Two Libyan air force jets landed in Malta on Monday and their pilots asked for political asylum amid a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters in Libya, a military source said.
The two Mirage jets landed at Malta International Airport shortly after two civilian helicopters landed carrying seven people who said they were French. A military source familiar with the situation said the passengers had left in such a hurry that only one had a passport.
Were they trying to not take part in a reported air force attack on protestors in Tripoli?
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi is employing fighter jets to bomb civilians protesters of his regime around the capital Tripoli.
Military planes and helicopters have wrought havoc around the Libyan capital as the 40-year-old dictatorship of Gaddafi is struggling for survival against the massive pro-democracy wave rapidly taking over the country in a follow-up of the revolutions in its other Arab neighbors Tunisia and Egypt in the recent weeks.
Al Jazeera has cited witnesses as saying that the military planes and helicopters continue to bomb the protesters targeting anything that moves, be it a person or a car, in the vicinity of the Libyan capital.
Meanwhile, two Libyan fighter jets with a total of four crew members have landed in Malta as the crews fled a Libyan military base in Benghazi, 1 000 km east of Tripoli, allegedly because they refused orders to bomb protesters. Two civilian helicopters with seven French citizens, who worked on an oil platform, also arrived in Malta seeking asylum.
By: Brant
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