We’ll stay in our land dead or alive: Gaddafi

forces began air strikes in March.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi vowed yesterday in an audio speech broadcast live on state television to fight to the end.
“We only have one choice: we will stay in our land dead or alive,” he said in a fiery speech calling on his supporters to flock to his Bab al-Aziziya compound which was hit several times by NATO air strikes yesterday.
By yesterday afternoon, war planes were striking different parts of the city several times an hour, hour after hour, rattling windows and sending clouds of grey smoke into the sky.
The Libyan government attributed earlier blasts to NATO air strikes on military compounds in the capital, a day after rebels drove Muammar Gaddafi’s forces out of a western town.
Bombs have been striking the city every few hours since Monday, at a steadily increasing pace. Yesterday they began before 11am and were continuing five hours later.
Air strikes were previously rarer and usually at night.
Some of the bombs appeared to hit in the vicinity of Gaddafi’s vast Bab al-Aziziya residential compound.
A Libyan official, speaking over a loudspeaker in a hotel where foreign journalists stay under government supervision, said some strikes had hit the Popular Guard compound and the Revolutionary Guard compound, giving no comment on casualties.
A NATO military official in Naples, headquarters of the alliance’s Libya operation, confirmed the current strikes were the heaviest on Tripoli so far.
“Definitely there are more strikes going into Tripoli than there have been in the past . . . This is just to increase the pressure on the Gaddafi regime and it’s been going on like this for a couple of days now . . . .
“The targets we are striking are the same types as in the past – command and control, ammunition storage, vehicle storage – any function or system the Gaddafi regime can use to attack civilians.”
Libyan TV said late on Monday NATO had bombed the al-Karama neighbourhood and a civilian telecommunications station.
NATO said it hit a military “command and control target”.
Further east, Gaddafi’s troops and the rebels have been in stalemate for weeks, neither able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah, which Gaddafi’s forces shelled on Monday, and the Gaddafi-held oil town of Brega.
Rebels control the east of Libya, the western city of Misrata and the range of mountains near the border with Tunisia. They have been unable to advance on the capital against Gaddafi’s better-equipped forces, despite NATO air strikes.
But world powers are increasingly making diplomatic overtures to the rebels, including Russia and China, despite misgivings about interference in Libya’s sovereign affairs.
Mikhail Margelov, Special Representative for the President of Russia for Africa, told journalists in the rebel capital of Benghazi yesterday that Gaddafi can no longer represent Libya.
“We highly believe that Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy after the first bullet shot against the Libyan people,” he said.
“Russia is ready to help politically, economically and in any possible way . . . That is why we have established a direct relationship with the national council here in Benghazi.”
In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said an Egypt-based Chinese diplomat had visited Benghazi for talks with the rebel-led National Transitional Council, adding to signs that China too is courting the insurgents.
China has officially declined to take sides, but its moves reflect growing recognition that Gaddafi’s days in power may be numbered, said Yin Gang, an expert on Arab affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Libya’s pro-Gaddafi Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi is visiting China as a “special envoy” for his government and will hold talks with his counterpart Yang Jiechi on “the situation in Libya and (finding) a political solution to the Libyan crisis,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement that France – the first country to recognise the rebels – sees the National Transitional Council as representative of Libya.
“After being found guilty of the most serious crimes against the Libyan people, in breach of international law, authorities related to Col. Gaddafi cannot claim any role in representing the Libyan state,” Juppe said. – Reuters.