LONDON/TRIPOLI – International powers meeting in London on Tuesday edged closer to an exile plan for embattled Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi, as France said it was ready to discuss military aid for rebels.
More than 40 countries and organisations including the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) agreed to create a contact group to map out a future for Libya and to meet again as soon as possible in Qatar.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi’s better-armed and organised troops reversed the westward charge of rebels. A rebel pick-up truck cavalcade was first ambushed, then outflanked by Gaddafi troops. Their advance stopped and government forces retook the small town of Nawfaliyah.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that allied air strikes would continue until Gaddafi met UN terms, stopped attacking civilians and allowed in humanitarian aid. Gaddafi urged world powers meeting to end their “barbaric” offensive against his oil-rich country as his forces beat back a rebel push on his hometown.
The Libyan strongman likened the NATO-led air strikes targeting his artillery and ground forces to military campaigns launched by Adolf Hitler during World War II. “Stop your barbaric, unjust offensive on Libya,” Gaddafi said, in a letter published by the state news agency Jana.
A defiant US President Barack Obama, however, told Americans that he had stopped a “massacre” in Libya, but bluntly warned that trying to oust Gaddafi by force could repeat the carnage of Iraq. “As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,” Obama said, mounting a robust defence of his decision to rain air strikes on Gaddafi’s troops in a UN-mandated bid to protect civilians.
Obama said US forces would not get bogged down trying to topple Gaddafi but stopped short of spelling out how the military campaign in Libya would end.
