Libya’s opposition battled for military and diplomatic advantage against Moammar Qadhafi’s embattled regime on Thursday, winning official recognition from France and hitting government forces with heavy weapons on the road to the capital.
France became the first country to formally recognize the rebels’ newly created Interim Governing Council, saying it planned to exchange ambassadors after President Nicolas Sarkozy met with two representatives of the group based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Germany said it froze billions in assets of the Libyan Central Bank and other state—run agencies.
“The brutal suppression of the Libyan freedom movement can now no longer be financed from funds that are in German banks,” Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said.
Both sides in Libya are lobbying for support from Western countries as their leaders debate whether to protect the rebels from Col. Qadhafi’s air force by putting a no—fly zone over some or all of the country. Britain and France have backed the rebels’ calls for a no—fly zone, but the Obama adminstration has expressed deep reservations about involvement in another conflict in the greater Middle East.
The international Red Cross said dozens of civilians have been wounded or killed in recent days in grueling battles between Col. Qadhafi’s army and the opposition movement trying to oust him.
The fighting intensified on the main front line between the Mediterranean oil port of Ras Lanouf and the city of Bin Jawwad, where the rebels appeared to be have established better supply lines bringing heavy weapons like multiple—rocket launcher trucks and small tanks to the battle.
Youssef Fittori, a major in the opposition force, said a mix of defectors from Col. Qadhafi’s special forces and civilain rebels were fighting government forces about 12 miles west of Ras Lanouf on the main coastal road to Bin Jawwad.
“Today, God willing, we will take Bin Jawwad. We are moving forward,” he said.
Fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Moammar Col. Qadhafi around Ras Lanouf set two oil installations ablaze Wednesday and inflicted yet more damage on Libya’s crippled energy industry.
In the west, Col. Gadhafi claimed victory in recapturing Zawiya, the city closest to the capital that had fallen into opposition hands. Western journalists based in Tripoli were taken late Wednesday to a stadium on the outskirts of Zawiya that was filled with Col. Gadhafi loyalists waving green flags in a similar scene, complete with fireworks. Libyan TV cameras filmed the celebrations as food, drinks and cooking oil were distributed.
Government escorts refused journalists’ requests to visit the city’s main square.; phone lines there have not been working during a deadly, six—day siege.
Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger said local doctors over the past few days saw a sharp increase in casualties arriving at hospitals in Ajdabiya, in the rebel—held east, and Misrata, in government territory.
Both places saw heavy fighting and air strikes, he said.
Kellenberger said 40 patients were treated for serious injuries in Misrata and 22 dead were taken there.
He said the Red Cross surgical team in Ajdabiya operated on 55 wounded over the past week and “civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence.”
He said the aid organization is cut off from access in western areas including Tripoli but believes those are “even more severely affected by the fighting” than eastern rebel—held territories.
Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reported on Thursday that it lost direct contact a week ago with its correspondent who was covering the unrest in Libya, and the paper said it feared he had been taken prisoner along with another unnamed journalist and a Libyan guide.
The newspaper, one of Brazil’s largest, said it had been receiving until Sunday what it characterized as “indirect information” indicating Andrei Netto was alright in the region of Zawiya.
But on Wednesday the newspaper said it received information suggesting Mr. Netto had been taken prisoner by Libyan government forces, and that a Libyan official said the information was “probably correct.”
Mr. Netto entered Libya on February 19 from the border with Tunisia and worked his way toward Zawiya, the newspaper said. He is the publication’s Paris correspondent.
Brazil’s government, its embassy in Libya, the Red Cross and other groups are trying to find out more about Mr. Netto and to determine he is safe, the newspaper said.
The British Broadcasting Corp. staff said three of its staff were detained, beaten and subjected to mock executions by pro—regime soldiers in Libya while attempting to reach the western city of Zawiya.
The news organization said the crew, members of a BBC Arabic team, were detained on Monday by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists at a check point about 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of Zawiya.
Chris Cobb—Smith, a British journalist and part of the crew, said the group were moved between several locations, in some cases alongside civilian captives who had visible injuries from heavy beatings.
Oil installations ablaze in Libya as battles rage
A giant yellow fireball shot into the sky, trailed by thick plumes of black smoke after fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Muammar Qadhafi set two oil installations ablaze and inflicted yet more damage on Libya’s crippled energy industry.
In the west, Mr. Qadhafi on Wednesday claimed victory in recapturing Zawiya, the city closest to the capital that had fallen into opposition hands. The claim could not immediately be verified; phone lines there have not been working during a deadly, six-day siege.
State TV showed a crowd of hundreds, purportedly in Zawiya’s main square, shouting “The people want Colonel Qadhafi!” but the location of the rally could not be independently confirmed.
Western journalists based in Tripoli were taken late Wednesday to a stadium on the outskirts of Zawiya that was filled with Mr. Qadhafi loyalists waving green flags in a similar scene, complete with fireworks. Libyan TV cameras filmed the celebrations as food, drinks and cooking oil were distributed.
Government escorts refused journalists’ requests to visit the city’s main square.
The fall of Zawiya to anti-Qadhafi residents early on in the uprising that began Feb. 15 illustrated the initial, blazing progress of the opposition. But Mr. Qadhafi has seized the momentum, battering the rebels with airstrikes and artillery fire and repulsing their westward march toward the capital, Tripoli.
Mr. Qadhafi’s successes have left Western powers struggling to come up with a plan to support the rebels without becoming ensnared in the complex and fast-moving conflict. On Wednesday, a high-ranking member of the Libyan military flew to Cairo with a message for Egyptian army officials from Mr. Qadhafi, but no further details were known.
President Barack Obama’s national security team weighed how to force Mr. Qadhafi from power and halt his crackdown on rebels, but the White House said no action was imminent and set no timeline as attention shifted to a pivotal NATO session in Brussels.
The NATO alliance said it was planning for any eventuality in the Libyan crisis. But with Defence Secretary Robert Gates preparing to join a meeting of alliance defence chiefs to discuss military options on Thursday, there was little sign they would agree to set up a no-fly zone over the North African country.
A rebel spokesman said Wednesday they will buy weapons if the international community fails to declare a no-fly zone.
“If a no-fly zone is not imposed, we do have the means to get armaments. We don’t expect any country to refuse to deal with us in terms of an arms sale,” said Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, a spokesman for the rebels’ provisional transitional national council.
He did not elaborate or say where the rebels would get the money for arms.
Britain and France are pushing for the U.N. to create a no-fly zone over the country, and while the U.S. may be persuaded to sign on, such a move is unlikely to win the backing of veto-wielding Security Council members Russia and China, which traditionally object to such steps as infringements on national sovereignty.
Mr. Qadhafi said in a Turkish television interview that Libyans would fight back if Western nations imposed a no-fly zone to prevent his regime from using its air force to bomb government opponents staging a rebellion.
He said imposing the restrictions would prove the West’s real intention was to seize his country’s oil wealth.
“Such a situation would be useful,” Mr. Qadhafi said. “The Libyan people would understand their real aims to take Libya under their control, to take their freedoms and to take their oil and all Libyan people will take up arms and fight.”
In eastern Libya, an Associated Press reporter at Ras Lanouf near the front line of fighting saw an explosion from the area of the Sidr oil facility, 360 miles (580 kilometers) east of Tripoli.
Three columns of thick smoke rose from the area, apparently from burning oil.
Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman, said the government artillery hit a pipeline supplying Sidr from oil fields in the desert. An oil storage depot also was hit, apparently by an airstrike, he said.
Mr. Gheriani accused Mr. Qadhafi forces of intentionally targeting oil facilities as a warning to Europe that the chaos in Libya will hurt oil supplies.
“Qadhafi thinks he can put pressure on Europe, but I think this is just going to work against him,” Mr. Gheriani told the AP.
Shukri Ghanem, chairman of the Libya’s National Oil Corp., said the Sidr explosion was from “a small tank for diesel” that caught fire and he insisted it would not affect oil production.
Ras Lanouf is the westernmost point seized by rebels moving along the country’s main highway on the Mediterranean coast. Four bodies were brought to the morgue at the hospital in Ras Lanouf, doctors said.
In Cairo, an Egyptian army official told the AP on condition of anonymity that Maj. Gen. Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Said al-Zawi, the head of Libya’s logistics and supply authority, was asking to meet Egypt’s military rulers.
Diplomatic attempts to calm the crisis accelerated Wednesday.
A Libyan envoy met with Portugal’s foreign minister in Lisbon on Wednesday, and an envoy will hold talks in Athens on Thursday with Greece’s deputy foreign minister. The visits come ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the situation in Libya.
The violence in Libya has taken a toll on the country’s oil production. For the past week, government forces and rebels have been battling around several key oil ports east -- Brega, Ras Lanouf and Sidr. At their peak, those three export terminals handled about 715,000 barrels of crude per day, or roughly 45 percent of the country’s exports, according to figures published in industry publication Africa Energy. A fourth eastern port, Marsa al-Harigah, handled another 220,000 barrels per day.
In total, those four ports would then account for almost 60 percent of the country’s crude exports.
“We were already seeing Libya as pretty much being closed,” said Samuel Cizsuk, Mideast oil analyst with IHS Global Insight in London. “It was only a question of time before the escalating violence would damage oil facilities.”
“Libya has been discounted from the global markets,” he said.
The British Broadcasting Corp., meanwhile, said three of its staff had been detained, beaten and subjected to mock executions by pro-regime soldiers while attempting to reach Zawiya on Monday. The BBC said the men were held for 21 hours before they were released, and have since left Libya. It reported the details of their detention in bulletins late on Wednesday.
