2200 GMT: We're going to take an overnight break. Coverage switches to our Live Feed from Al Jazeera English.
2145 GMT: Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is now speaking by phone. He says that the coalition attack will launch a second Crusade, which will be countered by the Libyan people. He then asks Africans and South Americans to stand by the regime.
Gaddafi declares that the regime must now open the weapons depots and arm all Libyans. He then ends --- a very un-Qaddafi speech of less than three minutes.
Libya Video: Libya Alhurra's Mohamed Nabbous "We Want Our Freedom" (19 February)
Libya Fighting and a No-Fly Zone: Scott Lucas on the BBC
Latest on Libya: Live Feed from Al Jazeera English
Libya Video: Live Stream from Opposition-Held Benghazi
Libya Video: Friday's Statement by President Obama
Friday's Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A No-Fly Zone....And More
2115 GMT: Activists claim that lawyer Ragia Omran was kidnapped today from a polling station in Egypt during the referendum on the Constiutional amendments.
2110 GMT: French broadcasters, refuting the claims of Libyan State TV (see 2050 GMT), reports that all French aircraft have returned safely from missions over Libya.
2105 GMT: Four Al Jazeera journalists have been detained in western Libya.
Al Jazeera is reporting that US missiles struck the Mutiqa airbase east of Tripoli.
2055 GMT: A regime official, Mohammad Al-Zwai, is currently addressing the press. He says that "this barbaric aggression" comes as Libya has announced a cease-fire against the armed militias of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and as the regime announces major economic and administrative reforms.
El Zwai claims a large number of civilian casualties are filling the hospitals.
2050 GMT: Libyan State TV is claiming a French aircraft has been shot down.
2040 GMT: In Yemen, "official" opposition leaders have joined demonstrators at Sanaa University for the first time since protests began.
“When the people come to the square of change, there is no voice louder than theirs,” Yassin Saeed Noman, a socialist leader and the head of the Joint Meetings Parties, Yemen’s opposition coalition, told the crowd of hundreds. “You are the generation that will bring the revolution to Yemen.”
The appearance came a day after security forces killed 46 protesters and injured more than 200.
2025 GMT: The Bahrain regime has played the Iran card, as its Ambassador to the United Nations, Tawfik Al Mansour, submitted a memorandum to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon protesting "the barefaced interference" of Tehran in Bahrain's internal affairs.
Meanwhile, there is confirmation that a fifth protester, Essa Radhi Al Radi, was killed this week by the security forces. Al Radi died on Tuesday when Bahraini security forces cleared protesters from the Pearl Roundabout in the capital Manama.
2020 GMT: The Pentagon says that 110 Tomhawk cruise missiles --- launched from British as well as American ships --- struck more than 20 air defense and military targets in Libya.
2015 GMT: For those looking for historic convergences, Operation Odyssey Dawn has been launched on the eighth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
2010 GMT: The no-fly zone declared by the coalition covers Tripoli, Sabha, Natoura, Misurata, and Benghazi.
There are no operations planned for Benghazi this evening, where the situation is relatively quiet after the regime assault earlier today.
President Obama has said the US is "proud that we are acting as part of a coalition" which is "answering the calls of a threatened people".
2005 GMT: Libyan State TV has reported the coalition attacks by saying civilian targets are being hit by "crusader enemies".
2000 GMT: The US has 11 ships based in the Mediterranean for the Libyan operation: 3 submarines, 2 destroyers, 2 amphibious craft, 1 command ship, and 3 supply ships.
There are 25 vessels in total in the coalition effort.
1950 GMT: Back from a break to find that US warships, in Operation Odyssey Dawn, have launched Tomahawk cruise missiles on regime targets in Libya. There are reports of explosions in east Tripoli, where air defence systems have been targeted by the coalition. Houses 20 km (12 miles) away shook from the force of the explosions.
A US military official says the American have also targeted air defences systems around Misurata, east of Tripoli.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has also announced that Britain's forces are in action.
1740 GMT: Al Jazeera is reporting that French jets targeted four regime tanks in their mission this evening in Libya.
1725 GMT: A funeral procession in Bahrain today for one of the victims of this week's crackdown by security forces:
1720 GMT: For the first time, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi has allowed citizens inside his compound, Baba Azizia. Libyan State TV is broadcasting the event as the citizens declare they are willing to be human shields for the regime.
1710 GMT: Claimed video from the funerals of two protesters who died in Daraa in southern Syria on Friday:
1657 GMT: The first shot by the no-fly coalition has been fired: a French fighter jet fired on a regime vehicle at 1645 GMT, according to the French Defense Ministry. The Ministry said 20 planes have been involved in operations.
Italian planes have started reconnaissance & aerial imaging missions.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has restated that there will be "consequences" for Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi if he does not comply with international demands. She said that the regime "has lost all legitimacy": "We will stand with the people of Libya and we will not waver (in our effort) to protect them."
1645 GMT: Back from a break to find that Bahrain has eased the curfew in parts of the capital Manama to 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. A fourth protester has died from wounds suffered in Wednesday's crackdown by security forces.
1525 GMT: Demonstrators have accosted Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Prize laureate and likely Presidential candidate, as he voted in today's Egyptian referendum on Constitutional amendments. They shouted, "We don't want you," and threw stone, as the military established a cordon around him.
1505 GMT: The last recording by journalist Mohammad Nabbous, who has been killed in Benghazi today amidst a firefight:
Nabbous' widow has released an audio message: "He died for his cause. Let's hope Libya will be free....Let's not stop doing what we are doing until this is over. What he started has got to go on, no matter what happens."
1425 GMT: Witnesses say that Syrian security forces in Daraa have used tear gas to disperse the thousands at the funerals of two protesters slain on Friday (see 1405 GMT).
1415 GMT: AFP, Al Arabiya, and France's BFM TV report that France's Rafale fighter aircraft are now over Libya carrying out reconnaissance flights.
1405 GMT: Reuters summarises the protest of thousands of mourners at the funeral in Daraa, in southern Syria, for two of the three demonstrators killed on Friday.
"God, Syria, Freedom. Whoever kills his own people is a traitor," the mourners shouted as they marched behind the coffins of Wissam Ayyash and Mahmoud al-Jawabra.
1400 GMT: Former Minister of Interior Abdul Fatah Younis has appeared on Al Jazeera to deny the claims of Libyan State TV (see 1115 GMT) that he "re-defected" back to the regime.
Younis, who broke with long-time ally Muammar Qaddafi two weeks ago, said that victory would come "soon", God willing, for the opposition.
1315 GMT: A report comes in that Mohamed Nabbous of Libya Al-Hurra Radio and TV --- whose Live Feed is in a separate entry on EA --- has been critically injured and is in hospital.
Nabbous was reportedly filming in Benghazi when he was struck by a bullet.
1305 GMT: Video of the downing of the jet over Benghazi this morning:
1250 GMT: A pro-regime site says Syrian officials will prosecute those responsible for Friday's deaths of protesters in Daraa, irrespective of rank.
1240 GMT: Al Jazeera reports from sources that the Jalaa Hospital in Benghazi has 26 killed & 40 injured from today's fighting.
1205 GMT: While the regime strives to advance on the military front --- despite its claims to observe a cease-fire, the Minister of Oil has appeared on State TV in an attempt to convince outside powers that oil security and the regime's security are linked.
Shukri Ghanem said oil exports had fallen 75% but the regime was making arrangements to ensure that the supply could be restored. He promised that National Oil Corporation will honour its contracts with foreign firms operating in the country
1155 GMT: An image of the jet downed over Benghazi today:
1130 GMT: Witnesses tell Reuters that 3000 protestors have been chanting anti-regime slogans at funerals for those killed yesterday in Darra in southern Syria (see video in separate entry).
1125 GMT: Activists Sayed Ahmed and Dr.Nada Dhaif, who recently appeared in the Al Jazeera English report "People and Power", have been arrested in Bahrain.
Manama Voice claims more than 80 people have gone missing since Tuesday.
1120 GMT: Nasir Taha Mustafa, editor of the official Yemeni news agency, has resigned in protest at the killing of demonstrators by security forces.
1115 GMT: Libyan State TV is claiming that the former Minister of Interior and long-time Qaddafi ally Abdul Fattah Younis, who defected to the opposition two weeks ago, has returned to the regime.
Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the opposition's National Transitional Council, has denied the claim.
1025 GMT: Western Benghazi after a rocket attack this morning:
1010 GMT: An Al Jazeera correspondent reports that regime shells have hit a camp set up by the Libyan Red Crescent in central Benghazi.
Journalist Rob Crilly writes concisely, "There are now tanks in the streets. getting out."
There are reports that a jet shot down this morning --- captured in dramatic images, posted on the BBC's website --- belonged to the opposition and was downed by regime forces.
1000 GMT: A photograph of the destroyed monument at Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain:
0945 GMT: Back from a break to find that the regime is continuing its bombardment, by artillery and rockets, of all districts of Benghazi. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the opposition's National Transitional Council, has declared:
The international community is late in intervening to save civilians from Gaddafi's forces. Today in Benghazi there will be a catastrophe if the international community does not implement the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council.We appeal to the international community, to the all the free world, to stop this tyranny from exterminating civilians.
In an almost surreal juxtaposition, a spokesman in Tripoli says that the regime's armed forces are retreating and hiding but the opposition continues to shell them.
Ibrahim Moussa then reads two letter from Muammar Qaddafi, one to President Obama and the other to French and British leaders Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Qaddafi's letter to Obama, "his son", asks, "I have all the Libyan people supporting me and they are prepared to die for me....I am facing Al Qa'eda here --- what would you do?" The letter to Ban, Sarkozy, and Cameron has a far stricter tone:
Libya is not yours.. You have no right to intervene into our internal affairs. This is our country, it is not your country. We can never shoot a single bullet onto our people.
0805 GMT: Al Jazeera English's James Bays says that a fighter jet has been shot down in Benghazi, landing a few kilometres from his position.
0745 GMT: Reports of artillery fire hitting the centre of Benghazi --- a journalist for The Christian Science Monitor summarises, "Lots of heavier stuff now, as well. Prolly artillery, tank shells. I'm staying off the streets now."
A Government spokesman has said there is "no fighting whatsoever" in Benghazi.
0700 GMT: Al Jazeera is reporting that regime forces have entered Benghazi from the west. |Al Arabiya says there are explosions in the south of the city.
0645 GMT: Egyptians vote today on a series of proposed amendments to the Constitution, five weeks after the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. Al Jazeera English summarises the amendments and the debate over the referendum:
0640 GMT: In Bahrain, the regime clamp-down appeared to be successful, in the short-term at least, in suppressing opposition. In a (perhaps ironic) symbol of its authority on Friday, the monarchy ordered the destruction of the monument at Pearl Roundabout, the centre of the demonstrations since 14 February.
The whereabouts of detained opposition leaders are still unclear. The US Government has belatedly spoken up to say it was "deeply troubled" and to call for "fairness and transparency of legal proceedings". The statement declared, "We are particularly concerned about the arrest of Ibrahim Sharif, a prominent leader of Wa'ad --- a large, registered, legitimate political society recognized by the government of Bahrain, as well as the reported detention of Dr. Ali Al-Ekri, a senior physician at Bahrain's largest public hospital, Salmaniya Medical Cente."
0630 GMT: In Yemen, there is "quiet" --- if that term can be used with any decency --- after regime troops killed more than 40 protesters in the capital Sanaa, in what Amnesty International and Yemeni activists are calling "a co-ordinated sniper attack".
The assault came as tens of thousands of worshippers and demonstrators rose from Friday Prayers, Images (Warning: Extremely Graphic) have been posted of the slain.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has declared a state of emergency, even as he denied that his forces were involved in the attack. He banned all civilians from carrying weapons, but other measures are unclear.
In the latest move against journalists, Yemeni authorities have deported two Al Jazeera reporters.
Photo: Ahmad Gharabli (AFP)
0620 GMT: Muammar Qaddafi's latest declaration, "In 2011 they are colonising us, massacring us, and imposing one no-fly zone after the other and one military attack after another. What is this racism? What is this hatred?"
0600 GMT: A triple heading to start today ---while the world will be focusing on Libya and the regime's attempt to crush the opposition before the no-fly zone and "necessary military actions" are enforced, a massacre in Yemen and a crackdown in Bahrain should not be forgotten.
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, stated the obvious last night when she said that Muammar Qaddafi's troops were breaking the cease-fire. Belying statements by Libya's Foreign Ministry that the UN resolution would be observed, the regime was attempting to seize Misurata and Ajdabiya and to get to the doorstep of the opposition's base in Benghazi.
Rice's President, Barack Obama, had said earlier (see video) that Qaddafi's defiance could not and would not be tolerated. This, however, gave no pointers as to what would be done: Obama ruled out the use of US ground troops in any operation. Then it emerged --- not in the speech, but in an anonymous statement by an assistant to a Congressman --- that the President told Congressional leaders that "he had not authorised troops on the ground or airplanes. He stressed the U.S. is diplomatically supporting the no-fly zone, not the enforcement itself."
Both AFP and Al Arabiya are reporting this morning that Libyan jets are attacking the southwest of Benghazi. A witness had also told Reuters that large explosions were heard to the east: "The explosions started about 2 a.m. (0000 GMT). Gaddafi's forces are advancing, we hear they're 20 kms from Benghazi."