Blasts shake Gaddafi’s HQ

Three loud explosions shook the Bab al-Aziziya neighbourhood of Tripoli last night, the area where Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi lives, an AFP correspondent reported.

The blasts rattled a hotel near the city centre where the foreign press in Tripoli is housed and were heard at 8 p.m..

Earlier yesterday, a radar base was destroyed in Nato air raids targeting suburb of Tajura east of Tripoli, home to a number of military installations, residents and the official Jana news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor applied yesterday for a warrant for Muammar Gaddafi’s arrest for crimes against humanity, a day after the Libyan strongman’s regime offered a truce in return for a halt to Nato-led air strikes.

Nato-led aircraft meanwhile launched fresh raids on an outlying suburb of the capital Tripoli, destroying a radar base, the state news agency Jana and residents said.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said warrants were also sought for one of Col Gaddafi’s sons, Seif al-Islam, and intelligence head Abdullah Senussi for crimes against humanity.

“Today, the office of the prosecutor requested the International Criminal Court arrest warrants,” Mr Moreno-Ocampo told a news conference in The Hague, where the court is based.

The Argentine prosecutor said there was evidence “that Muammar Gaddafi personally ordered attacks on innocent Libyan civilians”.

A panel of ICC judges will now decide whether to accept or reject the prosecutor’s application.

Protests against Col Gaddafi’s four-decade rule began on February 15 and Mr Moreno-Ocampo said thousands of people had now been killed in the violence and around 750,000 people forced to flee.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called on the international community to “fully support” the ICC.

“I welcome this announcement. The human rights situation in western Libya and the behaviour of the Gaddafi regime remains of grave concern,” Mr Hague said.

The rebels too hailed the move by the ICC but said that Col Gaddafi ought to be tried in Libya first.