The strikes appeared to be the heaviest in Tripoli since South African President Jacob Zuma visited Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in the capital earlier this week in an apparently unsuccessful effort to find a peaceful resolution to the country’s crisis.
Also Friday, a UN official said the world body’s refugee agency would meet later in the day with a Libyan woman who claimed she was gang-raped by Qaddafi’s troops. She was deported Thursday from Qatar where she had sought refuge and was flown against her will to Benghazi, the official said.
Speaking in Geneva, the official, Adrian Edwards, said his agency was with Iman El-Obeidi when she was taken from her Qatar hotel against her will. He said she is a recognized refugee, and her deportation violated international law.
In March, Al-Obeidi rushed into Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel where all foreign correspondents are forced to stay while covering the part of Libya under Qaddafi’s control, and shouted out her story of being stopped at a a checkpoint, dragged away and gang-raped by soldiers. As she spoke emotionally and as photographers and reporters recorded her words, government minders, whose job is to escort reporters around the area, jumped her and dragged her away.
She disappeared for several days, then turned up in Tunisia and later Qatar. She was heard from little until Thursday, when she was suddenly expelled from Qatar and ended up in Benghazi, the Libyan rebels’ de facto capital.
Fighters’ spokesman Jalal el-Gallal said Al-Obeidi arrived in Benghazi by plane. “She’s welcome to stay, this is her country,” el-Gallal said. Al-Obeidi has maintained that she was targeted by Qaddafi’s troops because she is from Benghazi, the rebel stronghold. Her rape claim could not be independently verified.
Human rights violations are one aspect of the rebels’ complaints against the Qaddafi regime. This week a report by a UN body said it found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Qaddafi’s government, and also charged that the rebels have committed abuses.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday that China’s ambassador to Qatar recently met with the head of Libya’s rebel council, the first known meeting between the two sides. China abstained in the UN Security Council vote authorizing NATO military action in Libya.
Four of the early morning blasts Friday shook central Tripoli, targeting an area where military barracks are located, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy. Those barracks, which had been hit in the past, are close to Qaddafi’s sprawling compound.
Six earlier strikes targeted a police station and a military base outside the capital in the areas of Hera and Aziziya, said the official.
The conflict in Libya is nearly four months along, but the situation on the ground appears mostly stalemated. NATO airstrikes have kept the outgunned rebels from being overrun, but the rebels have been unable to mount an effective offensive against Qaddafi’s better equipped armed forces.
Qaddafi’s regime has been slowly crumbling from within. A significant number of army officers and several Cabinet ministers have defected, and most have expressed support for the opposition, but Qaddafi’s hold on power shows little sign of loosening.
Qaddafi has been seen in public rarely and heard even less frequently since a NATO airstrike on his compound killed one of his sons on April 30. Questions are arising about the physical and mental state of the 69-year-old Qaddafi, who has ruled since 1969.
Rebels have turned down initiatives calling for cease-fires, insisting that Qaddafi and his sons must relinquish power and leave the country.
