Aug. 21 Updates on the Battle for Tripoli

The Lede will return to the situation in Libya later Monday morning. In the meantime, please visit nytimes.com for news from our colleagues reporting from the region.

The BBC is reporting that a spokesman for the National Transitional Council, Guma el-Gamaty, has said that their leadership is urging the rebels to show restraint and not take revenge on Qaddafi loyalists.

Judging by what happened so far in Libya, there was no sign of the feared reprisal and breaking law and order and revenge and so on. So hopefully Tripoli will emulate the rest of the country and the way the rest of the country went – we have appealed and we are appealing to the people of Tripoli to keep calm.

On Sunday, opposition leader Mahmoud Jibril appeared on Al Jazeera with the same message.

“I call on you conscious, responsibility, to come to the fore and prevent you taking any vengeance in these happy moments,” Mr. Jibril said. “We need to find out why we were mistreated in the last 42 years and this can only happen if there is a genuine chance for every prisoner to be held accountable in a just trial. “

While world leaders from President Obama to Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia have called on Muammar el-Qaddafi to step aside, the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, condemned the NATO campaign Sunday, calling it an attempt to claim the country’s oil resources.

“Today they dropped I don’t know how many bombs, and they’re falling in a shameless and open way,” Mr. Chavez said, according to a report in The Guardian. The bombs were falling, he said, “on schools, hospitals, homes, work places, factories, farm fields at this very moment. They’re practically demolishing Tripoli with their bombs. It’s the excuse to intervene and seize a country and its riches.”

With rebel forces in control of most of Tripoli, some proponents of the NATO mission in Libya are claiming victory — not only of the battle against Qaddafi, but also of the view that the campaign should have been waged in the first place.

The director of the Brookings Doha Center, Salman Shaikh, posted on Twitter Sunday night that those who supported intervention “were right,” and that the skeptics “were wrong!”

Some of those skeptics were still voicing their opposition as recently as Sunday afternoon.

In a strongly worded opinion piece in the Guardian on Sunday, Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, said that whether or not Qaddafi was successfully pushed from power, NATO’s campaign in Libya should end — and in fact, should never have begun.

The leading donor nations of Nato – the US, France and Great Britain – have been free to prosecute war under the cloak of this faceless, bureaucratic, alphabet security agency, now multinational war machine, which can violate UN resolutions and kill innocent civilians with impunity. War crimes trials are only for losers. The prospective conquerors, the Western powers and their rebel proxies, will then expect to be able to assert control over Libya’s vast oil and natural gas reserves.

It is just after 8 a.m. Monday in Tripoli, and as the day begins in the capital city, the fight continues on.

Reports are coming from journalists and activists about gunbattles in central Tripoli, including Green Square. The blogger Ali Tweel reported on Twitter the sound of gunfire near Qaddafi’s sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound, and CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh is reporting smoke and the sound of heavy smoke coming from the area.

Al Jazeera has reported that tanks have rolled out of the compound and opened fire.

Al Jazeera is reporting on its live blog that a senior rebel leader, Mahmoud Jibril, said there are “still pockets of resistance in and around Tripoli” early Monday of forces loyal to Qaddafi.

“You have to be aware that some pockets are coming from the east and you have to be cautious,” Mr. Jibril is reported to have said, in a speech aired on the opposition television station al-Ahrar. “The fight is not over yet. God willing, in a few hours our victory will be complete.”

CNN’s Sara Sidner, reporting from the outskirts of Tripoli, says that dozens of cars are racing toward the city to help stave off any retaliation by Qaddafi loyalists.

Earlier in the evening, Ms. Sidner reported that she was warned to flee Green Square by rebels who said that Qaddafi’s troops were headed there.

The White House issued a statement on Sunday night saying that “Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant” and that Qaddafi’s government is “showing signs of collapsing.” President Obama said that the United States had recognized the Transitional National Council as Libya’s legitimate governing authority.

The surest way for the bloodshed to end is simple: Moammar Qadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end. Qadhafi needs to acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all.

Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, both Republicans, released a statement Sunday congratulating the Libyan people on the “end” of the Qaddafi regime. The statement also criticized the United States for not doing more to help.

This achievement was made possible first and foremost by the struggle and sacrifice of countless Libyans, whose courage and perseverance we applaud. We also commend our British, French, and other allies, as well as our Arab partners, especially Qatar and the UAE, for their leadership in this conflict. Americans can be proud of the role our country has played in helping to defeat Qaddafi, but we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower.

While there have been scenes of euphoric celebration in Tripoli’s main square, a blogger named Ali Tweel, who lives close to the Qaddafi family compound of Bab al-Aziziya, reported on Twitter a short time ago that armed supporters of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi are still shooting in his neighborhood.

The blogger who writes as Pourmecoffee on Twitter suggests that this photograph of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Muammar el-Qaddafi and Hosni Mubarak at a summit in the Libyan city of Surt in October 2010 should now be captioned: “No more smiles.”

Sabri Elmehedwi/European Pressphoto AgencyAt a summit meeting in October, 2010 in the Libyan city of Surt, four leaders posed together for a photograph: Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Muammar el-Qaddafi and Hosni Mubarak.

Wasil Ali, a deputy editor of The Sudan Tribune, reports on Twitter Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s eldest son, Mohammed, explained in a live interview on Al Jazeera a few minutes ago that he is in his home and surrendered in return for a promise that he would be kept safe.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, a former Times colleague who is now an Al Jazeera journalist, notes on his Twitter feed that as Mohammed Qaddafi spoke, “loud gunfire” could be heard in the background.

Rawya Rageh, an Al Jazeera reporter in Cairo, added on her Twitter feed: “Mohammed Qaddafi almost sounded like he’s in tears before call ended as he said gunshots ‘are inside my house.’”

Al Jazeera English is showing live images of celebrations by rebels in Tripoli’s main square, which was called Green Square by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi but the rebels refer to as Martyrs’ Square. Rebel fighters are firing both in the air in celebration and at a huge poster of Colonel Qaddafi.

Al Jazeera’s main Arabic-language channel is now streaming live video from the square.

Here is Associated Press video showing triumphant cheers of “Allahu Akbar!” or “God is Great!” and celebratory gunfire in Tripoli on Sunday night:

In the past few minutes, three Tripoli residents who used their Twitter accounts to give vivid descriptions of the first weeks of the uprising in the Libyan capital, but then disappeared from the social network for nearly six months, just posted their first messages since March 3.

The bloggers, like several others, had suddenly gone silent in March, as the Qaddafi government’s security crackdown intensified.

One blogger, Ali Tweel, who changed his Twitter handle to TrablesVoice during the initial phase of the crackdown, reports that he is close to the Qaddafi family’s Bab al-Aziziya compound, where clashes are still taking place. He wrote:

Did you miss me? I’m glad that i managed to survive this! I missed you all.

I’m fine and my family are fine, we still have some clashes in my area, I’m 2km away Bab Azezya, the area has many of his supporters.

Another blogger, who writes as FlyingBirdies, wrote:

I breath again… now I can tweet again and breath… after 6 months. So beautiful when you can breath… thanks to all our Pro-democracy fighter Tajoura & Souq Eljouma is Free.

The blogger also explained, “since March 3rd, we were without Internet,” but reported that the national phone network Libyana had just sent a text message “greeting the Libyan people.”

FlyingBirdies, via Yfrog A Libyan blogger’s screenshot of a text message sent out by the national phone network in the early hours of Monday.

Amin Siala, a blogger in Britain who follows FlyingBirdies on Twitter, posted this English translation of the text message:

God is Great. We congratulate the Libyan people on the fall of Muammar Qaddafi and we advise the Libyan people to go out on the streets and to safeguard public property…. Long live a Free Libya…The National Transitional Council.

A third blogger, Ahmed Aljazar, who writes on Twitter as SL0wZEr, returned to the network with a simple message: “BREAKING : Libya Free.”

A short time later, Mr. Aljazar reported that there was heavy gunfire in Tajoura, a district of the Libyan capital where protesters were reportedly massacred by government forces in March.

Paul Hackett/ReutersJournalists trapped on an upper floor of the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, on Sunday night.

Reporting live from the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli, Matthew Chance of CNN said a few minutes ago that while government minders have fled, at least one armed gunman wearing a green bandana remains in the hotel lobby, effectively trapping international journalists on an upper floor.

Here is a new statement by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary general of NATO, calling on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi to step down:

The Qaddafi regime is clearly crumbling. The sooner Qaddafi realizes that he cannot win the battle against his own people, the better — so that the Libyan people can be spared further bloodshed and suffering.

The Libyan people have suffered tremendously under Qaddafi’s rule for over four decades. Now they have a chance for a new beginning. Now is the time for all threats against civilians to stop, as the United Nations Security Council demanded. Now is the time to create a new Libya – a state based on freedom, not fear; democracy, not dictatorship; the will of the many, not the whims of a few.

That transition must come peacefully. It must come now. And it must be led and defined by the Libyan people.

NATO is ready to work with the Libyan people and with the Transitional National Council, which holds a great responsibility. They must make sure that the transition is smooth and inclusive, that the country stays united, and that the future is founded on reconciliation and respect for human rights.

Qaddafi’s remaining allies and forces also have a great responsibility. It is time to end their careers of violence. The world is watching them. This is their opportunity to side with the Libyan people and choose the right side of history.

We will continue to monitor military units and key facilities, as we have since March, and when we see any threatening moves towards the Libyan people, we will act in accordance with our U.N. mandate.

Our goal throughout this conflict has been to protect the people of Libya, and that is what we are doing.

Because the future of Libya belongs to the Libyan people. And it is for the international community to assist them, with the United Nations and the Contact Group playing a leading role. NATO wants the Libyan people to be able to decide their future in freedom and in peace. Today, they can start building that future.

In this remarkable video report posted on the Web site of Britain’s Sky News a short time ago, Alex Crawford, a correspondent seated in the back of a rebel pick-up truck speeding through the streets of Tripoli unopposed, described scenes of euphoria, as residents greeted the opposition forces with cries of “freedom!”

Ms. Crawford added that when the convoy she is traveling in entered Tripoli through the western entrance known as Gate 27, “there was a traffic jam” of vehicles rushing to support the rebel fighters.

Bashir Sewehli, a Libyan activist, told Al Jazeera English a few minutes ago that the rebel Transitional National Council now claim to have captured three of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s sons: Seif al-Islam, Saadi and Muhammad.

Al Jazeera English just broadcast video of residents of part of Tripoli dancing in celebration, stomping on posters of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and waving rebel flags. Zeina Khodr, an Al Jazeera correspondent who traveled to the capital with the rebels from Zawiya, reports that opposition fighters are now battling government forces near Green Square in the center of Tripoli.

The network also broadcast what appears to be a new audio message from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, in which he called on religious leaders to defend Tripoli from the rebels and NATO in the name of Islam.

A short time ago, an opposition blogger who writes as Ibn Omar on Twitter posted a link to this video, which was posted on YouTube on Sunday and is said to show Tripoli residents in a district controlled by the rebels celebrating about six hours ago:

Waheed Burshan, a spokesman for Libya’s National Transitional Council, told Al Jazeera English a few minutes ago that the rebels have indeed captured Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, and now “control most of the capital.”

Speaking live on Al Jazeera from Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel, Musa Ibrahim, the spokesman for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, just claimed that more than 1,300 people had been killed on Sunday in Tripoli. He said that “NATO is attacking the heart of a peaceful, civilian city; it is attacking an army that has taken defensive positions.” He also accused NATO of giving direct air cover to “armed gangs who have no political project, no real dream for Libya; what they want now is vendetta and revenge.”

Mr. Ibrahim concluded by calling for talks and saying that Colonel Qaddafi should continue to lead Libya in the future.

The head of Libya’s rebel government, the National Transitional Council, just told Al Jazeera that Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader’s influential son, has been captured, Reuters reports.

Reporting live from Benghazi, the eastern stronghold of the rebels, Jacky Rowland of Al Jazeera English, describes a mood of jubilation as thousands of people pack the streets in celebration.

Although there is no word yet on where Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is, the rebel leadership in Benghazi told Al Arabiya that his security guards have surrendered, Reuters reports.

According to opposition activists and witnesses who claim to be inside Tripoli, rebels have managed to seize control of parts of the Libyan capital. This video report from Britain’s Channel 4 News includes a map of the city, showing some of the districts said to be in rebel hands and the location of the front lines surrounding Tripoli:

According to the Al Jazeera English live blog, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s audio message on Sunday called on his supporters to fight in one district that the rebels now claim to control, Tajoura. Al Jazeera reported that Colonel Qaddafi said:

March towards Tajoura in the thousands now — now, now, you must march towards Tajoura in the thousands.

A quarter million must go there, or half a million from Tripoli must march towards Tajoura and the Friday Market to cleanse them of the agents of the colonial conspirators.

As The Lede reported in February, during the first days of the uprising in Libya, activists in Tripoli posted text and video reports of protests and violent clashes in Tajoura and the Souq al Juma, or Friday Market, district of the city.

This detail of a Google map of Tripoli made by a Libyan blogger shows the location of Tajoura, at right, and Souq al Juma:

In addition to lightly-armed cells inside the city, rebels claim that their assault on the capital has been aided by a group of fighters who landed in Tripoli by boat, after a covert sea journey from Misurata, a city to the east they hold. This video, posted on an activist YouTube channel, is said to have been recorded on that boat:

A man who identified himself as a Tripoli resident named Tahir said in this telephone interview with Channel 4 News that he was one of the rebels who took part in the fighting that started on Saturday:

Earlier on Sunday, Al Jazeera English conducted an interview with a man who appeared to be the same person, as gun shots could clearly be heard in the background:

About one hour ago, Rob Crilly, a correspondent for London’s Telegraph in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, reported on Twitter that a diplomat there said that about one-third of Tripoli was no longer secure for the Qaddafi government.

The BBC News live blog features a new report from Matthew Price, a correspondent in Tripoli, who writes:

There is a real fear among senior government figures of some sort of tribal or urban warfare breaking out here in Tripoli, which will lead, in the words of one official, to a masscre. It has been reported that several hundred people were killed last night in just one night of fighting, and I think there are concerns in Tripoli that there could be worse to come. But then again, there are places where the rebels are not meeting such resistance. It is just very hard to gauge at this stage.

Matthew Chance, a CNN correspondent, reported on Twitter two hours ago that most of the Libyan government officials who had taken refuge at the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli, where foreign journalists have been living as guests (or prisoners) of the Qaddafi regime for months have now evacuated the premises.

Mr. Chance added that one official had assured him that “Tripoli can hold out for at least two weeks.” He also described what he called a “controlled panic in the Rixos,” as “armed loyalists” raised the green Qaddafi flag in the hotel lobby and foreign journalists, all wearing body armor, moved “into what will hopefully will be safe room.”

Just minutes ago, another reporter, Matthew Price of The BBC, added a new update to his account on the social network describing “lots of heavy gunfire” close to the hotel.

According to a report from Agence France-Presse, gunmen loyal to Colonel Qaddafi “armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles opened fire from outside the Hotel Rixos” on Sunday. As a reader points out in the comment thread below, the AFP added:

Journalists used white sheets marked “TV” to try to avoid the hotel being targeted.

But the hotel management as well as its Swiss manager left the building, saying staff had been warned it could be attacked because of the presence of pro-regime officials.

Earlier on Sunday, Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi told journalists at the hotel that “Western intelligence are working alongside Al-Qaeda to destroy Libya.”

An image of the town of Janzour in more tranquil days.

In my colleague Kareem Fahim’s latest dispatch from outside Libya’s capital, he writes: “Libyan rebels advanced to within 10 miles of Tripoli on Sunday, pushing past the city’s outer defense lines and vowing to combine forces with insurgents who have waged intense battles inside the city.”

About 30 minutes ago, The Associated Press reported that the rebels advancing from the west are now in Janzour, which is about 7 miles from the capital. The A.P. writes:

Euphoric Libyan rebels have pushed to the western outskirts of Tripoli without meeting any resistance after they overran a major military base that defends the capital.

Associated Press reporters with the rebels said they reached the Tripoli suburb of Janzour around nightfall Sunday. They were greeted by civilians lining the streets and waving rebel flags.

Hours earlier, the same rebel force of hundreds drove out elite forces led by Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son in a brief gun battle….

An Associated Press reporter with the rebels rapidly advancing toward Tripoli saw them take over the base of the Khamis Brigade, 16 miles west of Tripoli. After a brief gun battle, Qaddafi’s forces fled what was once a major symbol of the regime’s power.

Qaddafi’s 27-year-old son Khamis commands the 32nd Brigade, also known simply as the Khamis Brigade, one of the best trained and equipped units in the Libyan military.

Inside the base, hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced, raising the rebel flag on the front gate of a large, gray wall enclosing the compound. They seized large stores of weapons, driving away with truckloads of whatever arms they could get their hands on. One of the rebels carried off a tube of grenades, while another carted off two mortars.

On the Web, the rebel presence in Janzour is echoed by images of their flag on the home page of Janzour.com, a site promoting the virtues of the town as a tourist destination.

As my colleague Kareem Fahim reports from Zawiyah, a strategic oil city now in rebel hands, Libyan state television broadcast another defiant audio message from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Sunday.

From an undisclosed location, the Libyan leader promised to stay in Tripoli “until the end.”

According to the BBC News live blog, the Libyan leader said: “I am with you in this battle; I am in your midst now. I am with you with my rifle. We will not surrender. We won’t ever abandon Tripoli to the colonialists and traitors. We will sacrifice Tripoli with our blood and our soul. We would sacrifice Libya with our blood and soul.”

The new statement comes just hours after Colonel Qaddafi claimed in a message broadcast late on Saturday night that his forces has succeeded in defeating the opposition forces inside the capital he called “rats.”

In addition to broadcasting Colonel Qaddafi’s messages, Libyan state television has also featured equally defiant statements from a government spokesman and a news anchor for the channel.

Speaking to foreign reporters at the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli on Sunday, Moussa Ibrahim, a British-educated spokesman for Colonel Qaddafi’s government, claimed that reports of an imminent end to the conflict were part of an orchestrated media campaign, insisting that “Tripoli is well-protected and we have thousands upon thousands of professional soldiers who are ready to defend this city against any possible invasion by these rebels under the cover of NATO.”

The spokesman added: “Again, I insist, they are nothing without NATO. They are not freedom fighters, by the way, they are not popular, they are very weak; but when NATO comes and bombards everything and attacks everything, then even the cowards can march forward.”

The tenor of that message was echoed in remarks by one of the Libyan state channel’s news anchors who waved a pistol during a broadcast and promised to use it to defend the station.

The journalist brandishing the gun on Sunday appeared to be Hala Misrati, who appeared on the channel in March to launch a fierce verbal attack on the honor of Eman al-Obeidy, a Libyan woman who claimed that she had been raped by soldiers loyal to Colonel Qaddafi.