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Police clash with Gaddafi opponents in Tripoli as rebels close in on capital
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Libyan police fired tear gas at protestors demonstrating against Muammar Qadaffy's regime in Tripoli today as rebel fighters in eastern Libya tried to push the front line nearer to the capital.Elsewhere the UN refugee agency voiced concern for those fleeing the violence and international measures against Qadaffy bore fruit with the seizure by Britain of a ship carrying a large quantity of Libyan currency. Some 100 anti-Qadaffy demonstrators clashed with police in the Tajoura neighbourhood in eastern Tripoli after Friday prayers, a witness said, while another said opponents and supporters of the regime traded blows near the capital's Green Square. Police fired in the air and sealed off the area but did not intervene otherwise, the second witness said. In the rebel-held east of the country renegade fighters were moving westward in haphazard armed convoys out of Uqayla, a desert hamlet about 280 kilometres from the main rebel headquarters in Benghazi, Libya's second city. Entrenched on high ground An AFP news hound saw 60-70 well-armed rebels shouting that they were going to Raslanuf, where pro-Qadaffy forces are entrenched on high ground. Later the sound of heavy shelling and machine-gun fire could be heard near Raslanuf, with rebels reporting that at least four were killed near an oil compound. "The plan is to edge slowly, slowly towards them to pressure them to back off. We don't want to fight, we want to pressure them psychologically," Colonel Bashir Abdulkadir told AFP. "But if we have to kill them to win this battle, we will," he said. "We are a popular revolt," the rebel commander said. "God will give us victory". Captain Shoaib al-Akaki, another defector from the military, said, "We're trying to minimise losses on both sides." "We all have relatives in Sirte," he said, referring to the coastal city between Benghazi and Tripoli where Qadaffy was born. A patchwork coalition of rebels controls eastern Libya and some towns in the west following a revolt that started on February 15, but Qadaffy retains his grip on the capital. In Misrata, a rebel-held pocket closer to Tripoli, one person was killed late Thursday amid heavy firing by pro-Qadaffy forces in a bid to recapture the town, a witness said. Heavily armed pro-regime forces were also manning the Libyan side of the border with Tunisia, and fewer than 2,000 people crossed the frontier on Thursday, compared with between 10,000 and 15,000 on previous days, the UN refugee agency said Friday. "UNHCR is very concerned that the security situation in Libya may be preventing people crossing the border," spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said in Geneva. Those who did manage to cross told the UNHCR that "their mobile phones had been confiscated en route, along with cameras," she said, adding, "Many of those who have crossed the border appear to be frightened and are unwilling to speak." "We're hearing reports... that the entire road was full of Qadaffy-supported military, that there were checkpoints all along the way," she said. Four refugees who had just crossed the border Friday told AFP however that they had not witnessed any military presence and there were only police. Posted by: Fred 2011-03-06 |
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