Nato joins attack on Gaddafi bastion

The BBC's Paul Wood on the road to Sirte as rockets are fired at Gaddafi loyalists

The BBC's Paul Wood on the road to Sirte as rockets are fired at Gaddafi loyalists

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British Tornado jets fired precision-guided missiles against a large bunker in Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

The Tornadoes took off from RAF Marham in Norfolk on a long-range strike mission on Thursday night.
Libyan rebels are also building up their forces on the road to Sirte, sending tanks and rocket launchers.

Rebel leaders have appealed to foreign governments to unfreeze Libyan funds.

The UN has already agreed to release $1.5bn (£1bn) in Libyan assets - which had been frozen under sanctions - to help with immediate humanitarian needs.

Closing in

In a statement, the MoD said "a formation of Tornado GR4s... fired a salvo of Storm Shadow precision-guided missiles against a large headquarters bunker" in Sirte.



Defence Secretary Liam Fox:



The bunker housed a command and control centre. There is no indication that Col Gaddafi was in Sirte or in the bunker itself at the time of the attack.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox: "The Nato mission remains the protection of the civilian population"
"It's not a question of finding Gaddafi, it's ensuring the regime does not have the capability to continue waging war against its own people," Defence Secretary Liam Fox told the BBC.

"The attack that we launched on the bunker in Sirte last night was to make sure that there was no alternative command and control should the regime try to leave Tripoli."

Nato warplanes also targeted 29 vehicles mounted with weapons near Sirte and bombed surface-to-air missile facilities near Tripoli, the alliance said at a daily briefing in Brussels.

Meanwhile, the rebels are building up their forces around the town of Bin Jawad, preparing for an assault on Sirte, about 100km (60 miles) to the west.

The BBC's Paul Wood, who is with the rebels, says their mood is still buoyant, despite running into unexpectedly stiff resistance.

Rebel commanders think the fighting on the road to Sirte could last another three or four days, our correspondent says.

The rebel administration, the National Transitional Council (NTC), has begun moving to Tripoli, although many senior figures remain in the eastern stronghold of Benghazi.

Speaking in Istanbul, the head of the rebel government, Mahmoud Jibril, said the uprising could fall apart if funds were not forthcoming quickly.

"The biggest destabilising element would be the failure... to deliver the necessary services and pay the salaries of the people who have not been paid for months," he said.

In the Libyan capital, Tripoli, there is continued fighting in the Abu Salim district, one of the last areas loyal to Col Gaddafi.

A Scottish nurse working at the hospital in Abu Salim, Karen Graham, told the BBC they were "overwhelmed" with casualties.

"All the staff were just doing the best we can, but we were literally inundated," she said. "We'd just clear one lot of casualties and the next lot would be getting brought in. Our theatre just couldn't cope... This is the first time we've had such a vast number of people in."

Human rights group Amnesty International says it has evidence that both pro-Gaddafi forces and rebels abused detainees in their care.

Guards loyal to Col Gaddafi raped child detainees at Abu Salim prison, Amnesty said. It also accused rebels of beating prisoners, including a boy conscripted by Gaddafi forces who surrendered to the rebels at Bir Tirfas.

Summary executions

The UN is to investigate reports of summary killings and torture through its existing commission of inquiry on Libya.

"We urge all those in positions of authority in Libya, including field commanders, to take active steps to ensure that no crimes, or acts of revenge, are committed," UN spokesman Rupert Colville told Reuters.

The UN has previously said some military action in Libya could amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes visited a hospital in the Mitiga district of Tripoli which had received the bodies of 17 rebel fighters.

Doctors said the group had been prisoners of Gaddafi troops in Tripoli and were tortured and killed as the rebels seized the capital earlier this week.

Dr Hoez Zaitan, a British medic working at the hospital, said about half the bodies had bullet wounds to the back of the head while others had disfiguring injuries to their limbs and hands.

He said the bodies had been examined for possible evidence to be used at a war crimes tribunal.

Strauss-Kahn New York sexual assault case dismissed

A New York judge has dismissed the sexual assault case against former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The move came as prosecutors cited doubts over the credibility of his accuser, 32-year-old hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, 62, was accused in May of attacking the African immigrant as she entered his hotel room to clean it.

The ruling means he is a free man, though he still faces a civil suit Ms Diallo filed this month.

"Our inability to believe the complainant beyond a reasonable doubt means, in good faith, that we could not ask a jury to do that," Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told Judge Michael Obus.

'Hurried sexual encounter'

The dismissal of criminal charges at the New York State Supreme Court will take effect once the judge rules on an appeal against the move.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, considered a French presidential contender before the case, arrived for the hearing in lower Manhattan on Tuesday in a six-car motorcade with his wife Anne Sinclair.

Outside, about two dozen placard-waving protesters denounced the result, their cries audible from the packed courtroom on the 13th floor.




Outside court a noisy group of demonstrators - mostly feminists and socialist activists - urged the judge not to drop the case. "Another rich powerful man gets away with whatever he pleases," read one banner.


Amid the chanting, a lone voice shouted, "she's a liar, she's a liar". It came from an African woman in a black cloak and headscarf. Brandishing a signboard that questioned in lurid detail Nafissatou Diallo's virtue, the woman claimed Mr Strauss-Kahn's accuser, an African immigrant, had tried to frame him.

In fact, prosecutors asked for the charges to be dropped not necessarily because they believed the former IMF head to be innocent, but because they had lost confidence in the hotel maid's credibility. Mr Strauss-Kahn looked pleased, but not jubilant, and gave his wife a small smile.

The combustible mix of sex, race and class presented by the case has particular resonance here. With a civicase now pending, interest will probably rumble on in America if not in Europe.

Ms Diallo claimed Mr Strauss-Kahn had confronted her in his luxury hotel suite in the city on 14 May and forced her to perform oral sex.

Prosecutors said DNA evidence had found that a "hurried" sexual encounter did occur between the two, but it did not establish Ms Diallo's claim that it was non-consensual.

In a statement released by his legal team on Tuesday, Mr Strauss-Kahn said: "These past two-and-a-half months have been a nightmare for me and my family.

"I want to thank all the friends in France and in the United States who have believed in my innocence, and to the thousands of people who sent us their support personally and in writing.

"I am most deeply grateful to my wife and family who have gone through this ordeal with me."

He added: "We will have nothing further to say about this matter and we look forward to returning to our home and resuming something of a more normal life."


Rush to judgment'

Outside the court on Tuesday, Mr Strauss-Kahn's lawyer, William Taylor, accused the media, police and prosecutors of a "collective rush to judgment".


Protesters chanted slogans and waved placards outside the court

I want to remind you how uncritically the media examined this case from the beginning without even looking at the improbability of the story on its face," he said.

In court papers filed on Monday, Manhattan prosecutors said they did not feel at ease pursuing the case, citing deep concerns over Ms Diallo's credibility.

Protesters chanted slogans and waved placards outside the court She "has not been truthful on matters great and small" and has an ability to present "fiction as fact with complete conviction," they wrote.

Medical and DNA evidence, meanwhile, was "simply inconclusive" as proof of a forced sexual encounter, they added.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's was forced from his job as director of the International Monetary Fund after his arrest on board an Air France jet in May.

But within weeks, prosecutors said there were inconsistencies in Ms Diallo's accounts of the alleged assault and of her background.

It was revealed that she had been recorded discussing the case with a jailed friend and appeared to refer to Mr Strauss-Kahn's wealth, which his supporters said pointed to a financial motive.

Prosecutors also said Ms Diallo had not been truthful in tax documents, nor on an asylum application form in her account of a gang rape she said she suffered back in Guinea.



Ms Diallo's lawyer said on Monday that she had been denied justice


AdvertisementMs Diallo's lawyer said on Monday that she had been denied justice

Mr Strauss-Kahn was later freed from his restrictive bail conditions.

Ms Diallo then took the unusual step of giving media interviews, defending her allegations against him, and on 8 August, she filed a civil suit against Mr Strauss-Kahn.

The Frenchman's legal travails are not yet over: authorities in Paris are still considering whether to press charges against him over a claim by French writer Tristane Banon that he tried to rape her during a 2003 interview.

Ms Banon made the allegation after the Diallo case, saying that she feared no-one would have believed her beforehand.