 Cluster bombs pose a huge risk to civilians, both during attacks because of their indiscriminate nature and afterward because of the still-dangerous unexploded duds scattered about. –Photo by AP TRIPOLI: Fighting raged in the long-besieged rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata where a human rights group charged the Libyan army was using banned cluster munitions. Heavy gunfire and shelling could be heard in Misrata, with sustained exchanges near the centre before nightfall, an AFP photographer reported. Air strikes also were reported near Sirte, the hometown of Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi. The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its researchers reported the use of internationally banned cluster bomb munitions against the city. Insurgents also said loyalist forces were using cluster bombs. "Last night it was like rain," said Hazam Abu Zaid, a local resident who has taken up arms to defend his neighbourhood, describing the cluster bombings. The use of the munitions was first reported by The New York Times. A reporting team for the daily photographed MAT-120 mortar rounds which explode in the air and scatter deadly, armour-piercing submunitions below. "It's appalling that Libya is using this weapon, especially in a residential area," said Steve Goose, HRW's arms division director. "They pose a huge risk to civilians, both during attacks because of their indiscriminate nature and afterward because of the still-dangerous unexploded duds scattered about," he said. A spokesman for the Libyan regime denied the accusations. "Absolutely no. We can't do this. Morally, legally we can't do this," government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told journalists. "We never do it. We challenge them to prove it." Misrata came under heavy attack Thursday by Qadhafi's forces, who fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells that killed at least 13 people and wounded 50, a rebel spokesman said. On Friday, the rebels said Qadhafi forces were firing shells and mortar rounds two kilometres away from the main road, Tripoli Street. Rebel checkpoints were seen around a now-abandoned residential area where nests of loyalist snipers were suspected to be active. "We want Nato to attack Tripoli Street — there are no civilians there," pleaded one rebel. Meanwhile, state news agency JANA said Qadhafi's hometown was targeted by Nato warplanes on Friday. "Aggressor colonialist crusaders" launched air raids on Sirte, it said, adding that Al-Aziziya, south of Tripoli, was attacked again after state television reported raids there on Thursday evening. And rebels fired off barrages of rockets from the edge of the eastern city of Ajdabiya as they advanced towards the key oil refinery town of Brega. On the diplomatic front, the leaders of Britain, France and the United States said a Libyan future including Qadhafi is "unthinkable," while Russia charged that Nato was exceeding its UN mandate in Libya. French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said the United States, Britain and France are thinking beyond UN Security Council Resolution 1973 — which authorises action to protect Libyan civilians — and now seek regime change. He admitted on LCI television the statement by the three leaders went beyond the terms of the current UN mandate. "But I think that when three great powers say the same thing, it's important for the United Nations, and perhaps one day the Security Council will make another resolution," he added. On Thursday, differences over Libya widened when the BRICS group — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — urged that "the use of force should be avoided." Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went further, arguing that Resolution 1973 did not authorise military action of the kind being carried out by jets from Nato and some Arab countries. Longuet dismissed this, arguing that Russia, China and Brazil "will naturally drag their feet." "But which of the great countries can accept that a head of state can resolve his problems in training cannon fire on his own population? No great power can accept that." In Berlin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for an urgent move towards a political settlement. "We believe it is important to urgently transfer things into the political course and proceed with a political and diplomatic settlement," he said after talks with NATO foreign ministers. "We should have an immediate ceasefire and bring the warring parties to the negotiating table so they can agree on the structure of their own country." Resolution 1973 calls for a ceasefire, but Qadhafi has relentlessly pursued his campaign to retake territory lost to the rebels. Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen denied that the air strikes were beyond the scope of the UN resolution. "I have to stress that in the conduct of that operation, we do not go beyond the text or the spirit" of the resolution, he told a news conference. Meanwhile, the European Union and Nato deepened their coordination for a potential EU military mission to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to Misrata, diplomats said. |
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