said an army officer and four policemen were shot dead by a "terrorist group" in Homs. It did not elaborate.

"We were chanting, peaceful, peaceful, and we didn't even throw a stone at the security forces," said a witness in Homs, who said some 10,000 people were in the streets. "But they waited for us to reach the main square and then they opened fire on us."

Gunshots rang out even after the protesters dispersed, said the witness, who like other activists spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

"The bullets are like rain," he said. "Everyone is terrified."

Syrian authorities also detained Riad Seif, a leading opposition figure and former lawmaker who has been an outspoken critic of the regime during the uprising, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Amnesty International said at least a dozen prominent rights and political activists in Syria have been forced into hiding after receiving direct threats of violence and arrests from authorities. They include opposition figures Haytham al-Maleh and Walid al-Bunni and the son and daughter of Kamal Labwani, who is a political prisoner.

In the Damascus suburb of Douma, scene of intense protests over recent weeks, security forces cordoned off the area to prevent anyone from entering or leaving.

A witness near Douma said he saw a train carrying about 15 army tanks heading north Thursday evening toward the central province of Homs.

Another activist in Damascus said hundreds of people marched in the central neighborhood of Midan. In Banias, witnesses said more than 5,000 people carrying olive branches and Syrian flags also were calling for regime change.

"Our morale is high, they cannot stop us no matter what they do and how many people they arrest," he said.

In the southern city of Daraa, where the army announced the end to an 11-day military operation Thursday, residents said troops were still in the streets, causing many to stay from a protest there on Friday.

"There's a tank stationed at each corner in Daraa. There is no way people can hold a protest today," a resident said by telephone. "It means more killing. Daraa is taking a break. We don't want to see more killing or face tank guns."

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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Maggie Michael and Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Zeina Karam can be reached at http://twitter.com/zkaram

Bassem Mroue can be reached at http://twitter.com/bmroue