Libyan rebels are planning to launch an attack within days on Muammar Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, the ousted Libyan leader’s last major bastion of support.
Rebels began to converge on Sirte en masse this week, where negotiations with pro-Gadhafi tribal leaders for a transition of power have not borne fruit for the Transitional National Council (TNC).
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the rebels’ TNC, said that negotiations with forces in Sirte would end Saturday after the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr, when the rebels would “act decisively and militarily.”
Essentially offering an ultimatum, Jalil said “We can’t wait more than that. We seek and support any efforts to enter these places peacefully. At the end, it might be decided militarily. I hope it will not be the case.”
NATO is planning to continue to support the rebels militarily if Sirte descends into battle. Col Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman, appeared to struggle to explain how NATO strikes were protecting civilians at this point. Asked about NATO’s assertion that it hit 22 armed vehicles near Sirte on Monday, he was unable to say how the vehicles were threatening civilians, or whether they were in motion or parked.
Sirte is already destructed and people massacred ! Without any reports about it except at websites I want not to mention at an US website. They already closed any important websites .. except ..#
NATO commits massacre at Sirte razing the city to the ground ….. 3 days of non-stop bombing away from the public eye — urgent appeal to humanitarians to force NATO to stop massacre ………… For the third day in a row, NATO aircraft are conducting massive missile and bomb strikes on the city of Sirte, home town of Muammar Gaddafi, not allowing anyone to escape. The city perimeter is surrounded by rebel check points, behind which there are special forces units from Britain, France, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
The exit from the city is completely blocked. Neither women, nor children are allowed to leave. Men, captured attempting to leave the town together with their families, are shot. Their families are sent back into the city under bombing. There is practically no way to bury the corpses, stated in a letter that was received at Argumenty.ru this morning. The writer is a former officer in the Soviet and later Russian special forces, who is now in Sirte. …