Libya Feature: The Caterer, The Memory Stick, and the Fall of Qaddafi's Tripoli (Nakhoul)

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime was delivered by a caterer, on a memory stick.

Abdel Majid Mlegta ran the companies that supplied meals to Libyan government departments including the interior ministry. The job was "easy," he told Reuters last week. "I built good relations with officers. I wanted to serve my country."

But in the first few weeks of the uprising, he secretly began to work for the rebels. He recruited sympathizers at the nerve center of the Gaddafi government, pinpointed its weak links and its command-and-control strength in Tripoli, and passed that information onto the rebel leadership on a series of flash memory cards.

The first was handed to him, he says, by Gaddafi military intelligence and security officers. It contained information about seven key operations rooms in the capital, including internal security, the Gaddafi revolutionary committees, the popular guards --- as Gaddafi's voluntary armed militia was known -- and military intelligence.

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Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Preparing to Fight for Bani Walid

Al Jazeera English's assessment of the fight for Bani Walid in Libya

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0125 GMT: Activists say Syrian security forces have killed at least nine people and arrested dozens in the central cities of Hama and Homs and in the northwestern province of Idlib.

A spokesman of the Local Coordination Committees said dozens of troops backed by at least 30 military vehicles and security forces raided Hama, with a similar operation in Homs that caused the nine deaths, while about 100 people were rounded up in Idlib Province.

Activists based in northern Lebanon also reported sounds of heavy shelling in the Wadi Khaled, an area facing the Syrian town of Tal Kalakh.

The operations occurred as the Syrian regime granted access to the International Committee of the Red Cross to the Damascus Central Prison, in the suburb of Adra.

1856 GMT: Two videos show a Syrian sniper on the roof of a building, preparing to shoot. According to someone on Twitter, the translation is as follows:

Someone off camera asks the sniper, "could you shoot her? If you shoot her you are a real hero, but if not you are a coward." The sniper then said yes, and he takes the shot.

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Libya Special: A Guide to The New Political Landscape (Hussain)

The Guardian's Ghaffar Hussain attempts to answer the question on many people's minds this week - After Qaddafi, and after the National Transitional Council, what happens next in Libya? He then gives a provocative subtitle:

"A post-Gaddafi Libya will see liberals, Islamists and secularists jostling for position with the largest grouping: nationalists"

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The ousting of the Gaddafi clan and the collapse of their jamahiriya system, has left many feeling unsure about Libya's political future. After all, the National Transitional Council (NTC) is not a political party and won't exist beyond the first elections. Many of its members, being having been officials in Gaddafi's regime, are unlikely to seek executive political positions.

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Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Prayers, Protests, and Pressures

View Syria - Friday 02/09/2011 in a larger map

Interactive Map of today's protests in Syria posted by The Syrian Uprising 2011 Information Centre.

See also, Syria Video Special: Death Rather Than Humiliation

Israel-Gaza-Turkey Special: Taking Apart the UN Report on the Attack on the Freedom Flotilla

Syria Video Special: A Protest Movement Renewed
Syria, Libya (and Beyond) Liveblog: Cracks in the Regime
Syria Special: The Resignation of Hama's Attorney General

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0030 GMT: Scott Lucas dropping in to post this video from Al Jazeera English of Friday's demonstrations by women in Martyrs Square in the heart of the Libyan capital Tripoli, celebrating the fall of the Qaddafi regime:

2007 GMT: That wraps up our liveblog for the evening. We will be posting analysis of today's developments in Syria, but the bottom line is that the opposition movement has taken some significant steps forward in recent days, and it has shown by how large and widespread the protests were today.

And they are far from over. We'll also collect more videos and reports and make those available soon.

Please tune in tomorrow, and enjoy our features (links above).

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Libya Feature: Black Africans Rounded Up by New Government?

There are fresh allegations that Libya's opposition fighters have rounded up black Africans and placed them in detention camps, on the suspicion that they are former Qaddafi mercenaries, just on the basis of their skin color. As other reports of chaos surface after the fall of Qaddafi's government in Tripoli, we ask two questions:

Are these abuses systematically executed by Libya's new government, and when will law and order be restored to Libya?

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Libya, Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Closing In on Qaddafi's Hometown

2018 GMT: Al Arabiya, Sky News, and our earlier report seem to be all leaning on a single source that Khamis Qaddafi has been killed. Andy Carvin asks, and we echo, where is the body? Why the rush to bury him? Are there pictures? Video? DNA samples?

The outside world has been burned by these sorts of reports before. During the fall of Tripoli, there were multiple reports, from sources inside the NTC, that many of Qaddafi's sons were detained. Those reports turned out to be false, and the only reliable report, that Mohammed Qaddafi was captured, was undone by his escape.

So far, we remain skeptical.

1911 GMT: Al Jazeera provides us this update, details on the claimed killing of Qaddafi's son and military commander, Khamis Qaddafi:

Khamis Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi's son, was killed in a battle between Tarhoni and Bin Walid on Sunday, according to a rebel commander in Tripoli who spoke to Al Arabiya.

Senior rebel officer, Colonel Al-Mahdi Al-Haragi, in charge of the Tripoli Brigade of the rebel army, told the Reuters news agency he had confirmation that Khamis was badly wounded in the clash near Ben Walid and Tarhoni.

He was taken to a hospital but died of his wounds and was buried in the area, Al-Haragi told Reuters, without giving the timing.

No independent confirmation of the death was available.

1900 GMT: A very safe, very dry James Miller finally has internet access, and so is able to update the readers on two major developments in Libya...

The first development is that Algerian Foreign Minister is claiming that Muammar Qaddafi's wife, daughter, two of his sons, and their children have crossed over the border into Algeria:

The Egyptian news agency MENA, quoting unidentified rebel fighters, had reported from Tripoli over the weekend that six armored Mercedes sedans, possibly carrying Gadhafi's sons or other top regime figures, had crossed the border at the southwestern Libyan town of Ghadamis into Algeria. Algeria's Foreign Ministry had denied that report.

Ahmed Jibril, an aide to rebel National Transitional Council head Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, said if the report of Ghadafi relatives in Algeria is true, "we will demand that Algerian authorities hand them over to Libya to be tried before Libyan courts."

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Libya LiveBlog: And Now to the Task of Government

1848 GMT: Though the battle for Abu Salim is far from over, the opposition fighters, assisted by a NATO airstrike, have started to go house to house, cleaning out snipers and taking prisoners. Gunfights continue.

1841 GMT: Al Jazeera reports that the bodies of 30 people have been uncovered in Tripoli:

More than 30 men believed to be fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have been killed at a military encampment in central Tripoli and at least two were bound with plastic handcuffs, indicating they had been executed.

A Reuters correspondent counted 30 bodies riddled with bullets in an area of the Libyan capital where there had been fighting between Gaddafi forces and rebels.

1636 GMT: The "we were all wrong and Qaddafi is winning" alert - Muammar Qaddafi has given yet another audio address. Here are some select quotes, courtesy of the BBC, Reuters, and the Twitterverse:

Qaddafi called on his loyalists to "fight and destroy" the rebels, he said that he enjoys the support of a "sweeping majority," and he urged the "youth of Tripoli" to " fight them everywhere, street street, zanga zanga (alley by alley). Purify Tripoli." Qaddafi closed with his signature,"Forward, forward, forward" closing.

1604 GMT: Al Jazeera is reporting that 1000-2000 Qaddafi loyalists may be inside Abu Salim, where a fierce firefight is still heating up. There is also fighting near the Rixos hotel.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Has the Assad Regime "Lost" Hama?

Security forces use tear gas against protesters trying to march from Sanabis to Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain

1950 GMT: Developments in Jordan, as King Abdullah II approved a Cabinet shuffle after thousands of protesters rallied in Irbid, Maan, Karak, Tafileh, and the capital Amman, demanding transparency and an end to corruption.

The Minister of Interior, Saad Hayel Srour, was the biggest casualty of the shuffle. He is blamed for the use of excessive force by police against demonstrators and for allowing a wealthy businessman, serving a prison term for corruption, to leave the country for supposed medical treatment.

The Ministers of Health, Justice, and Information were also replaced.

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Syria (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Ripples of Protest

Claimed footage of a march in Taiz in Yemen today, demanding a transitional government

2030 GMT: The Tunisian news agency TAP says two Libyan ministers have crossed into Tunisia to join the regime's Foreign Minister, reportedly seeking a solution to the political crisis.

Health Minister Mohamed Al-Hijazi and Social Affairs Minister Ibrahim Cherif crossed into southern Tunisia. Foreign Minister Abdul Ati Al-Obeidi has met "several foreign parties" there, part of an effort to find a solution to a civil war in the north African country.

1850 GMT: Opposition and regime forces have clashed about 80 kilometres (50 miles) southwest of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

Sunday's fighting began when government forces tried to cut off the insurgents, who have moved into the plains from the western mountains, by attacking from behind.

The front line is now thought to have moved just north of Bir Ayad, near the town of Bir al-Ghanam. Bir al-Ghanam is only 30 kilometres (19 miles) south of Zawiya, a western gateway to Tripoli.

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Yemen, Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: A Battle in the Capital

Sounds and images of Monday's battle in Sanaa in Yemen (see 0500 GMT):

2040 GMT: Yemeni officials say 38 people have died in the clashes in the capital Sanaa, 24 from the regime's security forces and 14 supporters of tribal leader Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar.

1915 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for taking the LiveBlog through the afternoon.

Reports from Yemen indicate that supporters of the tribal leader Sheik Sadeq al-Ahmar now control the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Education buildings.

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