The Qaddafi regime showed off the bodies of Tripoli civilians killed by a NATO air-strike in a lugubrious display to journalists, while US Defense Secretary Robert Gates insisted that the Libya intervention does not constitute “hostilities.”
Following months of civil protests, King Mohammed VI of Morocco announced changes to the constitution which would transfer some of the political power held by the king to elected officials.
A NATO official said the alliance is considering air-strikes on Libya’s ancient Roman ruins of Leptis Magna, sparking statements of concern from the UN. Qaddafi’s forces have already reportedly shelled the World Heritage Site of Ghadamès.
Glenn Greenwald hyperventilates about a WikiLeaks cable revealing that (gasp!) US oil companies didn’t like Qaddafi, as he betrays the Libyan rebels by portraying “regime change” as just a cynical conspiracy by Exxon & ilk.
Libyan rebels broke through the Qaddafi-loyalist forces besieging Misrata and once again advanced toward Tripoli—despite complaints that NATO had failed to back their drive to break the siege with air power.
Following recent charges that Israeli spook firms are recruiting mercenaries for Qaddafi come claims that the CIA is recruiting mercenaries for the Libyan rebels. Yet the rebel government had apparently arrested a team of these “mercenaries”…
Qatar, one of the few Arab states to have joined the NATO-led military coalition against Qaddafi’s regime, has deported back to Libya a woman who fled the country after being gang-raped by Qaddafi’s thugs.
A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron denied there are any British combat troops on the ground in Libya folloing press reports claiming SAS forces have been spotted in Misrata.
As NATO stepped up air raids on Tripoli, hundreds of African refugees who have fled Libya blocked roads near their camp in Tunisia to protest plans for their forcible repatriation, provoking a clash with local residents.
Following a regional summit in Bamako, the leaders of Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger agreed to form a 75,000-man security force to police the Sahel and Sahara regions against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
The day after Obama’s speech, which sought to speak for protesters in the Arab world in the name of “free markets,” al-Qaeda issues a statement seeking to speak for them in the name a jihad against “crusader enemies.”
Moammar Qaddafi’s forces are carrying an offensive into Libya’s western Nafusah Mountains that is not only targetting rebel training camps and supply routes, but villages of the indigenous Amazigh (Berber) population.
