Across the Middle East and North Africa, CNN's reporters and iReporters are covering protests, many of them inspired by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt that toppled those countries' longtime rulers. Check out our story explaining the roots of the unrest in each country. Have a story to tell from the scene? Click here to send an iReport.

Developments on unrest in the Middle East and North Africa:

[LIBYA, 10:25 p.m. ET, 5:25 a.m. local] Via Twitter, the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs says U.S. citizens wishing to leave Libya should go to As-shahab Port as soon as possible after 9 a.m. and arrive no later than 10 a.m.

"U.S. government chartered ferry will depart for Valletta, Malta no later than 3 p.m. on Wednesday," the bureau said via Twitter.

Earlier, a senior administration official told CNN that the State Department is chartering ferries to take Americans from Tripoli's As-shahab port to Valletta, Malta on Wednesday.

[LIBYA, 10:18 p.m. ET, 5:18 a.m. local] With the United States unable to land any charter aircraft in Tripoli to fly U.S. citizens our of Libya on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department is chartering ferries to take travelers from Tripoli's As-shahab port to Valletta, Malta on Wednesday, according to a senior administration official not authorized to speak for attribution.

"Tomorrow the question will be if they let the ferry dock. If that happens, our people will flow out," the official said, adding that the reason the charter aircraft didn't land was because the Libyan authorities did not give them permission to do so.

Of the several thousand U.S. citizens in Libya, most are dual nationals; those solely with U.S. citizenship number about 600, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

The State Department issued a travel alert for non-essential staff to leave the country, an order affecting 35 employees and their families.

Crowley said the airport in Tripoli remained open in "challenging" circumstances. International carriers, he said, were making more seats available for departure.

[LIBYA, 9:32 p.m. ET, 4:32 a.m. local] The video below shows an interview with a Tripoli woman who says security forces there are trying "to not let anyone protest."

"They're trying so hard to show that the country is fine, the country is not falling, the regime is not falling, but that's not happening," she said.

[LIBYA, 8:40 p.m. ET, 3:40 a.m. local] A Libyan government spokesman, speaking on television, said U.S. and Israeli intelligence operatives were behind the unrest. "We will get rid of them, in collaboration with our people in the eastern province," he said.

He said Libyan authorities have asked those tribe members who have attacked barracks and police stations to return the weapons they had taken "because security and safety will return to normal." Referring to reports that the military had attacked civilians, he said, "We have reports and evidence they are not using arms unless against those who
attacked the barracks."

[LIBYA, 7:52 p.m. ET, 2:52 a.m. local] Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi, who confirmed to CNN that he stepped down as Libya's interior minister, says Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is "a stubborn man" who will not give up.

"He will either commit suicide or he will get killed," said Abidi, who said he has known him since 1964.

[LIBYA, 6:56 p.m. ET, 1:38 a.m. local] Libya's interior minister has confirmed to CNN that he has quit the government and is supporting the protesters, who he predicted will achieve victory in a matter "of days or hours."

Ex-Interior Minister Abdul Fattah Younis al Abidi told CNN that he resigned Monday after hearing that some 300 unarmed civilians had been killed in Benghazi alone during the prior two to three days, and he accused Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi of planning to attack civilians on a wide scale.

"Gadhafi told me he was planning on using airplanes against the people in Benghazi and I told him that he will have thousands of people killed if he does that," Abidi said in an Arabic-language telephone interview conducted Wednesday.

[LIBYA, 6:38 p.m. ET, 1:38 a.m. local] Libya's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, who on Monday accused Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi of genocide, told reporters at the U.N. on Tuesday that he again calls "on the regime to stop killing the Libyan people."

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