Arab states back Libya no-fly zone against Gaddafi, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Arab League decision a surprise
* Government troops attack Misrata
* Rebels pushed back in the east
(Updates with Arab League decision)

By Michael Georgy and Yasmine Saleh
RAS LANUF, Libya/CAIRO March 12 (Reuters) - Arab countries appealed to the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone on Libya as pro-government troops backed by warplanes fought to drive rebels from remaining strongholds in the west of the country.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said the League, meeting in Cairo on Saturday, had decided that "serious crimes and great violations" committed by the government of Muammar Gaddafi against his people had stripped it of legitimacy.

The League's call for a no-fly zone could provide the regional endorsement that NATO has said is needed for any military action to curb Gaddafi. The League also said it had opened contacts with the Libyan rebel leadership.

Events on the ground, however, are moving more quickly than international diplomatic efforts. The EU and the United States have both balked at proposing a no-fly zone as Gaddafi steps up his effort to crush the uprising against his four-decade rule.

Pro-Gaddafi troops unleashed an assault on the town of Misrata, the only rebel outpost between the capital and the eastern front around the oil town of Ras Lanuf.

"We are hearing shelling. We have no choice but to fight," rebel spokesman Gemal said by telephone from Misrata. "I can hear loud explosions," said a resident who would only give his name as Mohammad. "Everybody is rushing home, the shops have closed and the rebels are taking up positions."

Mussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman in Tripoli, could neither confirm nor deny a military operation was under way.

"There is a hard core of al Qaeda fighters there," he said. "It looks like a Zawiyah scenario. Some people will give up, some will disappear ... Tribal leaders are talking to them. Those who stay behind, we will deal with them accordingly."

It took a week of repeated assaults by government troops, backed by tanks and air power, to crush the uprising in Zawiyah, a much smaller town 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli.

While the death toll in Zawiyah is unknown, much of the town was destroyed, with buildings around the main square showing gaping holes blown by tank rounds and rockets. Gaddafi's forces bulldozed a cemetery where rebel fighters had been buried.


"BRACING FOR A MASSACRE"
Gaddafi's guns are now trained on Misrata. "We are bracing for a massacre," said Mohammad Ahmed, a rebel fighter. "We know it will happen and Misrata will be like Zawiyah, but we believe in God. We do not have the capabilities to fight Gaddafi and his forces. They have tanks and heavy weapons and we have our belief and trust in God."

Further east, Gaddafi's troops pushed insurgents out of Ras Lanuf, a day after making an amphibious assault on the oil port and pitting tanks and jets against rebels armed with light weapons and machineguns mounted on pick-up trucks.

Libyan troops were waving posters of Gaddafi and painting over rebel graffiti in Ras Lanuf later in the day when foreign journalists arrived on an official visit.

Libya's flat desert terrain favours the use of heavy armour and air power. The Libyan army is also better trained and more disciplined than the rag-tag, though enthusiastic, rebel force.

The rebels have repeatedly called for foreign countries to impose a no-fly zone to stop air strikes on cities, while insisting they do not want military intervention on the ground.
Arab League Secretary General Moussa told a news conference after Cairo talks: "The Arab League has officially requested the U.N. Security Council to impose a no-fly zone against any military action against the Libyan people."

It was not immediately clear how Russia and China, who have veto rights in the Security Council and have publicly opposed a no-fly zone, would react to a call for action from a regional body; the more so since the call was, according to Omani Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, backed unanimously.

The terms of any no-fly zone would have to be agreed carefully and time may be working against the rebels. Its general aim would be to stop Gaddafi using his air force in attacking rebel forces, transport and reconnaissance.

President Barack Obama said the United States and its allies were "tightening the noose" on Gaddafi and that he had not taken any options off the table, a hint at military action. But there is little enthusiasm in Washington for enforcing a no-fly zone without United Nations backing.


DISCUSSIONS
European Union leaders meeting in Brussels on Friday sidestepped a British and French call to draw up a U.N. Security Council resolution to authorise a no-fly zone over Libya. Instead, they called for a three-way summit with the African Union and the Arab League to discuss the crisis further.

Western states' reluctance to intervene in an Arab conflict, amid pleas from the rebels and now the League, might win them few friends in a Middle East now in a period of transformation. "The risks of intervening are great. But the Arabs in revolt share a fundamental value with people in the West -- the call of freedom. Whoever does not honour this debt will find himself, five or six years from now, back sitting with Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent," wrote Tomas Avenarius in the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

"If Gaddafi goes on slaughtering his people, the Americans and Europeans will have to get involved in the end. Their own claims to morality and the calls from supporters of human rights ... will not let thousands die in Libya while politicians look on idly from the far side of the Mediterranean." Ahmed, a rebel fighter in Misrata, said: "The fighters here and the people of Misrata hold the international community responsible for the fall of Zawiyah and for all the deaths that happened. Gaddafi is responsible, but they are partners in crime.

"They do not care for us. All they care for is the oil, and it seems they are waiting to see who is going to win so that they can deal with them, whether it's Gaddafi or us. They do not want to burn their bridges with him. All they do is say they are assessing the situation. Why are they taking so long?"

(Additional reporting by Maria Golovnina in Zawiyah, Mohammed Abbas in Brega, Tom Pfeiffer in Benghazi, Mariam Karouny in Ras Jdir, Tunisia, Writing by Jon Hemming and Ralph Boulton; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Cairo activists say met by men with knives, Posted by Meosha Eaton

 

CAIRO, March 6 (Reuters) - Egyptian activists demonstrating for reform of Interior Ministry security forces said they were confronted by men in plain clothes armed with knives during a protest at police offices in Cairo on Sunday.

Two activists speaking to Reuters by telephone from the protest said they were trapped by "the thugs".

It appeared to be the first time armed men in plain clothes had deployed in force to confront reform activists in Cairo since the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.

(Reporting by Marwa Awad; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Millership)

Army fires in air at Cairo protest - witnesses, Posted by Meosha Eaton

CAIRO, March 6 (Reuters) - Egyptian soldiers fired into the air during a protest outside Interior Ministry offices in Cairo on Sunday during a demonstration by activists demanding reform of the security forces, witnesses said.

(Reporting by Marwa Awad; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Millership)

EGYPT ARMY FIRES SHOTS IN AIR DURING PROTEST OUTSIDE INTERIOR MINISTRY IN CAIRO - WITNESSES

NABIL ELARABY ACCEPTS POST AS EGYPT'S FOREIGN MINISTER, REPLACING AHMED ABOUL GHEIT-STATE NEWS AGENCY

State security building torched in Cairo - sources, Posted by Meosha Eaton

CAIRO, March 5 (Reuters) - A state security building on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital was set alight on Sunday, a security source said, one day after some 200 protesters stormed state security headquarters in the coastal city of Alexandria.

It was not immediately clear who had set fire to the building in Egypt's Sixth of October city near Cairo.

Some witnesses said they had seen police burning documents in the building, which had one floor burned out. Police said the property was set alight by citizens. At least seven people, including police and civilians, were injured, witnesses said.

The state security police Egyptians say tried to violently put down protests that led to toppling of Hosni Mubarak on Feb 11. More than 300 people died during the demonstrations.

The Interior Ministry is studying a plan to restructure the security apparatus but denied a report that the work of part of the service was being temporarily suspended, the state news agency reported citing a high ranking security official.

On Friday, around 200 protesters stormed state security headquarters in Alexandria, gaining control of its lower floors and driving police officers to hide further up.

MENA said on Saturday the army had evacuated everyone in the building in Alexandria. It cited a top security official as saying 21 policemen had been injured during the attack.

(Writing by Shaimaa Fayed; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Egypt new PM visits Tahrir Square, seeks legitimacy, Posted by Meosha Eaton

CAIRO, March 4 (Reuters) - Egypt's new Prime Minister-designate Essam Sharaf told thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square on Friday that he would work to meet their demands and saluted the "martyrs" of the country's revolution.

He told the crowd he had come "to draw legitimacy" from them. He was cheered by the crowd and carried away from the podium on the shoulders of protesters and escorted by military police.

Sharaf, a former transport minister, was appointed by Egypt's military rulers on Thursday to replace Ahmed Shafiq, the former air force officer who had been appointed by Hosni Mubarak before he was toppled from the presidency on Feb. 11.

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Bahrain protesters occupy square, Libyans bury dead, Posted by Meosha Eaton

As reported by Reuters:

* Libyans bury their dead
* Bahrain police abandon main square to protesters
* Rights group says death toll in Libya now 84
* Bahrain union calls for strike on Sunday
(Updates Bahrain, Libya)

By Cynthia Johnston and Frederik Richter

MANAMA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Protesters in Bahrain appeared to gain the initiative on Saturday and mourners buried their dead in western Libya as the wave of protest washing across the Arab world tested more of the region's longtime rulers. Unrest has spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Djibouti, as people of one country after another lose their fear of oppressive, autocratic rulers and take to the streets demanding democratic change and economic opportunity.

Pro- and anti-government crowds in the Yemeni capital Sanaa hurled stones at each other and fired in the air, riot police corralled protesters in Algiers into a courtyard, and demonstrators clashed with security forces in Djibouti. In Bahrain, a key U.S. ally and home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet, thousands of protesters regained control of Pearl Square in Manama, after first troops and then riot police withdrew from the symbolically important traffic circle. [ID:nLDE71I0A1]

Up to 80 people hit by rubber bullets or affected by teargas fired by the police before their withdrawal were taken to a Bahrain hospital, a doctor said. The crown prince, charged by King Hamad on Friday with opening a dialogue with protesters, called for a national day of mourning and appealed for calm. He had earlier announced that all troops had been ordered off the streets -- meeting one of the conditions for talks spelt out by an ex-lawmaker of the main Shi'ite opposition bloc Wefaq. Ibrahim Mattar told Reuters the authorities must accept the concept of constitutional monarchy and pull troops off the streets before a dialogue could begin.

"Then we can go for a temporary government of new faces that would not include the current interior or defence ministers," he said. The government is led by the Sunni Muslim Al Khalifa dynasty, but the Shi'ite majority has long complained about what it sees as discrimination in access to state jobs, housing and healthcare, a charge the government denies. The United States and top oil producer Saudi Arabia see Bahrain as a Sunni bulwark against neighbouring Shi'ite regional power Iran.

In Libya, mourners in the eastern city of Benghazi were burying some of the dozens of protesters shot dead by security forces in the worst unrest of Muammar Gaddafi's four decades in power.
Human Rights Watch said 35 people were killed in the city late on Friday, adding to dozens who had already died in a fierce crackdown on three days of protests against Gaddafi's rule, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. A security source said clashes were still under way on Saturday in the region between Benghazi and Al Bayda, 200 km away.

The area is "80 percent under control. A lot of police stations have been set on fire or damaged," the source said. New York-based Human Rights Watch said Friday's killings took to 84 its estimated death toll in three days of protests, mostly around Benghazi, against a ruling elite accused of hoarding Libya's oil wealth and denying political freedoms. The Benghazi-based newspaper Quryna said 24 people were killed in the city on Friday, shot when security forces fired to stop protesters attacking the police headquarters and a military building where weapons were stored.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Libya to stop using force against protesters and asked Middle East governments to respond to the "legitimate aspirations" of their people. "I condemn the violence in Libya, including reports of the use of heavy weapons fire and a unit of snipers against demonstrators," Hague said in a statement. "This is clearly unacceptable and horrifying."

The spreading unrest -- particularly worries about its possible effects on the world No. 1 oil producer, Saudi Arabia -- helped drive Brent crude prices higher this week before other factors caused them to slip on Friday.
It was also a factor in gold prices posting their best weekly performance since December. Analysts say a difference between Libya and Egypt is that Gaddafi has oil cash to smooth over social problems. He is also respected in much of the country, though less so in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi.

"There is no national uprising," said Noman Benotman, a former opposition Libyan Islamist based in Britain but currently in Tripoli. "I don't think Libya is comparable to Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi would fight to the very last moment," he said by telephone from the Libyan capital. In Yemen, one protester was killed and seven were hurt in clashes with supporters of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, a day after five people were killed in clashes between security forces and crowds demanding an end to Saleh's 32-year rule.

Saleh, a U.S. ally against a Yemen-based al Qaeda wing that has launched attacks at home and abroad, is struggling to end month-old protests flaring across the impoverished country.
In Algiers, police in riot gear crammed some 500 protesters into the courtyard of a residential block before they could reach May 1 Square in the city centre to start a banned march.
The main opposition parties did not take part in the protest, which was organised by human rights groups, trade unionists and a small opposition party.

This, like other recent demonstrations in Algeria for democratic change and better economic conditions, was too small to rattle the authorities, but there are signs that pressure is building within the ruling group for substantial change, including a new government line-up. The political uprising sweeping through the Middle East has also reached the tiny Horn of Africa state of Djibouti, where anti-government protesters clashed with security forces on Saturday for the second day running.

On Friday, thousands of protesters called for the removal of President Ismail Omar Guelleh, whose family has held sway in Djibouti since independence in 1977. Guelleh took office in 1999 and is expected to run for a third term in April 2011. Djibouti, a former French colony between Eritrea and Somalia, hosts France's largest military base in Africa and a major U.S. base. Its port is used by foreign navies patrolling busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia to fight piracy. Unemployment runs at about 60 percent.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, William Maclean in London and Saleh Al-Shaibany in Muscat; Writing by Tim Pearce, editing by Angus MacSwan)

Egypt's army turns to the Web after protests, looks like they are taking notes from the protesters! Posted by Meosha Eaton

As reported by Reuters:

* Mubarak's govt cut Internet at early point in protests
* Egyptians sign up to army site as supporters


By Edmund Blair
CAIRO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The army, thrust to the forefront of Egyptian politics with Hosni Mubarak's overthrow, has turned to the Web to win over youths who used the Internet to such devastating effect in bringing down the president.

The Higher Military Council has launched its own page on Facebook, the website that became an essential tool alongside others like Twitter in galvanising the masses on to the streets.

The once-feared interior ministry in Tunisia, where protesters ousted their own leader a month before Mubarak stepped down, has had the same idea. [ID:nAMA639171]
The Egyptian army site has drawn more than 98,000 supporters -- and rising. Among them were those who demonstrated in Tahrir Square. Some thanked the military, others called for a purge of old ministers and others urged the army to deliver on reform.
The council's site addressed its audience as the "sons of Egypt and the noble youths who ignited the Jan. 25 revolution".

The council's statement says it launched the page "in the belief that fruitful cooperation in the period ahead with the noble sons of Egypt will lead to stability, security and safety for our beloved Egypt".

In the early days of the revolt, the authorities shut down the nation's Internet system, stunning the world with such a brazen act of censorship. Mobile lines were cut too.
But youths still found the means to keep the protest momentum going, as the numbers of those turning out of the street surged from the thousands to hundreds of thousands.

On Friday, to mark the revolt, millions flooded Egypt's cities.
Ahmed N. Ibrahim, posting his comment on the council's page, wrote simply: "This is an admirable initiative. More and more reassuring."
Reflecting the anger many have towards Mubarak and his allies who they accuse of stealing Egypt's wealth, Maha Anwar Mostafa urged the council "to pursue the money of all the Mubarak family ... and freeze the foreign assets."

Others appealed to the army to remove old faces from a cabinet mainly made up of ministers appointed before Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11.

"I salute the Egyptian army and ask how there can be ministers from the old regime, not to mention Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq," who was also the former civil aviation minister, Mohamed Adel wrote.

Ahmed Abouraia thanked the army but listed demands, including a call that it "continue to protect the revolution until all the demands are realised."

The Arabic-language Facebook page can be found at: http://www.facebook.com/Egyptian.Armed.Forces#!/Egyptian.Armed.Forces

Deadly Uprising in Bahrain, MACTV UPDATE: At least 4 dead, story developing.....

Bahrain police break up protest camp, three killed, Poste by Meosha Eaton

As reported by Reuters:


* Armoured vehicles clear Pearl Square, three dead
* Swift move to prevent protesters emulating Cairo example
* Shi'ites demand more say from Sunni ruling family

(Adds third death, tow-trucks, helicopters)

By Frederik Richter and Cynthia Johnston

MANAMA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Bahraini police stormed a protest camp in central Manama on Thursday, killing three people in a swift move to prevent protesters from emulating Egyptians whose Tahrir Square protests helped topple Hosni Mubarak.
"Police are coming, they are shooting teargas at us," one protester told Reuters by telephone as the crackdown began. Another said: "I am wounded, I am bleeding. They're killing us."

Armoured vehicles rumbled through the capital overnight to regain control of Pearl Square, a road junction demonstrators had sought to turn into a protest base like Cairo's Tahrir.

Thousands of overwhelmingly Shi'ite protesters, emboldened by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, took to Bahrain's streets three days ago demanding more say in the Gulf Arab kingdom where a Sunni Muslim family rules over a majority Shi'ite population.
"I was there. The men were running away, but the women and kids could not run as easily, some are still inside (the square)," Ibrahim Mattar, a lawmaker from the main Shi'ite opposition Wefaq party, said of the police swoop at 3 a.m.
"It is confirmed two have died," he said. "More are in critical condition."
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Factbox on protesters' demands [ID:nLDE71E1RA]
Interactive factbox http://link.reuters.com/puk87r
For related stories on Mideast unrest click [ID:nLDE71F0BK]
Analysis on regional financial impact [ID:nLDE71E0YN]
Background analysis on Bahrain politics [ID:nLDE7170WL]
Factbox on political risks in Bahrain [ID:nRISKBH]
Factbox on political actors in Bahrain [ID:nLDE6780D9]
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Another Wefaq MP, Sayed Hadi, told Reuters a third protester had been killed, bringing the overall death toll to five since protests began.

Bahrain's Interior Ministry said that security forces had cleared Pearl roundabout of demonstrators, and that a section of a main road was temporarily blocked.
"This is real terrorism," said Abdul Jalil Khalil, also from Wefaq, which has walked out of parliament and was due to meet later in the day to decide a response to the events.

"Whoever took the decision to attack the protest was aiming to kill."
From a distance, the square appeared nearly empty of protesters early on Thursday. Abandoned tents, blankets and rubbish dotted the area, and teargas wafted through the air.

Helicopters clattered over the city and tow-trucks dragged away cars abandoned by protesters, their tyres squealing on the tarmac because the brakes were still on.
One protester said he had driven away two people who had been wounded by rubber bullets.

A teenager shepherded a sobbing woman into a car, saying she had been separated from her 2-year-old daughter in the chaos. At a main hospital, about 200 people gathered to mourn and protest.

On Wednesday the Wefaq party demanded a new constitution that would move the country toward democracy.

"We're not looking for a religious state. We're looking for a civilian democracy...in which people are the source of power, and to do that we need a new constitution," its secretary-general Sheikh Ali Salman told a news conference.
Elsewhere in Manama, life went on as usual. In one upscale area, foreigners were sipping cappucinos in street cafes or strolling past in jogging clothes.


BULWARK
The religious divide that separates Bahrain's ruling family from most of its subjects has led to sporadic unrest since the 1990s, and the country's stability is being closely watched as protest movements blow through North Africa and the Middle East.
Bahrain, a small oil producer, is more prone to unrest than most of the Gulf Arab region where, in an unwritten pact, rulers have traded part of their oil wealth for political submission.

Regional power Saudi Arabia, and the United States -- which bases its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain -- both view the ruling Khalifa family as a bulwark against Shi'ite Iran.
King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa introduced a new constitution giving Bahrainis more political rights a decade ago, but the opposition says he has not gone far enough to introduce democracy. Most of the cabinet are royal family members.
Demands have mounted that the king fire his uncle, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been prime minister since the modern state was founded in 1971. Wefaq members say they want elections for prime minister.

Protesters' wrath had already been stirred up by the deaths of two of their number during this week's demonstrations, the second killed in clashes at the funeral of the first.

"The people demand the fall of the regime", protesters chanted outside the hospital, echoing a slogan of Egyptian demonstrators who ousted President Hosnia Mubarak after an 18-day revolt.

King Hamad has offered condolences to relatives of the two men killed on Monday and Tuesday and said a committee would investigate. The government says it has detained those thought to be responsible for the killings.
Protesters who on Wednesday had expressed confidence they were secure in the square, said they had no idea the police would bust in and forcibly break up their encampment.

"There was no single warning," one demonstrator said. "It was like attacking an enemy. People were sleeping peacefully."

(Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)