Libya: Fighting In Sirte; First Barrels Of Oil For US
By MISNA
Combatants in the National Transitional Council (CNT), which for the past two weeks have been besieging the town of Muammar Gaddafi claim to have taken control of the airport of Sirte.
The insurgents are slowly advancing toward the city center – one of the few where Gaddafi loyalists are still resisting along with Bani Walid – taking advantage of the protection provided by the constant bombardments by NATO aircraft and the use of heavy artillery.
Little is known about what is actually happening in the city and the consequences of the hostilities on the civilian population, while many people may have left Sirte to safer places.
In the immediate vicinity of Sirte, the rebels claim to have captured yesterday, Gaddafi’s spokesman Ibrahim Moussa.
Former regime officials, meanwhile, are being held in nearby countries, such as in Tunisia’s where former Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi is in prison and has started a hunger strike to avoid being transferred to Libya. Niger, said it had placed Saadi Gaddafi, one of the Colonel’s sons, under surveillance after he had been caught in a border zone.
Meanwhile, as reported by various sources, the American company ConocoPhillips has purchased the first barrels of oil in Libya by sending its new oil tanker that loaded 381,000 barrels of crude oil destined for refineries in France and Germany.
