Gaddafi Pleads UN Security Council to Save Sirte from 'NATO Atrocities'

ibyan rebel fighters recover weapons and ammunition from a Gaddafi loyalists` truck after it was attacked and destroyed during the advance toward Sirte, Libya, 11 September 2011. EPA/BGNES

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has addressed the UN Security Council with a request to "protect" his hometown and one of his last remaining bastions, Sirte, from NATO.

His call comes as Sirte, which is still in the hands of the Gaddafi loyalists, is about to be attacked by the Libyan rebels.

"If Sirte is isolated from the rest of the world in order for atrocities to be committed against it, then the world has a duty not to be absent and you have to take your international responsibility and intervene immediately to stop this crime," Gaddafi was quoted as saying in a letter read out on Syrian-based Arrai TV.

According to the Syrian channel, which has been airing messages from Gaddafi, the letter is addressed to the UN Security Council.

All members of the Security Council, including Russia and China which had obvious misgivings about the NATO-led air strikes in Libya, have already recognized the Transitional National Council of the Libyan rebels.

The whereabouts of the Libyan dictator remain unknown after he was technically overthrown by the rebels on August 23.

Meanwhile, NATO officials said that advances by pro-rebel forces in the past two days had cut pro-Gaddafi forces in the strip of territory between his hometown of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast and the desert town of Bani Walid from those in the southern oases of Waddan and Sabha with their access to Libya`s desert border.

Sirte, 450 km east of Tripoli, and Sabha, 600 km to the south, are Gaddafi's two last major strongholds.

On March 19, 2011, NATO-led international forces started air and rocket strikes against the Gaddafi regime under a UN Security Council mandate.

Operation Odyssey Dawn was the US code name for the US part of the international military operation in Libya to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 during the initial period of 19–31 March 2011, which continued afterwards under NATO command as Operation Unified Protector.

The initial operation implemented a no-fly zone that was proposed during the 2011 Libyan civil war to prevent government forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on anti-Gaddafi forces.

The US initially had strategic command of the military intervention but passed complete military command of the operation to NATO - under Operation United Protector - and took up a support role on 31 March 2011. 

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