Blasts rock Misurata as Libya denies use of cluster bombs

Libya yesterday categorically denied claims by a rights watchdog that Muammar Gaddafi’s forces were using illegal cluster bombs against rebel fighters in Misurata, as the long-besieged rebel-held town came under heavy fire once again.

US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its researchers reported the use of internationally banned cluster munitions against Misurata, the rebels’ last major bastion in western Libya.

But a spokesman for the Libyan regime denied the accusations.

“Absolutely no. We can’t do this. Morally, legally we can’t do this,” Mussa Ibrahim told journalists. “We never do it. We challenge them to prove it.”

Insurgents said Gaddafi loyalists were using cluster bombs, which explode in the air and scatter deadly, armour-piercing submunitions over a wide area.

“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 photographed MAT-120 mortar rounds, which it said were produced in Spain.

“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 afterwards because of the still-dangerous unexploded duds scattered about,” he said.

Loud explosions rocked the western city of Misurata and, in the east, heavy fighting was reported as rebel fighters, bolstered by Nato air strikes, pushed on from the crossroads town of Ajdabiya towards the strategic oil town of Brega.

Six people were killed and 20 wounded in rocket fire from Gaddafi forces, medics reported.

And even further west, Nato air strikes targeted Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, state news agency Jana reported, without giving details. Nato warplanes had already struck Sirte last Friday.

Later in the day, the agency reported further air strikes on the region of Al-Hira, 50 kilometres south-west of Tripoli.

The blasts in Misurata were accompanied by bursts of gunfire heard coming from the city centre, after Nato flyovers and possible air raids were followed by a lull in shelling and shooting, an AFP correspondent said.

Misrata’s main Hikma hospital said overnight it had received five dead bodies and 31 wounded.

In Paris, aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had evacuated 99 people, including 64 war-wounded, by boat from Misurata last Friday to Tunisia.

Speaking of the dire conditions in the city, under siege for weeks, MSF doctor Morten Rostrup said in a statement that “health structures have been struggling to cope with the influx of patients”.

“With the latest heavy bombardments in Misurata, the situation is worsening, as hospitals have to discharge patients before their treatment is completed in order to treat the new wounded from fighting. Many injured cannot even access medical facilities without further risking their life.”

Rostrup also said an MSF visiting a nearby migrant camp found that “these people live in extremely difficult conditions, lacking proper shelter and food. They are desperate to go back to their home countries.”

Tens of thousands of migrants have already fled Libya since the rebellion broke out in mid-February.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said a new UN resolution to push Gaddafi into quitting was unnecessary.

“We think that given his behaviour, his savage repression of the population, Gaddafi has lost all legitimacy to stay in power,” Juppe said in Paris.

“That is the view of the US, of Great Britain, of the 27 member states of the European Union, of the Arab League, and there is no need for a new Security Council resolution to enact this principle.”

The current resolution “fixes the boundaries of the current intervention in Libya and we are applying it strictly,” Juppe said, speaking on the sidelines of a conference on the Arab uprisings staged by his ministry.