5.14pm: • Allied air strikes have virtually wiped out Muammar Gaddafi's forces that were attacking the rebel-held town of Misrata. The aerial attacks have ended five days of ****** assault that cost nearly 100 lives.
• The rebel council in Benghazi has created a governing body. Mahmoud Jibril, a US-educated planning expert who defected from the Gaddafi regime, has been named as its head.
• Gaddafi promised victory to an enthusiastic crowd in his first public appearance in a week late on Tuesday. He said there would be "no surrender" to powers who belonged "on the dust heap of history".
4.58pm: Britain will host an international conference in London next Tuesday to discuss Libya.
"At the conference we will discuss the situation in Libya with our allies and partners and take stock of the implementation of UN security council resolutions 1970 and 1973," the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said in a statement. "We will consider the humanitarian needs of the Libyan people and identify ways to support the people of Libya in their aspirations for a better future."
French officials have said the meeting would be at foreign minister level and would include the African Union, the Arab League and the associated European countries.
4.48pm: Our colleague, Mona Mahmood, has been scanning the Arabic and Libyan press for comments. Here are some snippets.
Al-shareq Al-awssat, a Saudi paper based in London
No wise man likes see foreign intervention in an Arab country even if it is supported by a UN security council's resolution, but Colonel Gaddafi himself is responsible for this intervention. It is so sad to see the colonel trying to the last moment to destroy his people and ignite a civil war by his call to the tribes to march to Benghazi... Why he did not face, from the beginning, the peaceful demos with olive branches instead of bullets and bombing?
Al-Jamahiriyia, Libyan newspaper
Amr Mousa (secretary-general of the Arab League) only cares about his interest and his excessive selfishness. Mousa wants to launch his presidential election on the back of Libyan corpses whose blood was by shed by cowardly western planes.
4.15pm: Médecins Sans Frontières, the medical group, says it has been unable to get into Libya although some of its supplies did reach Misrata on Monday. Its teams in Benghazi left last week as fighting reached the rebel stronghold and other MSF staff have not received authorisation to cross the Tunisian border.
3.51pm: Right on cue, the Guardian's Chris McGreal has just emailed on the situation in Misrata.
Nearly 12 hours of allied air strikes have virtually wiped out Muammar Gaddafi's forces that were attacking the rebel-held town of Misrata and ended five days of ****** assault that cost nearly 100 lives. Mohammed Ali, an IT engineer at the town's main hospital, said that waves of air strikes which began shortly after midnight destroyed tanks and artillery that Gaddafi's army had been using to shell the heart of Misrata.
"The air strikes went on until 11.30 this morning. After that there was no shelling. We are very relieved. We are very grateful. We want to thank he world. The Gaddafi forces are scattered around. All that is left is the snipers and our fighters can take care of them," he
said.
Ali said that among the targets of the air strikes was a former hospital used by Gaddafi's army as a station for its tanks during its assault on Misrata. He said that the hospital was almost destroyed along with all the tanks during the coalition bombing attack. Ali said that the past five days of fighting left 94 people dead and more than 1,300 injured. About 60 civilians were among the dead, including whole families killed in their cars or homes.
3.48pm: Air strikes have forced Libyan government tanks to roll back from Misrata, a doctor tells AP.
A doctor in Misrata said the tanks fled after the air strikes began around midnight. He said the air strikes struck the aviation academy and a vacant lot outside the central hospital, which was under maintenance.
"There were very loud explosions. It was hard to see the planes," the doctor said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals if Gaddafi's forces take the city. "Today, for the first time in a week, the bakeries opened their doors."
He said the situation was still dangerous, with pro-Gaddafi snipers shooting at people from rooftops. "Some of the tanks were hit and others fled," he said. "We fear the tanks that fled will return if the air strikes stop."
3.39pm: Some very bullish comments from Ali Zeidan, one of 31 members of the Libyan National Council, who told reporters in Paris that the rebels could overcome Gaddafi's forces in 10 days if the coalition continued its air strikes. He also said he wanted the international community to train and arm the rebel fighters. Zeidan's remarks do not exactly mesh with what the Guardian's Chris McGreal is reporting from Ajdabiya (8.58am).
3.30pm: Anthony Aust, former legal adviser at the Foreign Office who served at the UK mission to the UN and helped draft the resolution on Kuwait in 1990, addressed legal issues in our Q&A.
User myopicmuppet asked to what extent military action could be justified by the UN resolution. Anthony replied:
Much will depend on the specific circumstances. But, in my view para 4 of resolution 1973 entitles foreign forces to operate on the ground (not just in the air) to protect civilians being targeted by Qadafi's forces, provided the forces are not in reality an occupation force.
3.27pm: Some more interesting points raised in our Q&A. Paul Smyth, a RAF former wing commander and Tornado navigator, discussed some of the military issues.
bluesforallah asked about the use of Western group troops. Paul responded:
Ultimately, this is a Libyan problem that demands a Libyan solution. External intervention on the ground should not include western forces but be limited to Arab nations. If a buffer zone (as in Cyprus or Bosnia) becomes necessary I would suggest Egypt should be encouraged to monitor and police it. Nb: airborne monitoring of a ceasefire could involve western air power as it has the necessary capabilities.
bill2 wondered if a successful resolution is possible in Libya without resorting to ground troops. Paul replied:
No war in history has been won from the air, or the sea. I agree that air power has yet to win a war. But is this a war? It is a crisis in which the absence of land forces may not prevent a successful outcome (whatever that is defined as). A germane lesson from Iraq (1991), the Balkans in the 1990s and especially Afghanistan in 2001 is that air & sea power can have a decisive effect on a ground conflict. That has already happened at Benghazi but the rebels are going to have to improve their martial capabilities immensely if they are to successfully advance west. That would take some time. The removal of the regime's military capability and the evaporation of popular support for Gaddafi in the west of Libya may allow for another uprising that would make an advance from Benghazi unnecessary...
