Wednesday, May 25, 2011

NATO increases pressure on the Qaddafi regime

Undersecretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, announced Tuesday in Benghazi, a stronghold of insurgents in eastern Libya, the rebels have handed an official invitation to open a representative office in Washington. "I submitted on behalf of the President [Barack] Obama a formal invitation to the National Transitional Council [CNT] to open a representative office in Washington," Feltman said during a news conference.

"We are pleased they have accepted," he added. Feltman arrived in the night from Sunday to Monday in Benghazi and on Monday met officials of the rebellion, including its leader, Mustafa Abdeljalil, by Nathaniel Tek, a spokesman for the American representation in Benghazi. "The visit of Deputy Secretary of State Feltman is another sign of U.S.

support to the CNT, a credible and legitimate interlocutor for the Libyan people," said the State Department said in a statement published on the occasion Visit of Mr. Feltman. This is the first visit by an official of this level of the U.S. administration in Benghazi. At least three people were killed and 150 injured during NATO raids on Tripoli on the night of Monday 23 to Tuesday, May 24, said the spokesman for the Libyan government.

Ibrahim Moussa added that NATO had conducted "between twelve and eighteen raids against a guard barracks People", units of volunteers who support the military. In a statement, NATO said, meanwhile, have targeted a warehouse of military vehicles in Tripoli, near the residence of Colonel Gaddafi.

Under the alliance, this site is famous for having been active at the beginning of the repression against the population in February 2011 and has since remained in stocking regime forces that carry out attacks against innocent civilians. " The foreign press in Tripoli considers that these are the most violent attacks since the start of operations against the Gaddafi regime, two months ago.

More than a dozen powerful explosions were heard in the area of Bab al-Aziziyah, the residence of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, when fighter planes flew at low altitude. A journalist of the raids that began Tuesday around 1 hour lasted over half an hour. The spokesman said: "The hall was empty.

The majority of victims are civilians living nearby." At the hospital Avenue Zawiyah, a journalist of the saw three bodies lying on stretchers, three young people shot in the head, probably by shrapnel. According to witnesses at the hospital, two brothers and their cousin lived Essoug Avenue, not far from the barracks in question.

"They were released after the first raid to see what was happening. But they were severely affected by the bombings that followed," he told the news agency a witness who identified himself as their neighbor. In other hospital wards, nurses bustled around a dozen cases. "Others injured were sent to different hospitals," said Mr Ibrahim.

"In Tripoli, our homes are close to the barracks. You can imagine our fear and our families every time there are bombings," he told Fathallah Salem, a resident of Avenue Essoug who said he had taken his mother, alarmed at the hospital. The area of Bab al-Aziziyah had already been targeted several times by NATO aviation.

The operation of the international coalition against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi has been placed in early April, under command of the Atlantic Alliance.

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