Live Tweets to the BBC About the Strikes on Libya.....1:07EST Mon. 20/03/2011

French Rafale fighter plane used for airstrikes in Libya

British Tornado fighter plane used for airstrikes in Libya

     American destroyer firing Tomahawk missiles

"0447: Timothy Katungi in the UK writes: "Has the West considered the demographics of Libya? Are any of the leaders in the West aware of the tribal divisions in Libya? Western democracy can not work in Libya, the events unfolding in Libya will only succeed, if at all, by dividing Libya into tribal settings. For Libya to stay as one country, it has to be led by a dictator. The west is once again displaying its double standards by ignoring events happening in other Arab States because they are poor and concentrating on Libya because of its wealth."
  0434: Japan has said it supports the air and missile strikes on Libya. "The Japanese government supports measures taken by UN member states under UN Security Council Resolution 1973," Japan's Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto said in a statement. "We strongly condemn the Libyan authorities for continuing violence against the people. We strongly urge the Libyan authorities to make a prudent decision as quickly as possible," he added.
  0413: The US state department has released an advisory recommending against news media organizations sending journalists into Libya at this time. Acting deputy spokesman Mark Toner said no US officials remained in Libya and that US citizens still there should get out immediately. Earlier, al-Jazeera reported that the Libyan authorities had detained a team of four of its journalists in the western part of the country.
  0408: The Shadow UK Defence Secretary, Jim Murphy, tells the BBC that he believes it is unlikely that foreign troops will need to invade Libya. "We are trying to achieve something relatively precise, which is to stop Gaddafi, his military, his heavy artillery, his tanks, his aeroplanes from being able to make attacks upon civilian centres. And I think that can be done in the way in which the UN has outlined. It won't happen immediately, but I think it can be done.
  0343: Anas in Misrata, Libya, tells the BBC: "The city is currently relatively calm, from time-to-time I hear the voices and the sounds of artillery fire. Now I hear gunfire and artillery. Water is totally cut off from the city, electricity cut off from some areas, the forces of Gaddafi stationed away from the city, but there are some tanks stationed in the outskirts of the city. The humanitarian and medical situation is bad in Misrata. We suffer a shortage of medicines especially anesthetics, dialysis and cancer drugs. We appeal to the international community to intervene effectively and humanely protect us."
  0340: Robert Haddick, in Foreign Policy, wonders if a quagmire lies ahead for the international coalition striking Libya. "Qaddafi is a particularly unscrupulous and ruthless adversary with long experience using terrorism as a strategic weapon -- Libya was a large source of suicide bomb volunteers during the Iraq war -- so members of the coalition should expect terror retaliation in various forms.
  0321: China, which abstained with Russia from the UN Security Council vote authorising the Libya no-fly zone, has made an official comment on the conflict. The foreign ministry said China wants stability restored as soon as possible and hopes the situation will not escalate and lead to greater loss of civilian life, Reuters reports.

  0314: Abdel, a doctor in the town of Misrata, Libya, about 200km east of Tripoli, tells BBC World television that Gaddafi loyalists have been moving the bodies of people killed in clashes between rebels and government forces to sites that have been bombed by the coalition to make it appear they have died in the strikes.

  0308: A reminder of just how expensive modern military hardware is. CNN's Wolf Blitzer tweets: "Each Tomahawk cruise missile costs roughly $1 million. US launched 100+ against #Libya targets. You do the math".
   0301: A number of Latin American supporters of Col Gaddafi say the intervention in Libya is being conducted with an eye on Libya's oil. In a televised speech in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez said: "More death, more war. They are the masters of war... What irresponsibility... They want to seize Libya's oil. The lives of Libya's people don't matter to them at all."
  0300: If you're just joining us, welcome to the BBC's live coverage of the Libya crisis. Stay with us for the latest updates - reports from our correspondents on the ground, expert analysis, and your reaction from around the world. You can contact us via email, text or twitter. We'll publish what we can.
  0249: Asuma in Tripoli, writes: "The West is very sick, wasting its time and rendering itself useless to the region. The first French strikes on Libya were a big, big mistake. Now the whole of Mediterranean Sea is impassable, you can't go in there with a boat nor a ship, so what type of madness is this? Libya does not have an air defense system that the West can hit and strike, and command posts are mobile, how the hell in the world will you neutralize Libya? You just set your own selves on flames!"
 
   0246: Nic Robertson of CNN tweets from Tripoli: "City now eerily quiet, occasional sporadic heavy machine gunfire, at least 3 earlier blasts reportedly at military airfield in east of city."
 0234: Feb 17 Voices tweets: "LPC from #Tripoli: 4 more explosions just heard, possibly around Ayn Zara or Tajoura. Very loud. Heard from approx. 20km away.

   0229: Mr Joshi adds: "Just to give you a sense of how disjointed this operation is, not only did the French strike first, by they did so without giving full warning to their own allies. This would have angered many. It will be very difficult to hold together such a disparate collection of allies, who are not operating within Nato and which perhaps soon will include Arab states, alongside whom Western powers have not fought since the 1990s. The fact that they delayed action until Saturday will have a serious impact on the course of the next couple of days. Col Gaddafi has been able to move his armoured units into urban areas where they cannot be hit easily.
  0226: Shashank Joshi, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) says there have been "very mixed messages" from Washington. "On the one hand, the US is insisting on playing a peripheral role and staying at arms' length. The statements we've seen so far, as well as the means of attacking Libya - cruise missiles rather than jet aircraft - give you a sense of just how strongly the Americans want to stay at some distance until the Arabs have joined the operation," he says.

  0218: The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says: "The ICRC is deeply worried about the fate of civilians in Libya for a number of reasons. First, the air strikes have begun only after Libyan government forces reached Benghazi, a city of almost 750,000 people, who may now find themselves in the crossfire. Then, there is the threat by Col Gaddafi to show no mercy to those he considers rebels, and the already very credible reports received by the ICRC that forces loyal to him have entered hospitals and attacked both the wounded and medical staff."
  0214: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said it is deeply concerned about the risk to civilians. In a statement, the organisation said all parties to "abide strictly by the rules and principles of international humanitarian law". "In particular, they must distinguish at all times between civilians and fighters," it added. ICRC Director General Yves Daccord said: "We urge the parties to the conflict to allow humanitarian organisations safe access to war-affected areas and to enable medical personnel and ambulances to reach the wounded.
  0208: Abdul Karim, a doctor in Libya's third city of Misrata, tells the BBC: "There has been strong firing from Gaddafi's tanks from the western side of Misrata, in an area called Guseir. The firing started five hours ago. I can still hear the sounds of explosions. I was heading home when I heard the explosions, so now I have gone to a safer place."
   0155: Harlan Ullman, a former US Naval commander, tells the BBC that the allies' strategy is flawed: "The trouble with this approach is that you could see a division of Libya, east/west as we saw in Europe in 1945. And if Gaddafi decides not to go, we wouldn't necessarily have an iron curtain, but we would have a sand curtain that would divide Libya somewhere east of Tripoli and west of Benghazi. Ultimately the only way that you can protect Libyans is to do away with threat number one, and threat number one is Muammar Gaddafi. Obviously Gaddafi's got to go and there have got to be new leaders in Libya.
  0151: Shabab Libya tweets: "#Gaddafi tv is showing PM Baghdadi Mahmoudi in the hospital visiting injured ppl. Why didn't he do that before? He suddenly grew a heart?"

  0149: Libyan TV has also shown footage of patients in hospitals who it says were injured during the recent attacks. Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi was shown making bedside visits in the company of a military officer, BBC Monitoring reports. Injured patients voiced their support for Col Gaddafi and the revolution. The footage then went on to show several bodies lying on hospital gurneys with tourniquets covering some of their hands and faces, while draped with white sheets.

  0138: Clovis Maksoud, a former Arab League representative to the UN, tells the BBC that Arab states will soon join the operation in Libya: "They will do it within the framework of the United Nations. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, perhaps Jordan, will join in one form or another in whatever the leadership of the UN operation requires. There is a willingness to participate in whatever capacity they can. Already they have deployed some of their aircraft to help the coalition.
  0129: Tripolitanian tweets: "#Libya has suspended the cease-fire, that's right, the cease-fire that was never there is now no longer there.
  0126: Mohammed, who lives in Tripoli, tells the BBC that there has been gunfire close to where he lives. "I heard the anti-aircraft guns start shooting around 0235 in the morning. Very heavily for almost five to 19 minutes. Machine-gun [bullets] are flying all over the sky around Tripoli. They're shooting very, very close to where I live. I'm not living too far from the home of Mr Gaddafi," he says.
  0121: Libyan state television is also quoting the military as saying its troops have "downed the barbaric, unjust, Crusading enemy's war jets.
  0117: More now on the casualties reported by Libyan state television: An armed forces communique says the "wanton attack" on Saturday targeted military installations in Tripoli, Misrata, Benghazi, Zuwara and Sirte. "The aggression killed 48 martyrs, most of whom were children, women and elderly," the communique adds. More than 150 were injured and maimed. "This savage attack affected many educational, health and civilian installations. It also terrorised the children and women living near by the sites targeted by this savage attack.
  0113: UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox says: "We made clear that if Gaddafi did not comply with the UN Security Council resolution 1973, it would be enforced through military action. Our armed forces have therefore participated in a co-ordinated international coalition strike against key military installations... This action has provided a strong signal - the international community will not stand by while the Libyan people suffer under the Gaddafi regime.
  0111: The British fast jets flew 4,828km (3,000 miles) from RAF Marham and back - the longest range bombing mission conducted by the RAF since the Falklands conflict, according to the Ministry of Defence. The operation was supported by VC10 and Tristar air-to-air refuelling aircraft as well as E3D Sentry and Sentinel surveillance aircraft

  0109: A spokesman for the UK's Chief of Defence Staff says the Royal Air Force has "participated in a co-ordinated strike against Libyan Air Defence systems". "In addition to the Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) launched from a Trafalgar Class submarine, I can now confirm that the RAF has also launched Stormshadow missiles from a number of Tornado GR4 fast jets, which flew direct from RAF Marham as part of a coordinated coalition plan to enforce the resolution," a statement adds.
 
0055: The BBC's Allan Little in Tripoli says: "There has been a very defiant response to the air and missile strikes from the Libyan government. Col Gaddafi said the Libyan people should arm themselves for revolution. The government continues to insist there has been no popular uprising in the east of the country; that it is a criminal enterprise led by a few hundred gangs which are working alongside al-Qaeda. That is not a version of events that anyone in the outside world believes. State media have been preparing people all day for what is happening tonight. They have been showing pictures of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, and the aftermath of that. The air strikes have also been called 'crusader strikes'
    0033: The Reuters news agency is broadcasting live pictures of the skies above the Libyan capital. You can see occasional orange flashes and tracers. A correspondent reports that anti-aircraft guns are being fired, presumably by forces loyal to Col Gaddafi.

  0028: A US military spokesman, Vice-Admiral William Gortney, has said the initial air and missile strikes by Western powers were "just the first phase of what will likely be a multiphase military operation designed to enforce the United Nations resolution and the deny the Libyan regime the ability to use force against its own people". "This is an international military effort urged by the Libyan people themselves and by other Arab nations," he told a news conference in Washington.