Gov’t to evacuate OFWs still in Libya

Philippine officials on Sunday announced they were arranging with a humanitarian group the repatriation of more than 1,700 Filipino workers in Libya as rebels pushed closer toward Tripoli and small clashes erupted in the Libyan capital itself.

Libyan rebels announced that a 600-strong force that set eastward from the coastal city of Zawiya had reached the outskirts of the town of Jedaim on Sunday and that the front line was now less than 30 kilometers from the seat of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. It was unclear if the Libyan ruler was still in Tripoli.

Murad Dabdoub, a rebel fighter who returned to Zawiya from the front, said forces loyal to Gadhafi were shelling the rebel force with rockets, mortars and antiaircraft fire. Intermittent gunfire crackled in Tripoli itself on Sunday morning after four strong blasts were heard shortly after 4 a.m. as Nato warplanes flew overhead, an Agence France-Presse reporter said.

Government spokesperson Mussa Ibrahim admitted there were “small clashes” that lasted 30 minutes but stressed the pro-regime volunteers and Gadhafi forces repelled insurgents who had “infiltrated” the capital. “The situation is under control,” Ibrahim said on state television.

In Manila, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it was making arrangements with the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) for the evacuation of the 1,700 Filipino workers, mostly nurses, in Libya.

DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez said that Foreign Undersecretary Rafael Seguis and Ambassador Alejandrino Vicente were in Tripoli, visiting hospitals and housing areas to convince medical workers to leave because the security situation was “getting dangerous.”

“Tripoli is inaccessible because of the fighting in Zawiya,” the Philippine Embassy said in a report to the home office.

More than 26,000 Filipinos were in Libya at the outbreak of hostilities six months ago. Philippine officials said that half of that number had been repatriated, but they could not account for the rest, apart from the 1,700.

In earlier media interviews, Filipino nurses in Tripoli said that they were afraid to return to an uncertain future in their homeland. Thousands of nurses in the Philippines are unemployed.

Nato bombing runs

Gun battles and mortar rounds were heard clearly late Saturday at the hotel where foreign correspondents stay in Tripoli. Nato aircraft made heavy bombing runs after nightfall, with loud explosions booming across the city.

“We planned this operation with Nato, our Arab associates and our rebel fighters in Tripoli with commanders in Benghazi,” Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the head of the rebel leadership council, told the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

Benghazi, hundreds of kilometers east of Tripoli, is the rebels’ de facto capital.

Abdel-Jalil said rebel forces chose to start the attack on Tripoli on the 20th day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which fell on Saturday. The date marks the ancient Islamic Battle of Badr, when Muslims first fought for the holy city of Mecca in 624 AD.

Several hours after the rebels said they had attacked Tripoli, state television ran what appeared to be a live audio message by Gadhafi.

He did not appear on television but sounded like he was calling the message in on a poor phone line which crackled at times. He announced the time and date twice to prove that he was speaking live.

Gadhafi condemned the rebels as traitors and “vermin” who were tearing Libya apart and said they were being chased from city to city—a mirror image of reality.

“Libyans wanted to enjoy a peaceful Ramadan,” he said. “Instead they have been made into refugees. What are we? Palestinians?”

Government spokesperson Moussa Ibrahim appeared on Libyan television to deny there was an uprising in Tripoli. But he acknowledged that there was some kind of unusual activity.

“Sure there were some armed militants who escaped into some neighborhoods and there were some scuffles, but we dealt with it within a half hour and it is now calm,” he said.

The claims from both sides could not immediately be independently verified.

If rebel forces did indeed attack Tripoli, it would be the first time in the 6-month-old uprising. The rebels had made early gains in the revolt, capturing most of the east of the country and rising up in a few other major cities such as Zawiya and Misrata.

But Gadhafi’s forces fought back and until a week ago, the civil war had been mired in a stalemate.

Last weekend, rebels from the western mountains near the border with Tunisia made a dramatic advance into Zawiya and captured parts of the city.

Gadhafi appeared increasingly isolated as the fighters advanced closer to Tripoli, a metropolis of 2 million people, from the west, south and east and gained control of major supply roads into the capital.

After hard-fought battles for a week in Zawiya, the rebels finally wrested the city’s oil refinery, central square and hospital from Gadhafi’s forces and drove them out in a major victory on Saturday that clearly swung momentum in their favor. Hours later, the attack on Tripoli was claimed.

Col. Fadlallah Haroun, a military commander in Benghazi, said the battles marked the beginning of Operation Mermaid—a nickname for Tripoli.

He also said the assault was coordinated with Nato. Haroun said that weapons were assembled and sent by tugboats to Tripoli on Friday night.

“The fighters in Tripoli are rising up in two places at the moment—some are in the Tajoura neighborhood and the other is near Matiga (international) airport,” he told the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

Tajoura has been known since the beginning of the uprising in February as the Tripoli neighborhood most strongly opposed to Gadhafi’s regime. Reports from Jerry E. Esplanada, AP, AFP and Reuters