page_title: Timeline of the 2011 Libyan Civil War before military intervention
section_title: 23 February
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the 2011 Libyan Civil War before military intervention / Early phase (15–26 February) / 23 February
caption_attribution_description: English: A Benghazi citizen holding King Idris's photo. العربية: مواطن من بنغازي يحمل صورة الملك إدريس السنوسي.
context_page_description: The Libyan Civil War began on 15 February 2011 as a chain of civil protests and later evolved into a widespread uprising against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. On 25 February, most of eastern Libya was reported to be under the control of protesters and rebel forces. Gaddafi remained in control of the cities of Tripoli, Sirte and Sabha. By 15 March, however, Gaddafi's forces had retaken more than half a dozen lost cities. Except for most of Cyrenaica and a few Tripolitania cities the majority of cities had returned to Gaddafi government control.
  On 17 March, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution which authorized member states "to take all necessary measures ... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamhariya, including Benghazi, while excluding an occupation force". This began a new phase in the conflict.
context_section_description: UK Foreign Secretary Hague said in a press release that there were "many indications of the structure of the State collapsing in Libya". He also urged the Libyan state to listen to people's demands. Luxembourger Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn called the situation in Libya a genocide and called for massive intervention from the international community. He argued a resolution was needed allowing control of Libyan airspace so as to stop mercenaries entering Libya. He called Gaddafi a "sick and dangerous" "tyrant".
  Peru fully severed diplomatic ties with Libya's government and the African Union conducted a security meeting on the rapidly changing situation in Libya. The European Union agreed in principle to impose sanctions, the form of which to be decided the following Friday, and the Dutch government met in emergency session to consider freezing billions of euros of assets invested by Tamoil, the Libyan government's oil company.
  The Warfalla, the largest of the numerous tribes in Libya, joined calls from other tribes for Gaddafi to stand down.
  Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Libya's justice minister, who had resigned on 21 February in protest at the "excessive use of violence" against protesters along with diplomats at the Libyan Mission to the United Nations, who called on the Libyan Army to help remove "the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi". He had also asserted that Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing of 1988.
  Youssef Sawani, a senior aide to Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, resigned from his post "to express dismay against violence" and thousands of foreigners continue to leave, with chaos at Tripoli International Airport.
  Tripoli's streets were deserted after Gaddafi urged attacks on protesters, but Tobruk was still full of protesters. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said there were credible reports that about 1,000 people have been killed in Libya's week-old rebellion. Frattini also confirmed that the eastern half of Libya, known as Cyrenaica, was no longer under Gaddafi's de facto control. Unconfirmed reports suggested that the government now only controlled a few parts of Tripoli and the southern desert town of Sabha. Misrata was confirmed to be under protester control. The pre-Gaddafi 1951–1969 royalist Libyan flag was also reportedly raised in Zawiya, 50 km (31 mi) west of Tripoli. Both coastal Tripolitania and most of northern Cyrenaica were in rebel hands by the middle of the day. The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said that the anti-Gaddafi protesters also controlled Sirte, Misrata, Khoms, the Tarhunah District, Zintan, Zawiya and Zuwara. Pro-Gaddafi forces were sent to Sabratha after demonstrators burned government buildings and joined in the rebellion, according to Libyan newspaper Quryna.
  A 23 February Reuters article stated that according to a WikiLeaks-leaked US cable, Gaddafi pressed the US to foster division and disagreements in Saudi Arabia and exerted heavy pressure on the US as well as on oil companies to reimburse the $1.5 billion Libya had paid in 2008 into a fund to settle terrorism claims from the 1980s.
  By the end of the day, headlines in online news services were reporting a range of themes underlining the precarious state of the regime – former justice minister Mustafa Abdul Jalil alleged that Gaddafi personally ordered the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, resignations and "defections" of close allies, the loss of Benghazi, the second-largest city in Libya, reported to be "alive with celebration" and other cities including Tobruk and Misrata reportedly falling with some believing that government had retained control of "just a few pockets", Gaddafi family members allegedly refused entry to safe jurisdictions (an unscheduled plane said to be carrying Gaddafi's daughter Aisha was denied permission to enter Malta, although the Maltese government later denied knowing whether she was on board), mounting international isolation and pressure, and reports that Middle East media considered the end of his "disintegrating" regime all but inevitable.
  Around midnight, some reports began
caption: A young Libyan carrying King Idris's photograph during a protest in Benghazi on 23 February 2011.
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