Oorlog in Libië #93: De slag om Tripoli laat niet lang op zich wachten

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 20:59 schreef MangoTree het volgende:

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Omdat je denkt dat er geen anti-G zit?

Ik vermoed/hoop heel veel.

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:13 schreef Hans_van_Baalen het volgende:

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Doelde op de snipers eigenlijk. Bepaalde gebouwen zullen helemaal vol zitten met pro's en die zul je moeten bestormen, of het hele gebouw opblazen. Het laatste lijkt me niet echt iets wat de rebellen kunnen bereiken met hun wapens.

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(CNN) -- She burst into a Tripoli, Libya, hotel over the weekend, pleading with journalists to tell the world that she was raped by government troops. As security forces subdued the screaming woman and dragged her away, she warned, "If you don't see me tomorrow, then that's it."

Two days later, reporters have not seen Eman al-Obeidy.

The same government that took her away is insisting she is fine. But reporters and human rights activists have not been able to see her, and her whereabouts are unclear. Verder.

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:27 schreef zoefbust het volgende:
er zijn 4 b-1b 's geland op Malta
[ afbeelding ]

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 15:38 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:45 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Dat is vreemd, waarom zou je lange afstandsbommenwerpers zo dichtbij stationeren?

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:45 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Dat is vreemd, waarom zou je lange afstandsbommenwerpers zo dichtbij stationeren?

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:47 schreef zoefbust het volgende:

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Die kunnen van allerlei soorten bommen meenemen
is denk ik de opvolger van de B 52

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:48 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Ja is het ook, maar die dingen vliegen normaal vanuit Engeland of zelfs de VS.

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:48 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Ja is het ook, maar die dingen vliegen normaal vanuit Engeland of zelfs de VS.

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:45 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Dat is vreemd, waarom zou je lange afstandsbommenwerpers zo dichtbij stationeren?

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:50 schreef zoefbust het volgende:

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deze komen uit Ellsworth AFB US

Several B-1B Lancer bombers left Ellsworth AFB US for joining a mission in Libya. Heard callsigns BONE 34, 35, 36, 37. While Atlantic BONE 34 was the lead flight in contact with Gander and Santa Maria AOC, finally heading waypoint KOMUT 38°0'0N 15°0'0W.

At 01:08 UTC the lead B-1B bomber BONE 34 contacted Malta ACC on 130.975 MHz before going tactical.

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:52 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Daar staat nergens dat ze gaan landen op Malta

En ow ja, ze noemen die dingen Bone, B-One, B-1

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:57 schreef zoefbust het volgende:

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Dat ze gaan landen stond wel ergens (zal kijken of ik dat nog kan vinden)
maar misschien vliegen ze wel terug maar dat lijkt me niet .
Ze kunnen nl ook in de lucht bijgetankt worden

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:53 schreef Mr_Memory het volgende:
Nog nieuws over Sirte, of is dat nog een brug te ver.

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Libyan rebels halted in advance on Sirte

Rebel Libyan forces were halted about 50 miles from Sirte on Monday as Britain and France called on Gaddafi's supporters to desert "before it is too late".

Revolutionary forces had advanced more than 150 miles in two days, helped by coalition air strikes, breaking the stalemate at Ajdabiya and paving the way for hundreds of men to stream forward along Libya's coastal road.

But despite a Libyan rebel claim that Sirte had been captured, there was no sign on Monday that the opposition was in control of the city, which marks the boundary between the east and west of Libya and has great symbolic importance as Gaddafi's home city.

Instead, pro-Gaddafi troops in Sirte were being rallied by forces travelling east from Tripoli and other strongholds in 4x4 vehicles with light weaponry mounted on the rear, a break from the heavier artillery used so far by Gaddafi's forces, which has been picked off with relative ease by coalition air strikes.

After another wave of air strikes targeted Sirte on Sunday night and Monday morning, a joint statement was issued by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy. They said Gaddafi loyalists should abandon the dictator and side with those seeking his departure.

"We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late," the British and French prime ministers said. "We call on all Libyans who believe that Gaddafi is leading Libya into a disaster to take the initiative now to organise a transition process."

They pledged that military operations would end "only when the civilian population are safe and secure from the threat of attack".

The current regime has "completely lost its legitimacy" and Gaddafi must "go immediately", the statement said.

Cameron earlier revealed in the Commons RAF pilots had flown more than 120 sorties and completed more than 250 hours of flight as part of the action in the country.

However, the US military warned that the rebels' advance could be quickly reversed without continued coalition bombing. "The regime still vastly overmatches opposition forces militarily," General Carter F Ham, the highest-ranking American in the coalition operation, told the New York Times via email. "The regime possesses the capability to roll them back very quickly. Coalition air power is the major reason that has not happened."

His warning came as coalition forces appeared to ratchet up the number of air strikes against Gaddafi forces. Defence officials say the higher tempo is the result of more intelligence surveillance and assessments from reconnaissance aircraft but they warn aerial bombardment is getting more problematic because priority targets are increasingly in urban areas. "Obviously it is more difficult in an urban environment," officials said.

British defence officials said they believed the rules of engagement may be made much more restrictive when Nato takes responsibility for the coalition's military operations, probably by Thursday. The attacks have been criticised by Russia as "intervention in a civil war" on the side of the rebels.

On the ground, the area around Sirte was quiet after heavy bombardment from before dawn and there was no sign it had been taken by the Benghazi-based rebels advancing from the east. It is rumoured that the outskirts have been planted with landmines.

Rebels retook the important oil towns of Brega, Ras Lanuf and Ben Jawad, and continued on the open desert road towards Sirte, about 95 miles away.

A doctor treating wounded government soldiers described hundreds of deaths, terrible injuries and collapsing morale.

The Guardian advanced to the outskirts of Sirte with the rebels from Benghazi who were able to move with no opposition, simply driving along Libya's coastal road as Gaddafi's forces pulled back.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Cameron paid tribute to the "skilful and dangerous work" performed by pilots, who he said had destroyed 22 of Gaddafi's tanks, armoured vehicles and heavy guns over the weekend and flown into the desert on Monday morning to target ammunition bunkers.

The prime minister said the allied operations to protect civilians in Libya had had a "significant and beneficial effect" over the last 10 days, stopping the assault on Benghazi and helping "to create conditions in which a number of towns have been liberated from Gaddafi's onslaught".

In Sabha, in south Libya, one Libyan witness said there was a first air strike at about 2.30am followed, about two hours later, by a bigger attack on an ammunitions bunker about seven miles away from the centre.

"It hit the ammunitions storage and it kept exploding because it activated all the other bombs. I've never seen anything like that except in the movies. There was no fighting here - it was a very quiet city," he said.

"I looked out of my window and it looked like a mushroom with fire. It was a shock. There was a strike before but it was just noise and vibration. This one was worse and it kept going for more than three hours. People were running out of their houses because the windows were shattered and doors cleared out."

On Monday morning, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, criticised the attacks on loyalist forces by coalition aircraft. "We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the UN security council resolution," Lavrov said.

In Tripoli, the parents of a Libyan woman who claimed she was detained and raped by Gaddafi's forces said their daughter was being held at the Libyan leader's compound.

Iman al-Obeidi entered a hotel where many foreign journalists were staying in the Libyan capital on Saturday, saying she had been raped by 15 men over two days. She was bundled into a car by Libyan officials and driven off. The Libyan government later said she had been released, but her parents told al-Jazeera TV that their daughter was still being detained.

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Huge protest for #LIBYA TMRW outside the British Foreign Ministry @ junction btwn Whitehall&King Charles st 1-3PM #feb17 RT!!

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 21:58 schreef remlof het volgende:

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Die vliegen terug hoor, die landen alleen op Malta als ze zware averij hebben, want zelfs dan zullen ze nog proberen een NAVO basis in Italië te halen.

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 22:17 schreef zoefbust het volgende:
Daar gaan er weer een paar

USS Stout (DDG 55) Launches Tomahawk Missiles in Support of Operation Odyssey Dawn

USS Stout (DDG 55) Launches Tomahawk Missiles in Support of Operation Odyssey Dawn

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 22:30 schreef zoefbust het volgende:
Er was ook nog een Mystery flight 10 dagen geleden

While the United Nation Security Council was voting on the No-Fly-Zone for Libya, this Bombardier BD-700 tail nr N799WW was heading to Tripoli Airport International. During contact with Malta ACC the flight was scrubbed by Tipoli ACC. Therefore N799WW contacted Tripoli ACC direct on 120.900 MHz and was cleared for landing at Mitiga Airport. At 22:30 UTC this flight was airborne again from Mitiga and departed via Malta and Italy to an unknown destination...

The N799WW Mystery: CIA Linked Plane Left Libya On Eve Of Action

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Political Scrapbook
March 25, 2011

What exactly was a CIA-linked jet doing landing in Tripoli as the UN Security Council met to approve military action? Exchanges with air traffic control recorded by amateur radio hams show a plane with registration N799WW was cleared for landing at Mitiga International Airport 11km east of Tripoli on the evening of 17 March.

The Bombardier BD-700 plane is registered to Wells Fargo Bank Northwest NA, a subsidiary of US superbank Wells Fargo & Company. What has set tongues wagging is that the same subsidiary is the trustee for a Raytheon Hawker aircraft with a tail number N168BF which was allegedly used for extraordinary rendition flights by the CIA.
At 22:30 UTC this flight was airborne again from Mitiga and departed via Malta and Italy to an unknown destination, rumoured to be Luton.

[ afbeelding ]

http://www.prisonplanet.c(...)n-eve-of-action.html

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Interessant verhaal

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 22:12 schreef yavanna het volgende:
Pentagon: "US role changing to one of support. USS Providence sub re-tasked elsewhere"

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Op maandag 28 maart 2011 22:38 schreef zoefbust het volgende:
Dit is het toestel

[ afbeelding ]

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28 Mar 2011 20:21 Source: reuters // Reuters

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - The coalition enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya carried out strikes against the command headquarters of one of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's most loyal units, which has been one of the most active attacking civilians, U.S. Admiral Bill Gortney said on Monday.

Gortney, the director of the U.S. military's Joint Staff, told reporters the coalition had fired six Tomahawk cruise missiles in the past 24 hours and had carried out 178 air sorties, most of them strike-related aimed at Gaddafi's military.

He said the U.S. had no confirmed report of any civilian casualty caused by coalition forces since it began enforcing a U.N. resolution authorizing military action to protect Libyan civilians from attacks by Gaddafi's forces.

(Reporting by Missy Ryan, Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Diplomats discuss Libya's future as Italy plots Gaddafi's escape route

Rome is negotiating an African haven for the Libyan leader as international pressure mounts on him to go

Belgian Defence Minister De Crem at Araxos airbase Belgian defence minister Pieter De Crem by a Belgian F16 fighter at Araxos, Greece. Diplomatic pressure on Gaddafi to go is mounting. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

Efforts appear to be under way to offer Muammar Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya, with Italy saying it is trying to organise an African haven for him, and the US signalling it will not try to stop the dictator from fleeing.

The move came as diplomatic and military pressure on Gaddafi mounts as Britain tries to assemble a global consensus demanding he surrender power while intensifying air strikes against his forces.

Britain will be hosting an international conference including the UN, Arab states, the African Union, and more than 40 foreign ministers, focused on coordinating assistance in the face of a possible humanitarian disaster, and building a unified international front in condemnation of the Gaddafi regime and in support of a Nato-led military action in Libya.

On the eve of the London conference, Italy offered to broker a ceasefire deal in Libya, involving asylum for Gaddafi in an African country. "Gaddafi must understand that it would be an act of courage to say: 'I understand that I have to go'," said the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini. "We hope that the African Union can find a valid proposal."

A senior American official signalled that a solution in which Gaddafi flee to a country beyond the reach of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating war crimes charges against him, would be acceptable to Washington, pointing out that Barack Obama had repeatedly called on Gaddafi to leave.

"I can't say I know of active efforts to find him a place to go, but I would not say it has been ruled out," the official said. "The ICC has said it will ready to pursue the case, but there are also the rules of the ICC," he added, pointing out that some countries do not recognise the court's jurisdiction.

British officials said they would rather see Gaddafi face trial, but if his escape was the price of a peaceful settlement they would be able to live with that.

David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy tried to ratchet up the pressure on Gaddafi, issuing a joint statement on the eve of the conference declaring his era over, and indicating that his lieutenants might escape prosecution if they abandoned him immediately. "We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late," they said.

Nato officially announced it was taking over control of the air strikes campaign on Sunday, but the handover of command from the US will not happen for a few days, alliance officials said. Meanwhile, with Gaddafi forces and rebels squared for a battle around Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte, British planes taking part in the coalition that has been conducting the campaign for the past 10 days, stepped up their bombardment.

RAF Tornados hit 22 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces over the weekend, the Ministry of Defence said. In the early hours of Monday, they struck ammunition bunkers near Subha in southern Libya, according to the Major General John Lorimer, the MoD's chief military spokesman.

This is significantly more weapons than the Tornados fired over the first week of air strikes. Defence officials say the higher tempo is the result of more intelligence surveillance and assessments from reconnaissance aircraft. But British defence officials made clear they expect more restrictive targeting rules when their planes come under the command of a Canadian Nato general, Charles Bouchard, possibly by Thursday. Bouchard said that the transition would take a few days and it is a complex operation.

Discord over the air strikes threatens to undermine the consensus the UK will attempt to construct at the Lancaster House conference. Russia denounced the air campaign, arguing it violated UN security council resolution 1973, passed earlier this month, which permitted "all necessary measures" to be used to protect civilians.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said: "We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the UN security council resolution."

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was also critical of the air campaign in a Guardian interview on Monday, and in a symbolic blow to the London conference, it emerged that Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League whose support for military action was deemed crucial by Washington and its allies would not be attending, sending a deputy instead.

The joint statement issued by Cameron and the French president was intended in part to heal a rift which opened up in recent days between the countries over the command of the air campaign and France's recognition of the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council. The rebels are not invited to the conference, but William Hague is expected to meet one of their leaders, Mahmoud Jibril.

The shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, will warn today that Britain should be careful about siding with the rebels. Speaking at the launch of a review Labour's defence policy, Murphy will say: "The bravery of the Libyan opposition is not in doubt. What is unclear is the motives of some, other than the removal of Gaddafi. As the opposition move westwards across Libya it is crucial that we better understand who they are and their wider ambitions."