Benghazi Falls, Heavy Gunfire In Tripoli
220 Dead, Could Top 500
[Ed. Note: This post has been continued and updated, from earliest to most recent, here, here, here, here and here.
Previous updates, from earliest to most recent, are here, here, here and here.
For still more news, commentaries, analyses, maps, photographs and videos, click here.]
UPDATE 00:02 GMT: Still trying to figure out which speech was stranger – Saif Gaddafi’s or Hosni Mubarak’s.
UPDATE 23:57 GMT: Fresh reports of gunfire coming from Tripoli.
UPDATE 23:51 GMT: Al Arabiya is reporting that “the Egyptian news service MENA is reporting” Muammar al-Gaddafi has left Libya and is on his way to Venezuela. Don’t know what it’s worth. The son, Saif, never said the Gaddafi family was staying.
UPDATE 23:41 GMT: Gathering reaction now. Would love to read your comments.
UPDATE 23:39 GMT: A rambling speech.
UPDATE 23:31 GMT: An opposition leader just tweeted: “Mubarak tried this, and he left the next day, you are bringing a day of rage tomorrow”
UPDATE 23:28 GMT: “Europeans and Americans will come back forcefully” – they won’t accept an Islamic emirate. “They will come and occupy you by force.”
UPDATE 23:26 GMT: “If we agree on this step tomorrow, we can spare the blood…or prepare to go to civil war.”
——-THE REST OF THIS POST, INCLUDING ALL VIDEOS AND PHOTOS, ARE ON THE JUMP PAGE
UPDATE 23:25 GMT: Offers to limit the central government and strengthen the authority of municipalities.
UPDATE 23:24 GMT: “Before we take up arms…I say, tomorrow, let’s make an historical initiative…let’s find new civil rules and regulations, and then a new national dialogue to start about Libya’s constitution.
UPDATE 23:19 GMT: “Let’s be honest. We are all armed.”
UPDATE 23:19 GMT: “Libya would go back to the days of poverty…all the petrol would be burnt…because each one of us wants to be a leader…we are not Egypt or Tunisia.”
UPDATE 23:17 GMT: Says Libya is facing a civil war and everyone will lose because the country would break up into three parts.
UPDATE 23:14 GMT: “You must be careful. Libya is not Egypt or Tunisia.”
UPDATE 23:13 GMT: Says people inside and out are spreading lies – “a national treason” by others that want to rule.
UPDATE 23:11 GMT: This is not sounding like a sayonara speech.
UPDATE 23:10 GMT: Says the largest of the three groups are “children…[and] people taking drugs” – that they are “the largest group.”
UPDATE 23:08 GMT: Identifying the groups that “are taking part” in the uprising, one of which is comprised of “lawyers,” adding “we can deal with them.”
UPDATE 23:06 GMT: Says people are exaggerating the number of deaths, but “mistakes have been made on both sides.”
UPDATE 23:05 GMT: Reason for people getting killed “was a mistake by the army…they are not trained to restrain people.”
UPDATE 23:03 GMT: Complaining about Facebook, the Internet and the media…says this [situation] started because of a small matter that “developed further” – just reviewing how Libya got to this point
UPDATE 23:02 GMT: Says he’s “just talking” – “I will only say the truth to you” – he’s not speaking from a prepared text
UPDATE 23:00 GMT: Gaddafi son on TV now
UPDATE 22:55 GMT: Still waiting for Muammar Jr. to say what’s up. 🙂
UPDATE 22:54 GMT: Benghazi Hospital just confirmed 60 dead today.
UPDATE 22:51 GMT: Reports from Tripoli that Libyans have already begun to celebrate.
UPDATE 22:49 GMT: Via Twitter…Reason #12 For Gaddafi’s son to take so long: Daddy’s tent still being folded!
UPDATE 22:38 GMT: Meanwhile, in other Days Of Rage news…Tunisia seeks Ben Ali extradition from Saudi Arabia.
UPDATE 22:33 GMT: AJE says reports suggest the 500,000-strong Tuareg tribe in south Libya has heeded the call from the million-strong Warfala tribe to join the uprising. Protesters in Ghat and Ubary, home to Libyan Tuareg clans are reportedly attacking government buildings and police stations.
UPDATE 22:30 GMT: Word circulating on Tripoli street is that Gaddafi has left for Venezuela
UPDATE 22:29 GMT: Everyone’s jumping ship…Libyan Ambassadors in China and the Arab League resign
UPDATE 22:27 GMT: From Twitter: “why do dictators delay their speech until the 11th hour? advise to all dictators, if your ppl start a protest, do a quick speech and leave”
UPDATE 22:14 GMT: GADDAFI’S SON TO ADDRESS NATION ON LIBYAN STATE TV “SHORTLY”
UPDATE 22:08 GMT: Just added a SkyNews video report down near the bottom of this update page. It was the only one I could find with confirmed footage from Benghazi.
UPDATE 21:59 GMT: Opposition tweet is pretty funny…“This is it, we do not even have a omar suleiman to do the ‘he decided to step down’ speech.”
UPDATE 21:57 GMT: Some websites posting that pro-Gaddafi forces remaining in Benghazi are “being butchered by angry mobs.”
UPDATE 21:52 GMT: Sources: “Warfala tribe is beginning to rise, they are a big tribe covering east and west”
UPDATE 21:45 GMT: A Libyan doctor told Al Jazeera that mercenaries opened fire on protesters, killing four people. He estimates that around 2000 people were demonstrating.
UPDATE 21:38 GMT: The world’s “foremost Sunni Muslim scholar,” Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is urging all of Libya to take to the streets.
UPDATE 21:34 GMT: Gunfire in Tripoli was reportedly extremely heavy. Anti-Gaddafi forces reporting a “valiant” effort in Tripoli. I take that to mean opposition forces have been pushed back or dispersed.
UPDATE 21:29 GMT: You have to wonder about the possibility of Gaddafi being toppled – soon. Opposition groups seem to have great momentum and have just not been backing down from Gaddafi loyalists. Rumors about Gaddafi leaving are bouncing like ping pongs on opposition tweets.
UPDATE 21:21 GMT: BBC reporting “at least four separate” protests in Tripoli, citing witnesses. Security forces firing live ammunition and tear gas.
Posts from opposition groups inside Libya say “huge clashes” right now between protesters and armed mercenaries at Green Square
UPDATE 21:05 GMT: CNN CONFIRMS BENGHAZI HAS FALLEN
UPDATE 21:02 GMT: More confirmations from media outlets confirming military personnel “joining the revolution.”
UPDATE 20:59 GMT: Al Jazeera: “We can hear gun shots from Gaddafi’s residence in Bab Aziziyaa in Tripoli”
UPDATE 20:55 GMT: Reuters just put out the resignation statement of Libya’s permanent representative to the Arab League, Abdel Moneim al-Honi: “I have submitted my resignation in protest against the acts of repression and violence against demonstrators [in Libya] and I am joining the ranks of the revolution,” Honi said. He said he is going to “join the revolution.”
Full text of the story is available here.
UPDATE 20:51 GMT: Unconfirmed report that Minister of Public Security, Lieutenant Abdel Fatah Younis El Obeidi, has joined opposition.
UPDATE 20:48 GMT: Received a couple requests that people put this report on their Facebook page or tweet it.
UPDATE 20:46 GMT: Confirmed that judges are protesting in Tripoli.
UPDATE 20:43 GMT: Protesters heading to main square in Tripoli.
UPDATE 20:38 GMT: Al Jazeera reporting that Libya’s Arab League envoy quits and “joins revolution.” Al Jazeera also got confirmation that some in military switched sides, as reported here earlier.
UPDATE 20:25 GMT: US State Department ‘gravely concerned’ at crackdown on protesters, citing credible reports of hundreds dead and injured. Other western governments have condemned the violence.
UPDATE 20:22 GMT: Witnesses are telling the Associated Press a mix of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and Gaddafi loyalists have been assaulting demonstrators in Benghazi with knives, assault rifles and other heavy weapons.
UPDATE 20:01 GMT: Opposition groups inside Libya reporting “heavy heavy gunfire in Tripoli right now! Planes can be heard flying all over Tripoli as well!” and “reports of gunshots heard in Suq Al Jumua”
UPDATE 19:55 GMT: Expecting updated pics from Benghazi shortly
UPDATE 19:52 GMT: Primary Twitter feed from opposition groups inside Libya Benghazi tweets: “capture of benghazi” [Ed. Note: cannot be verified]
Libyan state TV today acknowledged the serious uprising in Benghazi, the second-largest city in the country, saying that an “armed people’s base” in the city had come under attack and had its walls breached.
Eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that at least 10,000 protesters are protesting in the streets of Benghazi on February 20, after the funerals of the 84 protesters shot dead the day before.
Human Rights Watch is now reporting at least 173 people killed in the clashes, although that estimate could be low. The BBC is reporting “More than 200 people are known to have died, doctors say, with 900 injured.” Gaddafi opponents inside Libya have been saying that as many as 700 are dead.
Twitter users had been furiously tweeting of the breach of Benghazi’s al-Birka barracks all day yesterday. Tweets seemed to focus on the use of TNT to breach the wall, and there were numerous tweets claiming that a nephew of Libyan strongman Muammar al-Gaddafi had been killed. Neither claim could be independently confirmed by independent media due to tight government controls on reporting.
One witness told the BBC, “this is a war.”
For yesterday’s extensive coverage, photos and videos, go to this post here.
This morning, Benghazi residents were spreading word to the outside world that electricity and telephone service had been cut off to the city in the early hours Sunday.
There have been numerous tweets and other forms of communication saying that opposition forces had seized military vehicles. There have been indications, in Benghazi, that there has been dissension among Libyan military forces and that some troops were either refusing to fire on anti-Gaddafi forces or had joined them outright.
The Associated Press is reporting an account from a witness who was shot in the leg Sunday. He said marchers were bearing coffins to a Benghazi cemetery security forces fired in the air and then opened up on the crowd.
There are multiple sources inside Libya claiming numerous prison breakouts throughout the country.
Reuters reported that witnesses described Benghazi as being in chaos, with government buildings ransacked and troops and police forced to retreat to a fortified compound, from where they picked off demonstrators with sniper and heavy-weapons fire. It was unclear if the Reuters report was filed prior to the barracks wall breach.
SkyNews report with scenes from Benghazi.
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Scenes from a hospital (CAUTION: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC)
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World Scene Today 