A thread was requested.
The Libyan capital, Tripoli, was rocked by explosions and gunfire on Saturday, as residents reported clashes with security forces in a number of locations.
Journalists in the city, based at the central Rixos hotel, described hearing heavy gunfire, while residents contacted by news agencies described fighting in opposition areas after a text message was sent out to phones calling on those living in the capital to: “Go out on to the streets and eliminate agents with weapons.”
The fighting in Tripoli comes after days of battlefield defeats left Muammar Gaddafi’s government and troops penned ever more tightly in the besieged capital. Although the scale of the clashes was impossible to determine, there were widespread claims among the Libyan rebels that Gaddafi’s 41-year rule was edging ever closer to collapse.
I don’t profess to have the faintest idea what is going on, other than that my old friend Muammar seems to be in some trouble.
As an aside, I’m interested to note that ever since they broke the News of the World scandal, the Guardian has become the very first place I go when anything big is happening, even in the US, because I just know that, whatever the story is, they will have five news stories, two well written opinion pieces and a timeline of important events. Imagine if the US had a newspaper that actually did investigative journalism and strove to keep people informed.
Al Jazeera’s live feed has also had some interesting analysis over the last hour or so.