Libya First-Hand: Cut Off from Reality in Tripoli (Daragahi)

It's not just that Moammar Kadafi's portrait adorns every square and roadway; that he and his family dominate all aspects of the country's political and economic life; that his security forces have infiltrated society through multiple layers of "committees" that replace civic life.

It's not just that Moammar Kadafi's portrait adorns every square and roadway; that he and his family dominate all aspects of the country's political and economic life; that his security forces have infiltrated society through multiple layers of "committees" that replace civic life.

It's also that state television shows nonstop coverage of rallies in support of Kadafi; that his enforcers stand in traffic and demand that taxi drivers unfurl banners; that every single song on the radio is about Kadafi, the 1969 coup that brought him to power, and how happy and blessed Libyans are for all that he has bequeathed them.

"All the people of the world know that we are happy," go the lyrics of one song set to the catchy rhythms of Arab wedding music, "because we are following our leader."

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Persistence

Benghazi Residents Celebrate Claimed Death of Qaddafi Son (Photo: Reuters)Because of the developing news of the NATO airstrike that reportedly killed Seif al-Arab Qaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, and three of Muammar Qaddafi's grandson, we have moved the LiveBlog to an entry at the top of the page.

Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Demonstrations and Deaths

2030 GMT: Thanks to Ali Yenidunya for handling the LiveBlog while I was away on academic business.

Reuters reports that a large candlelit protest is taking place in the Syrian town of Baniyas this evening.

1610 GMT: After UNHRC had called for an urgent investigation by the UN high commissioner for human rights into killings and other human rights violations in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today that Syria should end its violent repression of peaceful protests following unequivocal condemnation of its actions by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

1600 GMT: An update regarding the latest situation in Syria.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Slowing of News

2120 GMT: After restrictions and attacks on its staff, Al Jazeera has suspended its operations inside Syria indefinitely.

Syrian authorities have expelled Cal Perry, a correspondent for Al Jazeera English in Damascus, and prevented reporters from entering the town of Daraa in the south. Authorities also told staff "not to communicate with Al Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, and not to appear on air to present the news from the bureau, even if by telephone", producer Hassan Elmogummer Taha told the Committee to Protect Journalists in an e-mail.

For the past three days, unknown assailants have pelted Al-Jazeera's Damascus bureau with eggs and stones. Men in plainclothes have harassed and intimidated employees since then, Taha told CPJ.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Catching Up

1845 GMT: Reuters posts the accounts of residents of the southern town of Daraa about the "inhumanity and criminality" of the military that occupied the town: "They occupied several mosques, including the Omari mosque and Sheikh Abdul Aziz (mosque), to ensure that even volunteers or imams cannot use minarets to ask for blood or urge medics to help the wounded....They stationed tanks even in public gardens and security patrols seem to have orders to shoot on the spot."

One activist said at least 18 people were killed by gunfire and tank shelling.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Watching for Reactions

Prayer at Protest in Homs, Syria (Photo: Reuters)2110 GMT: The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Yemeni authorities to explain why they have held journalist Ali Salah Ahmed since Tuesday without revealing his location or charging him with a crime.

Ahmed, an anchor for the privately-owned news channel Suhail, with ties to the opposition party Al-Islah, was seized upon his arrival from Germany.

Ahmed worked for several years as the program director of the official state-run television station Yamania but resigned in 2009 denouncing government attempts to manipulate news coverage of civil unrest in southern Yemen.

Ahmad al-Mohamadi, a reporter for Suhail, is also missing after he was called in for questioning Saturday by the Republican Guards.

The CPJ also highlighted the testimony of several journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan, who said anti-riot police attacked them on Monday as they were covering protests in Erbil.

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Bahrain, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Another Death in Custody

2030 GMT: Claimed video of men lying down in a road to stop the advance of a tank near the Syrian coastal town of Baniyas:

2020 GMT: About 500 students demonstrated Wednesday in Aleppo, the first protest in Syria's second-largest city since the uprising began in mid-March.

A protest of 50 students took place Wednesday at Damascus University's Law Faculty. Security forces disperses both demonstrations, arresting at least four people in Aleppo.

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Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Defiances

1915 GMT: More confusion over the situation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak....

Egyptian State TV is reporting that Mubarak suffered a heart attack during questioning over corruption charges. However, the prosecutor's office has denied that Mubarak was interviewed today.

Mubarak was hospitalized at Sharm el-Sheikh International Hospital, state media reported.

1855 GMT: Bahraini officials are claiming that three shotguns and Molotov cocktails were found in a mosque in Malikiya today.

1850 GMT: Claimed footage of an anti-regime protest in Syria today:

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Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Cease-Fire?

2115 GMT: The New York Times summarises the context of the three-year sentence handed down today to blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad by an Egyptian military court.

And this is the post in March that got Nabil Sanad into trouble, as he queried whether the Egyptian military --- which he accused of torturing protesters --- was really on the side of the people.

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Egypt, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Turn in the Protests

1955 GMT: C.J. Chivers of The New York Times summarises the day's fighting near the opposition-held Ajdabiya in east Libya:

Colonel Qaddafi’s forces began the attack late on Saturday morning with barrages of rocket or artillery fire onto the city’s center. Then, as the smoke rose and confusion reigned, they sent a contingent of ground troops into the city , where a gun battle broke out.

The loyalists’ assault was more determined and organized than the ambushes and exchanges of rocket and artillery fire of recent days. Barrage after barrage of incoming fire thudded and exploded in the city, and loyalist troops advanced behind it. Thick smoke rose and drifted from central parts of Ajdabiya, and by noon, doctors were evacuating the city’s hospital as explosions shook the streets.

Many of the rebels fled once again, streaming north up the highway toward Benghazi, horns honking. One rebel shouted at vehicles as they passed: “Qaddafi’s forces are coming! Go! Go! Go!”

But at least a small cadre of lightly armed local residents remained to fight, stopping the advancing loyalists on the central Istanbul Street.

“We killed 10 of them,” said Said Halum, who stood in the morgue in the late afternoon over the body of his brother, Abdul Ghadir, who had been shot between the eyes. “Our group split into two groups on Istanbul Street and fought them. The firing was very heavy.”

As the gun battle within the city raged, the main rebel force rallied about 10 miles north and by evening was flowing back into the city, where they briefly re-established a degree of control of Ajdabiya’s eastern and central areas.

Gunfire started to ebb in these areas in the evening, but skirmishes could be heard at the city’s southern and western side, and then the barrages started again, prompting many rebels to flee again.

NATO airstrikes came into play in the battle --- at least one large mushroom cloud rose from the city’s western side at about 1:25 p.m. as pro-Qaddafi forces were barraging the city. But again the allied air campaign was unable to keep the colonel’s military from pressing the rebels, as has been the case throughout a week of fighting that saw the ragged opposition forces losing key footholds on the main coastal road, including the city of Brega.

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