Kadhafi offered way out, heritage site `shelled`

Antara News, Sun, June 12 2011

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Tripoli (ANTARA News/AFP) - Turkey said it has offered Moamer Kadhafi guarantees to leave Libya but has yet to receive a reply, as rebels on Saturday accused his forces of shelling a UNESCO world heritage site.

Fresh NATO-led strikes send up plumes of smoke on a daily basis in Tripoli, but US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that the air war on the strongman`s forces could be in peril because of military shortcomings.

In a military update on Friday`s strikes, the British defence ministry said its fighters had destroyed four tanks "hidden in an orchard" near the town of Al-Aziziyah, southwest of Tripoli.

Tornado and Typhoon jets also bombed a military base at Al-Mayah on the western outskirts of the capital, it said.

NATO said a tank and a rocket launcher were also targeted on Friday near the rebel-held city of Misrata.

The rebels said pro-Kadhafi forces were shelling the western city of Ghadames, close to the borders with Tunisia and Algeria, which boasts a UNESCO World Heritage site and is famous for its Roman-era ruins.

"The people of Ghadames appeal to UNESCO and international organisations to protect the ancient city," rebels said in a statement.

Rebels also reported clashes on Friday and Saturday at Kekla and Bir al-Ghanem in the mountainous Jebel Nafussa region where there has been weeks of fighting.

They also said pro-Kadhafi forces had tried to enter the town of Yafran in the same area, and that there had been "fierce clashes."

At Mitiga military airport outside Tripoli, meanwhile, the regime said it staged a ceremony marking the 41st anniversary of the closure of a US air base in the country.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government had offered exit "guarantees" to the embattled Libyan leader, whom rebels have been trying to oust since February following a bloody crackdown on pro-reform protests.

Kadhafi "has no other option than to leave Libya -- with a guarantee to be given to him," Erdogan said on NTV television.

"We have given him this guarantee. We have told him we will help him to be sent wherever he wants to go," he added, without elaborating. "We have received no reply so far."

His comments came after a day of deadly fighting near the port city of Misrata, the rebels` most significant enclave in western Libya, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) from Tripoli.

Kadhafi`s forces had bombarded the Dafnia area on Misrata`s outskirts with Grad rockets, heavy artillery and tank shells, a rebel said.

"Twenty people, both civilians and rebels, were killed and more than 80 wounded," in the sector, 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Misrata city centre, he added.

But they had beaten back an attack by loyalist troops, leaving "dead and wounded among the Kadhafi forces," he said.

Dafnia was again under fire on Saturday, rebel sources said, but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties.

In Tripoli, residents reported several waves of blasts had rocked the city on Friday.

The Libyan capital has this week been subjected to the most intense NATO air raids since the international military campaign was launched on March 19 under a UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev`s special envoy Mikhail Margelov said he would visit Tripoli to try to find a solution to the conflict, having met the opposition in their Benghazi stronghold.

Gates, the Pentagon chief, expressed concern on Friday with half of the countries in the 28-member NATO alliance not participating in the campaign, saying many simply did not have the wherewithal.

"Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines do so not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they cannot," Gates said.

"The military capabilities simply aren`t there."

Several nations taking part in the NATO-led campaign on Libya have contacted the United States to replenish their depleted ammunition stocks, US officials said Friday.

Italian border guards, meanwhile, said three boats carrying 667 African refugees from Libya, many of them women, landed on Saturday on the island of Lampedusa, which has already seen thousands of arrivals from unrest in North Africa.

Editor: B Kunto Wibisono

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