04 October 2011

BENGHAZI/SIRTE: Libya’s new rulers will set in motion the process of democratic elections once Moammar Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte is captured, instead of waiting until the whole country is under their control, the caretaker prime minister said Monday.

The statement represented a shift from the previous position, which was that the plan for elections would not go into effect until Libya was “liberated” – meaning that all pro-Gadhafi resistance was stamped out.

Some of the Libyan government’s Western backers had expressed concerns that this timetable could leave the country in a political limbo for an extended period, exposing it to infighting and instability.

The interim government, or National Transitional Council, has decided to “announce liberation of the whole country once Sirte is liberated,” de facto prime minister Mahmoud Jibril told a news conference in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

The timetable for elections is set out in a constitutional declaration issued by the NTC last month.

It states that after declaring liberation, the NTC will move from Benghazi to Tripoli and form a transitional government within 30 days.

The announcement came as NTC forces advanced several kilometers toward the center of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, capturing the southern district of Bouhadi after being pinned down for weeks by artillery and rocket fire on the eastern edge of the city.

But Gadhafi loyalists are still holding firm in Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli. They could take much longer to dislodge.

“The constitutional manifesto stated that the liberation would be achieved by controlling the country’s air, sea and land outlets,” said Jibril.

“Bani Walid doesn’t have any outlets … so it wouldn’t stop the democratic process,” he said. “Bani Walid would be dealt with as a renegade region.”

Intensifying their assault on Sirte Monday, Libyan interim government forces unleashed barrages of tank, artillery and anti-aircraft fire. Shells, rocket propelled grenades and anti-aircraft fire lit the sky after sundown.

Commanders with the interim government said their fighters in Sirte were waging street battles with Gadhafi supporters in a residential area situated two kilometers from the city center.

Medical workers at a field hospital near Sirte said four NTC fighters were killed and 39 others were wounded in fighting Monday.

A military spokesman for the NTC also told a television channel that Gadhafi’s son Mutassim was hiding in the Ibn Sina hospital in Sirte.

“Our revolutionaries [in Sirte] are fighting those who are accomplices of the tyrant in crimes against the Libyan people,” Ahmad Bani told Doha-based Libya TV.

“They are a group of killers and mercenaries led by Mutassim Gadhafi who is now in the Ibn Sina hospital in Sirte to avoid being hit, according to newly received information.”

A Reuters reporter at a traffic circle in the center of the Bouhadi district said the NTC forces appeared to be in control, though they said there were isolated pockets where loyalists fighters were still holed up. “We are surrounding them from all sides. We have orders to call in from all fronts and use all kinds of weapons,” said NTC fighter Saeed Hammad.

NTC fighters loaded their pick-up trucks with items taken from houses in the district, including carpets and chairs.

On the way in to Bouhadi, the streets were deserted apart from some burned-out cars and tank shell casings. Billboards which had shown images of Gadhafi were torn down.

A group of NTC fighters headed out of the city on foot carrying a haul of rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles, boxes of ammunition and pairs of new army boots. They said they found them in the homes of Gadhafi supporters.

A Red Cross convoy delivered oxygen and other urgently needed medical supplies to the Ibn Sina hospital Monday after an earlier attempt was aborted because of heavy fighting.

“The situation on the ground was very tense with ongoing fighting,” said Red Cross delegate Hichem Khadraoui. “Under such conditions, we had to limit ourselves – after obtaining clearances from all the parties concerned – to bringing in the most urgently needed humanitarian aid.”

Aid agencies say they are very concerned about the welfare of civilians inside Sirte, who are trapped by the fighting and running out of food, water, fuel and medical supplies.

Concerns about the humanitarian crisis have focused on the Ibn Sina hospital. Medical workers who fled Sirte say patients were dying on the operating table because there was no oxygen and no fuel for the hospital’s generators.

Medical staff outside Sirte who had treated wounded civilians fleeing the fighting said they had been told the corridors were full of patients and that treatment was being given only to pro-Gadhafi fighters or members of his tribe.

Libyans ended Gadhafi’s 42-year rule in August when rebel fighters stormed the capital, but Gadhafi and several of his sons are still at large.

A city of about 75,000 people, Sirte holds symbolic importance. Gadhafi transformed his birthplace from a sleepy fishing town into Libya’s second capital.

At his instigation, the Libyan Parliament often sat in Sirte and he hosted international summits at the Ouagadougou Hall, a marble-clad conference center he had built in the south of the city.

In separate developments, the head of Libya’s National Oil Corporation told Reuters in an interview the country will start pumping oil at two major oilfields with a combined capacity of 450,000 barrels per day in about two weeks.

NOC chairman Nouri Berouin added that current production in the OPEC member was 350,0000 bpd. He reiterated that it could take up to 15 months for output to return to pre-war levels.

Revenue from oil is a crucial source of income for the NTC.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.