British Petroleum to return to Libya

British energy giant BP said that it would seek to return to Libya to continue its exploration programme “when conditions allow” as Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi faces imminent defeat.

“We intend to resume our activities and return to the country when conditions allow,” a BP spokesman said.

The London-listed oil giant evacuated its expatriate staff in February when a popular revolt broke out against strongman Gaddafi.

BP s Libyan operations are still in the early stages of development so the company did not have much infrastructure there.
The spokesman added that BP had been about to start drilling in the desert in the Ghadames basi and it was keeping in contact with its 100 local staff who remain in Libya.

A 2007 accord with Tripoli allowed BP to drill in the Mediterranean s Gulf of Sirte at depths of around 1,700 metres (5,500 feet) and at the onshore site near Ghadames.

The deal faced criticism in the United States, with suspicions that BP lobbied for the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, to push through the agreement.

Libyan Megrahi is the only person ever convicted of blowing up a US airliner over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people, mostly Americans.

Gaddafi defiant, govt said talking with rebels

TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi urged his people early on Monday to “liberate Libya” from NATO and traitors, a day after rebels captured a key town on the road west to Tunisia, severing Tripoli’s main supply route.

Late on Sunday, representatives of Gaddafi’s government were holding talks with rebels at a hotel on the southern Tunisian island of Djerba, a source with direct knowledge of the talks said — though the government spokesman denied it.

The talks followed a dramatic advance by the rebels that won them control of the town of Zawiyah, 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli on the coast, enabling them to halt food and fuel supplies from Tunisia to Gaddafi’s stronghold in the capital.

Tripoli was not under immediate threat from a rebel attack, but rebel forces are now in their strongest position since the uprising against 41 years of Gaddafi’s rule began in February, controlling the coast both east and west of Tripoli.

The rebels are helped by NATO aircraft which, under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s forces, are bombing military facilities and equipment that are trying to crush the rebel fighters.

Gaddafi’s speech on Monday, delivered over a poor quality telephone line and broadcast by state television in audio only, was his first public address since rebel fighters launched their latest offensive, the biggest in months.

“The Libyan people will remain and the Fateh revolution (which brought Gaddafi to power in 1969) will remain. Move forward, challenge, pick up your weapons, go to the fight for liberating Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from NATO,” the Libyan leader said.

“Get ready for the fight … The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield,” he said, in what state television said was a live speech.

In Djerba late on Sunday, security staff turned away a Reuters reporter from the hotel where the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the talks between rebel and government representatives were being held.

Lights were on inside the hotel and a man in jeans and t-shirt, a list in his hand, was standing outside with hotel security staff.

In Tripoli, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim blamed Western leaders and the media for the spread of rumours that the government was engaged in talks on the leader’s departure from Libya.

“This information is absolutely incorrect and it is part of a media war against us. Their target is to confuse us, break our spirit, and shake our morale,” he said.

“The leader is here in Libya, fighting for the freedom of our nation. He will not leave Libya,” Ibrahim said.

Gaddafi’s characteristically defiant speech followed a day of action across a swathe of northwest Libya during which rebels said they had seized the town of Surman, next door to Zawiyah, there was fighting in the town of Garyan that controls the southern access to Tripoli, and shooting could be heard near the main Libyan-Tunisian border crossing.

REBEL FLAG

Rebels from the Western Mountains region to the south advanced into Zawiyah late on Saturday, and early on Sunday, about 50 rebel fighters were milling around near the central market, triumphantly shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is greatest”).

The red, black and green rebel flag was flying from a shop. At the point where it passes through Zawiyah, the main highway linking Tripoli to Tunisia was empty of traffic.

Rebel fighters told Reuters there were still forces loyal to Gaddafi in the town, including snipers on tall buildings. Bursts of artillery and machinegun fire could be heard.

One rebel fighter said Gaddafi’s forces controlled the oil refinery on the northern edge of Zawiyah — a strategic target because it is the only one still functioning in western Libya and Gaddafi’s forces depend on it for fuel.

The fighting was spreading west from Zawiyah along the coastal highway towards the main Ras Jdir border crossing with Tunisia. A rebel spokesman called Abdulrahman said rebels had seized Surman, the next town west along the coast from Zawiyah.

But at the border crossing to Tunisia, Libyan customs and immigration officers were operating as usual, despite reports of clashes between rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces in the area late on Saturday.

On another front in Sunday’s fighting, heavy gunfire could be heard from the town Of Garyan, a Reuters reporter in the area said. A rebel fighter told Reuters “We control 70 percent of Garyan. There is still fighting taking place at the moment.”

Government spokesman Ibrahim said Zawiyah and Garyan were “under our full control” but that there were small pockets of fighting in two other locations in the area around Tripoli.

The coastal highway between Tripoli and Tunisia had not been blocked by the fighting, Ibrahim said in a telephone interview on Sunday, but foreigners were not being allowed to use the route “to save them from any bullets here or there”.

Rebels, backed by NATO warplanes, have been trying since February to end Gaddafi’s rule in the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings convulsing the Middle East.

After a period of deadlock, the rebels’ advance to the Mediterranean coast near Tripoli represents a major shift in the balance of forces.

Gaddafi says the rebels are armed criminals and al Qaeda militants, and has described the NATO campaign as an act of colonial aggression aimed at stealing Libya’s oil. AGENCIES

Gaddafi forces still hold Brega oil terminal, refinery

BENGHAZI: Troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are still in control of the oil terminal and refinery of the strategic eastern port of Brega despite rebel advances, a spokesman for rebel forces said on Friday.

The two sides have been battling for months over Brega, 750 km east of Tripoli. The rebels see securing the oil facilities as a tipping point in the war and hope to resume oil exports from there as quickly as possible.

Rebels said they had captured a residential area of Brega on Thursday. But spokesman Mohammed Zawawi told reporters it was still not safe to go into the city. The oil terminal is about 15 kms (about 10 miles) from the residential district.

“Now we’re trying to clear that area. There are some Gaddafi troops still there,” said Mohammed Zawawi. “Gaddafi troops are shooting rockets into the city.”

Gaddafi is clinging to power despite a near five-month-old NATO air campaign, tightening economic sanctions, and a lengthening war with rebels trying to end his 41-year rule.

The rebels have seized large swathes of the North African state, but are deeply divided and lack experience, and Thursday’s gains in the east broke weeks of stalemate.

In the west, rebel forces driving north toward the town of Zawiyah, within striking distance of Gaddafi’s stronghold in the capital, have not moved up from Thursday’s positions.

Rebels said they had reached the village of Bir Shuaib, some 25 km (15 miles) from Zawiyah, which has unsuccessfully risen up against Gaddafi twice this year.

THREE FRONTS

The western battle is one of three widely separated rebel fronts against Gaddafi forces. In the east around the ports of Misrata and Brega, fighting had been bogged down in recent weeks while the western rebels have advanced.

Misrata, a sea port on the Mediterranean under rebel control for months, is about 500 kms (300 miles) east of Brega

Zawiyah lies less than 50 km west of Tripoli, on the main road to Tunisia, which has been a lifeline for Libya but has begun to crack down on rampant smuggling of gasoline.

Rebels in the western mountains do not operate as a single force, as each town has its own command. But when they join forces for major operations they can muster a few thousand men.

In an effort to pile economic and military pressure on Gaddafi, more countries are set to announce next week that they will free frozen assets for the rebels, a British official said.

“While it’s hard to predict when this will end, it’s easy to see the pressure is building on Gaddafi and it is only a matter of time before he’s forced to leave power,” the official said.

Britain is playing a leading role in NATO air strikes against Gaddafi’s forces, which have weakened his armory but have not enabled the rebels to deliver a knockout blow.

Tightening the economic noose around Gaddafi, Tunisia said on Thursday its troops were patrolling fuel stations to curb the flow of smuggled gasoline into neighboring Libya.

International sanctions and the effects of Libya’s civil war have disrupted normal supplies of fuel to parts of the country under Gaddafi’s control, but huge volumes of gasoline are instead being smuggled across the Libyan-Tunisian border.

“The armed forces are now conducting checks at fuel stations in the south of Tunisia … so that neither Tunisians nor Libyans can fill up with large quantities,” Tunisian defense ministry official Mokhtar Ben Nasr told a news conference.

“These checks are aimed at preventing the smuggling of diesel and gasoline to Libya.” AGENCIES

Ship with 600 migrants sinks off Libya

Aid officials were still trying to confirm the fate of those people after the vessel broke apart on Friday in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, UNHCR spokeswoman Laura Boldrini said.

Witnesses who left the Libyan capital on another boat shortly afterward reported seeing remnants of the sunken ship and the bodies of some passengers floating in the sea. Other witnesses saw passengers swimming to shore but it was unclear how many survived, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Its staff on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa interviewed a Somali woman who said she lost her four-month-old baby in the sinking. The woman swam to shore and managed to board another boat heading to Italy, the IOM said in a statement on Monday.

At least three other boats that left Libya in late March have disappeared, with hundreds feared dead, Boldrini said.

Libyan rebels, Gaddafi forces fight on coast road

AJDABIYAH: Libyan rebels reported heavy fighting with the forces of Muammar Gaddafi on the Mediterranean coast road on Wednesday as both sides tried to break a stalemate in the seven-week war.

Mohamed el-Masrafy, a member of a rebel special forces unit, said clashes began at 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) after Gaddafi’s forces were resupplied with ammunition and moved eastwards out of the oil port of Brega.

He told Reuters after returning to the eastern town of Ajdabiyah there was heavy fighting with machineguns and other weapons.

“The rebel army is about 60 kms from here,” he said. That would put them about 20 kms from Brega, the focus of a week-long see-saw battle. Gaddafi’s forces mounted a sustained assault on Tuesday that pushed the rebels about half way back to Ajdabiyah, gateway to their stronghold of Benghazi.

As rebels in pick-ups piled with weapons headed west from Ajdabiyah and civilians fleeing the fighting passed them in the opposite direction, anger mounted over alleged lack of air strikes by NATO.

Hossam Ahmed, a defector from Gaddafi’s army, said the frontline was 40-60 km west of Adjabiyah, saying Tuesday’s retreat “wasn’t a full withdrawal, it’s back and forth.”

Like other rebels at Ajdabiyah’s western gate, Ahmed expressed frustration at the lack of NATO action. “There have been no air strikes. We hear the sound but they don’t bomb anything,” he said.

“WHAT HAS NATO DONE?”

Another rebel, Khaled al-Obeidi said: “What has NATO done, what has NATO bombed?”

“What is NATO waiting for? We have cities that are being destroyed. Ras Lanuf, Ben Jawad, Brega, and Gaddafi is destroying Misrata completely,” said Said Emburak, 43, a resident of Ajdabiyah.

Rebel army leader Abdel Fattah Younes has accused NATO of being too slow to order airstrikes, saying Gaddafi’s forces have been allowed to slaughter civilians in the besieged and isolated western city of Misrata.

NATO denies the pace of air strikes has abated since it took over from a coalition led by the United States, Britain and France on March 31.

Journalists were banned on Wednesday from heading west from Ajdabiyah, making it difficult to assess the fighting.

“Can you go with Gaddafi’s militias and do interviews with them and photograph the tanks? Well now you can’t with us either,” said al-Obeidi.

The conflict in the east has reached stalemate with Western air power preventing Gaddafi landing a knockout blow and the rebels’ rag-tag army unable to push closer towards Tripoli. AGENCIES

Gaddafi complains lack of help in terror fight

PARIS: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in a French newspaper interview released on Sunday that he was embroiled in a fight against terrorism and expressed dismay at the absence of support from abroad.

“I am surprised that nobody understands that this is a fight against terrorism,” the longtime autocrat of the North African oil-producing state told the Journal du Dimanche in excerpts of an interview due to be published later on Sunday.

“Our security services cooperate. We have helped you a lot these past few years. So why is it that when we are in a fight against terrorism here in Libya no one helps us in return?”

Gaddafi, who has ruled Africa’s fourth largest country since a 1969 coup, faces an unprecedented popular uprising that has seen rebel forces assert control over Libya’s east and loosen his grip in the west near the capital Tripoli.

Western leaders have denounced what they say has been Gaddafi’s brutal, bloody response to the uprising, and the International Criminal Court said he and his inner circle could be investigated for alleged crimes committed against civilians by his security forces.

Gaddafi, who spoke to journalists from his headquarters in Tripoli, said Islamic holy war would engulf the Mediterranean if the insurrection in Libya, inspired by successful pro-democracy uprisings in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia, succeeded.

“There would be Islamic jihad in front of you, in the Mediterranean,” he said. “Bin Laden’s people would come to impose ransoms on land and sea. We will go back to the time of Red Beard, of pirates, of Ottomans imposing ransoms on boats.”

Gaddafi added that his government was “doing well” despite the armed turmoil and warned Europe against an influx of Libyan migrants to its shores if his foes drove him from power. AGENCIES

Kadhafi accuses protesters of bin Laden links

TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on Thursday accused residents of Az-Zawiyah, a town west of the capital hit by fierce fighting between his forces and rebels, of being linked to Osama bin Laden.

In what was said to be a live audio feed on state television, Kadhafi also accused the protesters of being on drugs.

“You in Zawiyah turn to Bin Laden,” he said. “They give you drugs.”

This was the embattled leader”s second television appearance since protests broke out against his 41-year-old rule on February 15.

Addressing the older generation, Kadhafi said al Qaeda was behind the problems facing Libya, while the youth were on drugs and misbehaving.

“It is obvious now that this issue is run by al Qaeda,” he said. “Those armed youngsters, our children, are incited by people who are wanted by America and the Western world.

“Those inciting are very few in numbers and we have to capture them. Others have to stay at home. They have guns, they feel trigger happy and they shoot especially when they are stoned with drugs.”

The “situation is different from Egypt or Tunisia … Here the authority is in your hands, the people”s hands. You can change authority any way your wish.

It”s your call. You are the elderly, the head of the tribes, the professors.”

“They have been brainwashing the kids in this area and tell them to misbehave. This are the one who are under Bin Laden”s influence and authority, under the influence of drugs.”

On Tuesday, in a defiant, sometimes rambling speech on television, Kadhafi vowed to remain in Libya as head of its revolution, saying he would die as a martyr in the land of his ancestors and fight to the “last drop” of his blood.

He ordered the army and police to crush the popular uprising against his iron-fisted four-decade rule that has left hundreds dead.

Residents of Libya”s dissident-held east vowed on Thursday to march on Tripoli to oust the veteran leader.

State news agency Jana said three “terrorists” attacked a security forces post in Az-Zawiyah and slit the throats of three policemen on Thursday, amid reports of heavy fighting in the town.

Az-Zawiyah lies on the Mediterranean, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Tripoli. Fighting around the capital intensified after much of the country”s east has reportedly fallen to rebels.

UK: Israel acts completely unacceptable

ANKARA: British Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned Israel for attacking a humanitarian aid convoy in international waters and turning Gaza into a ‘prison camp.

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UK: Israel acts completely unacceptable

Eight die as rains continue in Sindh, Punjab

KARACHI: Eight persons were killed in rain-related incidents as the spell of monsoon rains continued in Sindh and Punjab on Tuesday, ARY NEWS reports.

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Eight die as rains continue in Sindh, Punjab

Pentagon begins full criminal probe of leaks

WASHINGTON: A Pentagon spokesman says the Army is leading the Pentagon’s inquiry into the source of leaked classified intelligence logs from the Afghanistan war.

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Pentagon begins full criminal probe of leaks

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