Fighting worsens in Misurata

An upsurge in violence in Libya yesterday comes after Colonel Muammar Qaddafi gave strict orders to stop to his army to thwart the rebellion in the Misurata and US Predator drones carried out their first strike.

TRIPOLI // Misurata was again wracked by intense fighting yesterday after Colonel Muammar Qaddafi gave his army an "ultimatum" to take the besieged city and US drones carried out their first strike in the Libyan conflict.

At least 25 people were killed and 100 wounded in street battles in Misurata yesterday, said a doctor at the city's main private clinic, adding that the casualty toll was double that of a "normal" day of fighting between rebels and Col Qaddafi's forces.

"We're overwhelmed, overwhelmed. We lack everything: personnel, equipment and medicines," Doctor Khalid Abu Falra said.

Ambulances pulled up outside the hospital every five to 10 minutes, also bringing in wounded soldiers loyal to Col Qaddafi, as paramedics frantically wiped blood off stretchers.

"We can't go on at this rate. We are losing people who in normal times we would be able to treat," Mahmud Mohammed, a surgeon, said as explosions and gunfire echoed from the streets.

Misurata, where the general hospital is in the hands of regime loyalists, has been the scene of deadly guerrilla fighting between the regime and outgunned rebels for more than six weeks.

Yesterday's upsurge came after Col Qaddafi's government said it had given strict orders to stop the rebellion in the city, 200 kilometres east of the capital, Tripoli.

The deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, said: "There was an ultimatum to the Libyan army: if they cannot solve the problem in Misurata, then the people from [the neighbouring towns of] Zliten, Tarhuna, Bani Walid and Tawargha will move in and they will talk to the rebels."

Mr Kaim also hit out at a senior American senator's visit to Benghazi, the rebel capital in the east, saying the Transitional National Council did not represent Libyans and had "no authority on the ground".

John McCain, a Republican senator who lost the presidential race to Barack Obama in 2008, earlier held talks with leaders of the Transitional National Council, urging the international community to arm and recognise the rebel body.

France, Italy and Britain have said they would send military personnel to eastern Libya, but only to advise the rebels on technical, logistical and organisational matters and not to engage in combat.

Signalling a renewed conflict, the US carried out its first Predator drone strike in Libya yesterday afternoon, the Pentagon said, declining to give details on the targets or location.

Nato, in an update yesterday, said warplanes conducted 138 sorties in Libya on Friday, bringing the total to 3,438 sorties - including 1,432 "strike sorties" - since the alliance's operation began on March 31.

Earlier, as anti-aircraft fire rang out and ambulance sirens wailed in the capital, Nato air strikes hit a patch of bare ground looking like a bunker opposite Col Qaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya residence in the centre of the capital.

Authorities who took foreign correspondents there said they were "a parking lot" and "sewers."

Allibya television said the capital was "now the target of raids by the barbaric crusader colonialist aggressor," a term the Qaddafi regime uses for Western forces.

The official Jana news agency reported two people died in Nato raids late Friday on the Zintan region south-west of Tripoli where stepped up fighting has taken place with rebels who hold several towns.

Mr Kaim accused Washington of "new crimes against humanity" after Mr Obama authorised the deployment of missile-carrying drone warplanes over Libya for what his administration called "humanitarian" reasons.

Nato claimed the unmanned drones and their precision would give the coalition forces more options, especially in urban warfare. Rebels bogged down in their bid to oust Col Qaddafi hailed the US decision to deploy the drones.

The US military's top officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, said on Friday that allied air strikes had already destroyed 30 to 40 per cent of Col Qaddafi's forces, sending the conflict toward a stalemate.

Rebels have complained civilians are being killed in places such as Misurata, where entire streets have been pulverised by gunfire, shelling and cluster bombs. The Red Cross warned the situation in Misurata could "rapidly deteriorate further and the lack of basic services such as water, electricity, food and medical care could turn critical".

An aid ship, the Red Star One, delivered 160 tonnes of food and medicine to Misurata port yesterday before it evacuated around 1,000 stranded refugees, mostly Nigerians.

Hundreds of Libyan families lined up along the harbour front in hope of getting on board the vessel chartered by the International Organisation for Migration, which has already transported 3,100 refugees from 21 countries out of the besieged city.

Dakir Hussam, a Syrian electrician, expressed his delight at managing to get a place on the Red Star One after witnessing violent clashes.

"Qaddafi's men shoot at anything that moves in the city, but they are also suffering a lot," he said, referring to the burial he saw of up to a dozen loyalist fighters this week.

The UN refugee agency says about 15,000 people have fled fighting in western Libya into Tunisia in the past two weeks and a much larger exodus was feared.

* With reporting by Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg