Fighting in besieged Libyan city (& heavy shelling by Gaddafi's forces) rages on

[Turborama]

Source: Al Jazeera English

Intense fighting continues in the beseiged western Libyan city of Misurata, with at least six people reported killed in the Ras Ammar neighbourhood by shelling blamed on forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

Residents of the neighbourhood said that shelling started at around 1am local time on Monday and lasted for an hour. Civilians trying to escape in a car were killed when a shell landed nearby.

The car carrying a husband, wife and daughter was caught near the explosion, the residents told the Associated Press news agency. The mother, sister and grand-daughter of another family were also killed as they tried to get into the same car.

=snip=

The latest attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces came two days after they announced their withdrawal from the city. They claimed they were sending in armed tribesmen instead.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/201142515643438256.html

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Video report of the above incident...

Assault on Misurata: How much longer can it go on?

Uploaded by http://www.youtube.com/user/AlJazeeraEnglish">AlJazeeraEnglish on 25 Apr 2011

The scale of destruction is brutal, in every corner a ghost of what could have been a family's escape, only it seems shelling by pro-Gaddafi forces left no refuge for civilians.

Al Jazeera English's Andrew Simmons, from the besieged city.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS-tdXN_ETU

1:00am (Local Time - GMT+2)

Reuters repots on the plight of refugees trying to escape heavy shelling by Gaddafi's forces:

Refugees fleeing Libya's Western Mountains told of heavy bombardment by Muammar Gaddafi's forces as they try to dislodge rebels in remote Berber towns.

The capture of the Dehiba-Wazin crossing on the Tunisian border by rebels last week has let refugees flee in cars or on foot along rocky paths, swelling the numbers of Libyans sheltering in southern Tunisia to an estimated 30,000 people.

While the world's attention has been on the bloody siege ofthe western rebel stronghold of Misrata and battles further east, fighting is intensifying in the region known as the Western Mountains.

"Our town is under constant bombardment by Gaddafi's troops.They are using all means. Everyone is fleeing," said one refugee, Imad, bringing his family from Kalaa in the heart of the mountains.

From Libya Live Blog - April 26: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-april-26

[pinboy3niner]

1. Misrata: "It's a free-fire zone on civilians"

(The link has an excellent video report from the Sunday Times' Marie Colvin in Misrata. CNN's AC360 tonight also featured a phone interview with Colvin.)

Witnesses: Libyan government forces shelling civilian areas of Misrata


By the CNN Wire Staff
April 25, 2011 6:33 p.m. EDT


Tripoli, Libya (CNN) --

...


"It's just hell," said Marie Colvin, a foreign affairs correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, who has been in the city for a week. "Civilian neighborhoods are being decimated as we speak." She said that at least 10 people had been killed and at least 30 others wounded.

...


Asked about the rebel army, she laughed. "We're talking about an army of shopkeepers, engineers, car mechanics," she said. "Very, very few trained military."

...


"It's a free-fire zone on civilians," she said from the hospital, where she said she had seen casualties that ranged "from loss of limbs to an 8-year-old boy struck in the ankle by shrapnel. He'll keep the foot, but he was in bad shape."


Outside, a white tent served as a triage area; a refrigerator truck was packed with bodies.


When two people were killed in one house, the family got into a car, but it too was hit, killing a man and two children, she said.

...


http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/25/libya.war/index.html

:hi:

[pinboy3niner]

2. NATO aircraft were observed flying over Misrata and heavy explosions could be heard

(Posted about 1 hour and 20 minutes ago.)

Wefaq Libya NATO aircraft were observed flying over Misrata and heavy explosions could be heard.

12:53:
http://www.libyafeb17.com/2011/04/april-26th-updates/

[Arctic Dave]

3. Sounds like what we did to that city in Iraq.

Have they started using WP on them yet?

[Iterate]

5. You mean the besieged city-which-shall-not-be-named

Fallujah? I suppose that's what you meant.

I put it that way because almost no one has mentioned it lately, or made a comparison to Misurata. I don't know why not. Historical metaphor is never very good, but that would be no worse than most.

As far as the WP goes, nothing confirmed that I know of. There was a brief rumor of a SCUD attack, but that didn't make sense, and it was mainly spread because people saw 5ft deep craters in the middle of residential streets (plus some in roofs) and were immediately afraid of the worst. It was just artillery though.

[Igel]

4. Of course.

The US refused to let one side win because it promised to show no mercy to those who didn't lay down their arms and go home (and amnesty to all those who did).

The US refuses to actually help one side win.

So in the name of saving a few hundred rebels we've set it up so that thousands of civilians will die. Instead of letting it find resolution in the course of a week or two we've made it so that the situation lasts for months. Instead of letting a short-term humanitarian crisis happen we've arranged for a multi-week humanitarian crisis in several spots.

We say we're helping all the civilians, but those we're helping the most are in armed militias and are apparently combatants in an active civilian militia. It may wind up that in the long run we've helped them. In the short run all we're doing is helping them tear down their infrastructure and providing instability that is bad for civilian wellebeing. Well, at least something good's coming out of it--we're nurturing our self-esteem and making sure that when the West tells some tin-pot dictator and small country to come into line with what we want they know our word is good and we mean business.