Libyan regime pound Misurata port, UN pulls out staff

Pro-Muammar Gaddafi forces pounded the port and launched a new armoured incursion into the western besieged city of Misurata today, as the UN pulled out its staff from the Libyan capital Tripoli following violence targeting its offices.
   
Western embassies, including those of the UK, Italy and the US commercial and consular affairs department were targets of attack by angry crowds amid reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his wife escaped a NATO missile strike at the residence in Tripoli of his youngest son, who was killed along with three grandchildren yesterday.
   
The UN said it had evacuated its international staff from Tripoli on account of the unrest and after some of its facilities were targeted by agitated crowds.
   
Stephanie Bunker, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that 12 staffers had left Libya and were now in neighbouring Tunisia.
   
Meanwhile, fierce fighting raged in Misurata for the control of city's airport as its port came under heavy shelling, disrupting operations to bring supplies in by sea. At least 12 people were killed, a medic was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera channel.
   
BBC quoted Libyan state TV as saying that the port was shelled to stop NATO delivering weapons to insurgents but rebels said an aid ship had been trying to unload.
   
Reports said the Libyan regime has launched a new armoured incursion into Misurata, 215 km east of Tripoli, ahead of the funeral of 29-year-old Saif al-Arab, one of the Libyan dictator's seven sons killed in the NATO air strikes yesterday.
   
According to Al Jazeera, the Libyan state TV broadcast footing apparently shot in a mortuary showed what appeared to be two bodies, covered by green Libyan flags, lying on metal gurneys.
   
It quoted Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, the top Catholic clergyman in Tripoli, as saying that he was shown the bodies in the hospital. The bishop said while he was told that one was that of Saif al-Arab, it was so badly disfigured that he could not make a positive identification.
   
Intense fighting also raged on the western border near Tunisia, where a number of Gaddafi's troops tried to break through the border crossing into Tunisia.
   
"Rebel forces seem to know the territory very well here, and as long as they occupy the higher ground, they appear to have the upper hand," Al Jazeera reported.
   
The Pan-Arab channel said the rebels reported fighting near the opposition-held city of Zintan, where they said NATO air strikes hit pro-Gaddafi troops.
   
Following attacks on its facilities in the Libyan capital, the UK has expelled Libyan ambassador to Britain, Omar Jelban.
   
The BBC said the British embassy was completely burnt out with fires still smouldering and paperwork and other debris scattered outside.
   
British Foreign Secretary William Hague declared Jelban "persona non grata" who was given 24 hours to quit the UK.
   
"The Vienna Convention requires the Gaddafi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli," Hague said yesterday.
   
"By failing to do so that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations. I take the failure to protect such premises very seriously indeed," he said.