Pirates have hijacked an Italian diesel tanker off Benin in western Africa in an attack of the kind more usually associated with Somalia.
Assailants boarded the RBD Anema e Core early on Sunday in the Gulf of Guinea, officials in Benin and Italy confirmed.
Two of the 23 crew are Italians, the others Filipinos and a Romanian.
Benin's navy said it was following the hijacked ship while Italy's foreign ministry liaised with its owner in Naples.
Three pirates managed to board the ship 23 nautical miles (43km) south of Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin, Italian media said.
“Everything is being done to trace the pirates as quickly as possible,” Maxime Ahoyo, commander of Benin's navy, told reporters in Cotonou.
The Gulf of Guinea has become increasingly important for its potential energy reserves which have attracted international interests, BBC West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy reports from Dakar.
The US, for example, hopes to import about a quarter of its oil supplies from the region by 2015.
West African coast guards have been receiving US training to combat growing maritime insecurity.
Most recent attacks on shipping around Africa have been off its east coast, where Somali pirates have ranged deep into the Indian Ocean, but the danger in the west was already identified several years ago.
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt's stern rebuke to Israel over the deaths of five Egyptian security personnel is the clearest sign yet of cooling ties as Cairo's military rulers try to appease a newly-assertive public largely antagonistic to the Jewish state.
The Arab world's most populous nation is unlikely to scrap its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, cornerstone of a brittle power balance in the region, despite popular pressure following the overthrow of U.S.-friendly leader Hosni Mubarak in February.
Yet the top army officers now in charge in Cairo have broken with Mubarak's softly-softly approach.
Mubarak saw himself as a pioneer in the pursuit of Middle East peace, yet lost credibility among many Egyptians for what they saw as his failure to stand up to Israel and its powerful backer the United States.
“The Egyptian citizen, and the Arab citizen as a whole, is not ready to accept the kind of behavior that former president Mubarak and his group used to accept,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
The wind began to change soon after Mubarak's removal. Egypt made goodwill gestures to Israel's arch-foe Iran, eased the isolation of Islamist group Hamas in Gaza by opening the border with the territory and brokered a reconciliation deal between Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.
It also moved to redraw contracts for gas export to Israel to squeeze a better deal.
When five Egyptian security personnel were killed during an Israeli clash with gunmen who had killed eight Israelis close to the Sinai border on Thursday, Egypt accused Israel of breaching their peace treaty and said it would recall its ambassador.
BLOOD
“Egyptian blood is not cheap and the government will not accept that Egyptian blood gets shed for nothing,” state news agency MENA quoted a cabinet statement as saying.
Egypt's Information Minister Osama Heikal told state TV: “The assurance that Egypt is committed to the peace treaty with Israel … should be reciprocated by an equivalent commitment and an adjustment of Israeli statements and behavior regarding various issues between both countries.”
As crowds of Egyptians protested angrily at the Israeli embassy in Cairo through Saturday night, burning Israeli flags in scenes that would never be allowed during the Mubarak era, both countries were trying to defuse the diplomatic crisis.
But restraint was in short supply among the contenders to become Egypt's future leader in elections due by year-end.
“Israel must realize that the day when Egypt's sons are killed without an appropriate and strong reaction are over,” wrote presidential hopeful Amr Moussa — former secretary-general of the Arab League — on his website.
Another contender for the leadership, Hamdeen Sabahy, hailed a protester who scrambled atop the Israel embassy in Cairo in the early hours of Saturday to remove and burn the Israeli flag as a “public hero.”
“The future holds more deterioration in relations,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center. “But it won't reach the level of scrapping the Camp David agreement. It will be more of a colder peace, like Turkey's relations with Israel.”
TENSIONS OVER SINAI
Change may be felt most in the lawless desert region that straddles the Egyptian-Israeli border.
Egypt demanded an apology when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak pointed to Egypt's weak hold on Sinai to explain the killing on Thursday of the eight Israelis on a desert road north of the Red Sea resort of Eilat.
Israeli officials said the gunmen reached the area by traveling from Gaza through Egyptian Sinai then across the border with Israel. The five Egyptians died in an Israeli security sweep following the attack.
“Sinai's security is a purely Egyptian affair and Egypt won't accept any intervention, whether through action, statement or opinion, from any exterior party,” said Heikal.
Gunmen have exploited the upheaval in Egypt to attack installations and pipelines in Sinai supplying Israel and Jordan with gas in recent months.
Egyptian forces began a military operation to root them out last week, but many Egyptians blame the weak security in the area on the peace deal with Israel, which puts strict limits on military deployment and other activity in Sinai.
Angry callers to Egyptian television stations on Sunday asked how Egypt could combat militants and still adhere to those restrictions.
Egyptian authorities have tried to stamp their authority on Sinai's native Bedouin, in vain. The Bedouin complain of deliberate isolation by Cairo.
Repeated arrests of local men and the inability of the Bedouin to register and own land have bred resentment, stymied development and encouraged a vacuum of authority now being exploited by Islamist militant groups operating across the border with Gaza.
“This incident may be an opportunity to request an adjustment of the conditions that govern the presence of the Egyptian army in Sinai,” said Mustapha al-Sayyid, political science professor at Cairo University.
(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh;editing by Andrew Roche)
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Aid efforts in Darfur are still being hampered by clashes but the situation in the western Sudanese region appears to be calming down, UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari told the Security Council Friday.
“Ongoing intermittent clashes continue to adversely affect the humanitarian situation” displacing some 60,000 to 70,000 people, said Gambari, the UN special representative to the African Union said.
But he added that “considerable progress” has been made since May during negotiations in Doha between the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the rebels. “Clashes and displacements are now on the decrease,” said Gambari.
“Every effort should be made for reaching a ceasefire. The imperative of peace is now, as the people have suffered far too long and far too deeply,” he said, adding that of Darfur's 7 million residents, 1.8 million now live in refugee camps.
Gambari insisted that occasional attacks against UN personnel constituted “war crimes and should not be unpunished.”
Despite these attacks, a UN and African Union peacekeeping force (Unamid) continues its patrols.
A vast region in the west of Sudan, Darfur has suffered a civil war since 2003 that has resulted in 300,000 deaths, according to UN estimates (10,000 according to Khartoum) and 1.8 million refugees.
On July 14, Khartoum signed a peace agreement in Doha with a rebel group from Darfur, the Movement for Liberation and Justice (MJL), a coalition of small rebel groups.
But the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the most militarized of Darfur's rebel groups that participated in the negotiations, refused to sign the agreement, rendering the accord's results unpredictable.
From the same Zezuru branch of Zimbabwe's majority Shona group as President Mugabe
Member of Zanu-PF's politburo
Retired as head of the army in 1992 to concentrate on his business interests
Married in 1977 Joice Mujuru who now serves as one of two vice-presidents
Accused of taking over at least one farm seized from white farmers in recent years
Following independence in 1980, he carried on doing pretty much the same job – as army chief, becoming a general.
He was also elected MP for the north-eastern Chikomba constituency, before leaving public life in 1995 to concentrate on his business interests.
According to Mr Smith, his influence, despite not holding a political post, testifies to the strength of the military tradition in Zanu-PF politics.
Some believe his death will be a blow to the party.
John Makumbe, political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe, says Mr Mugabe “used to rely on him on what to do and what not to do”.
“The nation has lost a pillar and there is likely to be more fragmentation in Zanu-PF,” he told the AFP new agency.
The Mujurus are from the same Zezuru branch of Zimbabwe's majority Shona group as Mr Mugabe.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The demise of Mujuru would appear to give some advantage to the Mnangagwa faction”
End Quote Patrick Smith Editor Africa Confidential
But despite his long and close ties to Mr Mugabe, there were reports two years ago that he may have fallen from grace after apparently meeting top US and UK diplomats in Harare.
Mr Mugabe has always portrayed himself as still fighting the colonial struggle – against the West.
But Gen Mujuru's death now brings into question who will succeed the 87-year-old president within the party.
Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa is seen as a possible Zanu-PF successor – and there has always been fierce rivalry between him and the Mujurus.
“The demise of Mujuru would appear to give some advantage to the Mnangagwa faction,” Mr Smith said.
“Until now she [Joice Mujuru] has been a beneficiary of her husband's influence in the party, army and security services. Now she'll have to put herself forward much more strongly,” he said.
The Mujurus met during the war of independence and married in 1977.
She adopted the name Teurai Ropa (Spill Blood), during the struggle and claims to have shot down a Rhodesian helicopter with the machine-gun of a dying comrade and was later promoted to commander.
The Mujurus are accused of taking over at least one of the farms seized from their white owners in recent years.
Guy Watson-Smith owned 3,500-acre Alamein farm, about 80km (50 miles) south of the capital, Harare, where Gen Mujuru died in the early hours of Tuesday 16 August.
Mr Watson-Smith said the infrastructure alone was worth some $2.5m (£1.5m).
ABUJA (AFP) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday said he planned legislation to limit the head of state to one term of office with a longer timeframe, but pledged he would not benefit from such a law.
The president's advisers have long talked of such a proposal, arguing a single term for a longer period better suits Africa's most populous nation, where rioting killed some 800 people following April elections.
The current laws allow a president to serve two four-year terms.
Jonathan “is to send a constitution amendment bill to the National Assembly that will provide a single tenure for the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” a statement from his office said.
Governors of the country's 36 states would also serve only one term under the bill, it said.
“The tenure of members of the national and state assemblies will also be a little more than four years, although lawmakers will still be eligible for re-election as their constituencies may determine,” the statement said.
But while Jonathan, who has reportedly pledged in private to serve only one term of office, said such a law would not benefit him, details on the proposal remained unclear, including the timeframe for a single term.
“If the proposed amendment is accepted by the National Assembly, the president assures that he will not in any way be a beneficiary,” the statement said.
As word leaked out in recent weeks of the planned legislation, some questioned whether the move was meant to lengthen Jonathan's current term.
The statement said Jonathan “is concerned about the acrimony which the issue of re-election, every four years, generates both at the federal and state levels.”
“The nation is still smarting from the unrest, the desperation for power and the overheating of the polity that has attended each general election,” it said.
Jonathan first came to power in May 2010 following the death of his predecessor, Umaru Yar'Adua, before winning elections in April.
He reportedly pledged in private to serve only one term of office as part of negotiations with northern politicians from his own party opposed to his candidacy.
AL-MAYA, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebels battled their way closer to Tripoli on Sunday to help fighters inside the city who rose up overnight declaring a final showdown with Muammar Gaddafi.
The Libyan leader dismissed the rebels as “rats” and said he would not yield. But his grip on power looked more fragile than ever after rebels, fighting for the past six months to end his rule, advanced to within about 25 km (16 miles) of Tripoli's western edge.
“We're going to Tripoli now,” said Moussa, a rebel fighter raised in the United States, near the front line in the village of Al-Maya.
As he spoke, rebel pick-up trucks and a tank trundled down the highway which traces the Mediterranean coast toward Tripoli. Anti-aircraft guns, adapted by the rebels to shoot targets on the ground, pounded away nearby.
In a coordinated revolt that rebel cells had been secretly preparing for months, shooting started on Saturday night across Tripoli, moments after Muslim clerics, using the loudspeakers on mosque minarets, called people on to the streets.
The fighting inside Tripoli, combined with rebel advances to the outskirts of the city, appeared to signal the decisive phase in a six month conflict that has become the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings and embroiled NATO powers.
“Gaddafi's chances for a safe exit are diminishing by the hour,” said Ashour Shamis, a Libyan opposition activist and editor based in Britain.
But Gaddafi's fall is far from certain. His security forces did not buckle, and the city is much bigger than anything the mostly amateur anti-Gaddafi fighters, with their scavenged weapons and mismatched uniforms, have ever tackled.
If the Libyan leader is forced from power, there are question marks over whether the opposition can restore stability in this oil exporting country. The rebels' own ranks have been wracked by disputes and rivalry.
REVOLT PREMATURE?
Rebels said after a night of heavy fighting, they controlled a handful of city neighborhoods. Whether they hold on could depend on the speed with which the other rebels reach Tripoli.
“The rebels may have risen too early in Tripoli and the result could be a lot of messy fighting,” said Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya. “The regime may not have collapsed in the city to quite the extent they think it has.”
But the rebel advance toward the city was rapid, and there was no sign of fierce resistance from Gaddafi's security forces. In the past 48 hours, the rebels west of Tripoli have advanced about 25 km, halving the distance between them and the capital.
Government forces put up a brief fight at the village of Al-Maya, leaving behind a burned-out tank, and some cars that had been torched. “I am very happy,” said one resident.
The anti-Gaddafi fighters paused long enough to daub some graffiti on walls in the village. One read “We are here and we are fighting Gaddafi,” another, “God is great.” They then moved on toward Tripoli.
In Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city where the anti-Gaddafi revolt started and where the rebels have their main stronghold, a senior official said everything was going according to plan.
“Our revolutionaries are controlling several neighborhoods and others are coming in from outside the city to join their brothers at this time,” Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the rebel National Transition Council, told Reuters.
MESSAGE OF DEFIANCE
In an audio recording broadcast late on Saturday, Gaddafi — whose location has been kept a secret since NATO warplanes started bombing government buildings — made clear he had no intention of giving in to the rebels.
“Those rats … were attacked by the masses tonight and we eliminated them,” Gaddafi said. “I know that there are air bombardments but the fireworks were louder than the sound of the bombs thrown by the aircraft.”
A spokesman for Gaddafi, in a briefing for foreign reporters, underlined the message of defiance.
The armed units defending Tripoli from the rebels “wholeheartedly believe that if this city is captured the blood will run everywhere so they may as well fight to the end,” said the spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim.
“We hold Mr Obama, Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy morally responsible for every single unnecessary death that takes place in this country,” he said, referring to the leaders of the United States, Britain and France.
SNIPERS ON ROOFTOPS
A diplomatic source in Paris, where the government has closely backed the rebels, said underground rebel cells in the capital had been following detailed plans drawn up months ago and had been waiting for a signal to act.
That signal was “iftar” — the moment when Muslims observing the holy months of Ramadan break their daily fast. It was at this moment that imams started broadcasting their message from the mosques, residents said.
But the overnight fighting inside the city, while fierce, was not decisive. Rebels said they controlled all or parts of the Tajourah, Fashloom and Souk al-Jumaa neighborhoods, yet there was no city-wide rebellion.
In Tripoli on Sunday, the two sides appeared to be jockeying for control of roof terraces to use as firing positions, possibly in preparation for a new burst of fighting after dark.
A rebel activist in the city said pro-Gaddafi forces had put snipers on the rooftops of buildings around Bab al-Aziziyah, Gaddafi's compound, and on the top of a nearby water tower.
As he spoke, single gunshots could be heard in the background, at intervals of a few seconds.
“Gaddafi's forces are getting reinforcements to comb the capital,” said the activist, who spoke by telephone to a Reuters reporter outside Libya.
“Residents are crying, seeking help. One resident was martyred, many were wounded,” he said. It was not immediately possible to verify his account independently.
State television flashed up a message on the screen urging residents not to allow rebel gunmen to hide on their rooftops.
“Agents and al Qaeda members are trying to destabilize and sabotage the city. You should prevent them from exploiting your houses and buildings, confront them and cooperate with counter-terrorism units, to capture them,” it said.
(Additional reporting by Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Libya, William Maclean in London, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Jon Hemming)
Amadou Bamba was born in Baol, in central Senegal, in 1853. A renowned poet, mystic, and prayer leader, he founded the Mouride Brotherhood in 1883. He was renowned for his emphasis on work, and his disciples are famous for their industriousness. Bamba led a peaceful struggle against French colonialism.
As his popularity grew, the French government sentenced Bamba to exile in Gabon and later in Mauritania. By 1910, the French recognised he was not a threat, and he was released. In 1918, he won the French Legion of Honour for enlisting his followers in World War I. He died in 1927.
Today, followers donate earnings to the Mouride Brotherhood, who in turn provide social services and business loans. This is the only surviving photo of Amadou Bamba. His image adorns buildings, buses and taxis all over Senegal.
I am taken on a tour of Touba's great mosque by Cheikh Sene, a Mouride scholar from nearby Bambey University.
In a quiet corner of the mosque men sit chatting, while in a nearby room younger men are busy, hunched over computers working on the mosque's website.
A constant stream of people come to the mosque to pay homage at the tomb of Amadou Bamba – a Sufi mystic and founder of the Mouride Brotherhood.
For true believers, says Mr Sene, the path laid down by Bamba is nothing short of “the real practice of Islam”. It is also a path of which many other Muslims in the world strongly disapprove.
“They think we are nothing,” says Mr Sene, referring to many Arab Muslims, whom he says have done much to rid their own countries and east Africa of Sufi traditions.
“They think we are crazy. They think they are superior.”
However, without a flicker of a doubt, he adds that if they come to Touba, “they will be dazzled by the light of Amadou Bamba”.
Saint-like status
Following his death in 1927, Amadou Bamba was buried in the then small settlement of Touba, which he founded in 1887.
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Watch: Inside the Mourides' grand mosque in Touba, Senegal
Today, Bamba has achieved saint-like status among his followers, and the great mosque, with four towering minarets and a green dome over his mausoleum, has grown and grown.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Mouridism is, for me, two paths: one is the way to God, the other path is the doctrine of work and dignity. Because if you don’t work, you hold your hand out and lose your dignity”
End Quote Youssou N’Dour Musician
It can accommodate more than 7,000 people for Friday prayers, and is constantly being improved. When I visited, crates containing air conditioning units sat ready to be unpacked, the gift of a wealthy follower.
Replacement marble slabs, which are cooler on the feet in the heat, were also being laid.
Like the mosque, Touba itself has grown exponentially. Hot and dusty, it is now Senegal's second city, with an estimated population of one million.
But this can double during the Mouride festival of the Grand Magal, which is held early every year, and which can bring more than a million visiting pilgrims on to the streets.
Amadou Bamba's vision of Islam was one which has at its very core the precepts of non-violence and hard work.
Since his death, Touba and the Mouride Brotherhood have been controlled by Bamba's sons, and grandsons, several of whom have held the position of Caliph – the spiritual head of the order.
Out of a population of some 14 million, there are thought to be anything between three and five million Mourides in Senegal.
Famous followers
They include the humblest of peasants to Senegal's now somewhat beleaguered president, Abdoulaye Wade, who has recently faced intense criticism amid recent protests against proposed changes to the constitution.
More than a million Mourides make the pilgrimage to Touba each year
Perhaps the best-known follower of Mouridism is the musician Youssou N'Dour.
When I met him in the television station he owns in Dakar, he talked about his 2004 Grammy award-winning album Egypt, which celebrated Amadou Bamba and Mouridism.
He argues Mouridism is a counter to the post-9/11 stereotype of Muslims. “In the West, you read all about terrorism… we're all lumped together. But those of us who understand that it's a religion of peace, love and sharing mustn't give up.
“Mouridism is for me two paths – one is the way to God, the other path is the doctrine of work and dignity. Because if you don't work, you hold your hand out and lose your dignity.”
Amadou Bamba was exiled by the French, the colonial power in Senegal during his lifetime. So as well as preaching the virtues of hard work, N'Dour says Bamba inspired his followers to travel.
Of course, like other migrants from poor countries, many Senegalese go abroad because they are looking for work and because they want to send money home to their families, but Mourides have an additional spiritual motivation.
The Mouride motto is “Travail et Discipline” – Work and Discipline
Abroad and at home, Mouridism not only preaches self-help, but also the responsibility to look after others within the Brotherhood.
One of the things that distinguishes Sufism from other branches of Islam is the role of spiritual guides, known in Senegal as marabouts.
These marabouts help their followers make business deals and introduce their followers to important contacts.
After fighting through the choking traffic on the outskirts of Senegal's capital, Dakar, I visit Oumar Fall, the commercial director of Diprom, a major oil and gas firm.
It owns a chain of petrol stations called Touba Oil, whose logo is an image of the tallest minaret of Bamba's mosque.
He tells me that the firm has done well with contacts made through marabouts. Marabouts will even help negotiate and settle disputes, he says.
And if a business deal is successful, a marabout can expect financial compensation, and followers will usually donate money to the Brotherhood.
Political clout
Ninety five per cent of Senegal's population is Muslim, and the vast majority belong to one Sufi brotherhood or another.
Mouridism is the youngest, and said to be the most dynamic, not least because it is organised in a strict pyramid structure headed by the Caliph.
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The structures of the others are far more dispersed and thus arguably weaker.
Another reason for the popularity of Mouridism is that it is the only brotherhood founded by a Senegalese. The image of Amadou Bamba is everywhere in Senegal, plastered on car and bus windscreens, in shops and carried in charms around people's necks. Giant portraits of him loom out at you from painted city walls.
But, says Latir Mane, the political editor of L'Observateur, a newspaper owned by Youssou N'dour, many non-Mourides chafe at what they see as the overweening economic and political power of the Mourides.
All politicians he says, even non-Mourides, look for endorsement from Touba because they want Mouride votes.
“Nowadays religion is deeply immersed in politics,” he says.
If the Caliph issues an ndigel, or order, all Mourides are bound to follow, says Mr Mane, which gives the Caliph significant political clout.
However, he says, the fact that there are now so many Mourides, whose political interests are not all the same, means that the Caliph's power is less than it would have been in years gone by.
Still, with an aura of success about it, Mouridism is a growing movement and now says Mr Mane, many are joining, not because they believe in it as such, but because they see it as good way to get ahead in life.
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JADDAIM, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebels battled their way toward Tripoli Sunday to help fighters inside the city who rose up overnight declaring a final showdown with Muammar Gaddafi.
The Libyan leader dismissed the rebels, fighting since February to topple him, as “rats” and said he would not yield.
In a coordinated revolt that rebel cells had been secretly preparing for months, shooting started Saturday night across Tripoli moments after Muslim clerics, using the loudspeakers on mosque minarets, called people on to the streets.
The fighting inside Tripoli, combined with rebel advances to the outskirts of the city, appeared to signal the decisive phase in a six month conflict that has become the bloodiest of the “Arab Spring” uprisings and embroiled NATO powers.
But Gaddafi's fall is far from certain. His security forces did not buckle, the rebels appeared to control only a few neighborhoods of Tripoli and the city is much bigger than anything the mostly amateur anti-Gaddafi fighters, with their scavenged weapons and mismatched uniforms, have ever tackled.
If the Libyan leader is forced from power, there are question marks over whether the opposition can restore stability in this oil exporting country. The rebels' own ranks have been wracked by disputes and rivalry.
Rebels said that after a night of heavy fighting, they controlled a handful of city neighborhoods. But whether they hold on could depend on the speed with which the rebels elsewhere reach Tripoli.
“The rebels may have risen too early in Tripoli and the result could be a lot of messy fighting,” said Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya. “The regime may not have collapsed in the city to quite the extent they think it has.”
ADVANCE ON TRIPOLI
The closest front line was to the west of the capital, along a highway that traces the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
Rebel fighters returning from the front line said they had taken the town of Jaddaim and that they were now about 20 km from Tripoli and approaching the city's outlying western suburb of Janzour.
A Reuters reporter near the front said he could hear shells landing, and could see columns of smoke. Ambulances rushed back from the front to a hospital in the nearby town of Zawiyah.
In Jaddaim, fighters were celebrating the advance, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is greatest!.”
In Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city where the anti-Gaddafi revolt started and where the rebels have their main stronghold, a senior official said everything was going according to plan.
“Our revolutionaries are controlling several neighborhoods and others are coming in from outside the city to join their brothers at this time,” Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the rebel National Transition Council, told Reuters.
MESSAGE OF DEFIANCE
In an audio recording broadcast late Saturday, Gaddafi — whose location has been kept a secret since NATO warplanes started bombing government buildings — made clear he had no intention of giving in to the rebels.
“Those rats … were attacked by the masses tonight and we eliminated them,” Gaddafi said. “I know that there are air bombardments but the fireworks were louder than the sound of the bombs thrown by the aircraft.”
A spokesman for Gaddafi, in a briefing for foreign reporters, underlined the message of defiance.
The armed units defending Tripoli from the rebels “wholeheartedly believe that if this city is captured the blood will run everywhere so they may as well fight to the end,” said the spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim.
“We hold Mr Obama, Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy morally responsible for every single unnecessary death that takes place in this country,” he said, referring to the leaders of the United States, Britain and France.
SNIPERS ON ROOFTOPS
A diplomatic source in Paris, where the government has closely backed the rebels, said underground rebel cells in the capital had been following detailed plans drawn up months ago and had been waiting for a signal to act.
That signal was “iftar” — the moment when Muslims observing the holy months of Ramadan break their daily fast. It was at this moment that imams started broadcasting their message from the mosques, residents said.
But the overnight fighting inside the city, while fierce, was not decisive. Rebels said they controlled all or parts of the Tajourah, Fashloom and Souk al-Jumaa neighborhoods but there was no city-wide rebellion.
In Tripoli Sunday , the two sides appeared to be jockeying for control of rooftop terraces where they could place firing positions, possibly in preparation for a new burst of fighting after nightfall.
A rebel activist in the city said pro-Gaddafi forces had put snipers on the rooftops of buildings around Bab al-Aziziyah, Gaddafi's compound, and on the top of a nearby water tower.
As he spoke, single gunshots could be heard in the background, at intervals of a few seconds.
“Gaddafi's forces are getting reinforcements to comb the capital,” said the activist, who spoke to a Reuters reporter outside Libya.
“Residents are crying, seeking help. One resident was martyred, many were wounded,” he said. It was not immediately possible to verify his account independently.
State television flashed up a message on the screen urging residents not to allow rebel gunmen to hide out on their rooftops.
“Agents and al Qaeda members are trying to destabilize and sabotage the city. You should prevent them from exploiting your houses and buildings, confront them and cooperate with counter-terrorism units, to capture them,” it said.
PRESSURE
Western governments were cautious about predicting Gaddafi's imminent fall, but they said he was under unprecedented pressure.
“It's been clear that Gaddafi has not had a firm grip on reality — as we heard from his comments last night — and has not been interested personally in leaving or negotiating,” said Alastair Burt, a foreign office minister.
“But those around him have continued to defect … That pressure indicates that those around Gaddafi know what's going on. One can only hope that they're getting messages through to him,” Burt told the BBC.
Ashour Shamis, a UK-based opposition editor and activist, said the Libyan leader's options were dwindling.
“Gaddafi's chances for a safe exit are diminishing by the hour. The more he stays the narrower his base, and the easier it will be for him to be caught or killed,” Ashour “I think he's not being told the whole picture. (His son) Saif al-Islam is the one who is leading the fight for him.”
(Additional reporting by Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Libya, William Maclean in London, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
More than a million Mourides make the pilgrimage to Touba each year
The Mouride motto is “Travail et Discipline” – Work and Discipline
