Dozens of journalists and politicians, including around a dozen Britons, are being held hostage in Tripoli's five-star Rixos hotel by gunmen loyal to Col Muammar Gaddafi. The building has been the base for the pro-Gaddafi television station in the Libyan capital and it is where foreign journalists reporting the regime's activities were forced to stay. Now, however, it appears they could be used as human shields in any last-ditch defence of the building by loyalists.
There were unconfirmed reports that tunnels linked Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound to the Rixos, raising speculation that the deposed Libyan leader might be hiding close to the hostages. |