TRIPOLI – The West edged closer on Tuesday to military action against Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi as the US said airstrikes would be needed to secure a no-fly zone over Libya, as Libyan regime forces tried to retake a key city.
US and European leaders weighed the use of NATO air power to impose a no-fly zone, with the aim of stopping Gaddafi using air power against his own people to crush the insurrection against his four decades of iron rule. Meanwhile, Gaddafi loyalists, who have lost control of much of the country to the rebellion that started on February 15, tried to retake the key western city of Zawiyah but were pushed back.
Gaddafi’s army also moved to reestablish its authority at a border post with Tunisia, to the west, days after leaving the area, witnesses said after returning from the border. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Libya was at a crossroads in its history and “the stakes are high”.
“In the years ahead, Libya could become a peaceful democracy, or it could face protracted civil war” and descend into chaos, she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The UN refugee agency said the situation on Libya’s border with Tunisia was reaching crisis point as desperate expatriate workers poured across, fearful of a bloody rearguard action by diehard regime elements.
“It is not acceptable to have a situation where Colonel Gaddafi can be murdering his own people, using jet fighters and helicopter gunships and the like,” said British Prime Minister David Cameron, a leading advocate of the no-fly option. “It’s right for us to plan and look at plans for a no-fly zone,” he said.
US military leaders were preparing a range of options for President Barack Obama and holding discussions with their European counterparts, but the likelihood of military intervention remained unclear, an official said. But France’s new Foreign Minister Alain Juppe ruled out military action without a “clear mandate” from the United Nations.
“Different options are being studied – notably that of an air exclusion zone – but I say very clearly that no intervention will be undertaken without a clear mandate from the United Nations Security Council,” said Juppe. European Union leaders will gather in Brussels on March 11 for a special summit aiming to deliver a response to the crisis in Libya, and to turmoil in the Arab world, an EU diplomat said Tuesday.
“What is going on shocks our conscience,” said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. “It should spring us into action,” she added. A US warship with hundreds of Marines on board headed towards Libya, defense officials said, as US and European allies sought to pile pressure on embattled Gaddafi.
