The UN special envoy was Sunday headed for Libya to urge a ceasefire between Moamer Kadhafi’s troops and rebels seeking to topple the strongman, as an anti-regime revolt entered a fourth month.
The head of Britain’s armed forces, meanwhile, said NATO should widen its bombing campaign to ensure Kadhafi doesn’t manage to cling to power, while Pope Benedict XVI called for negotiations to end the violence. Abdul Ilah al-Khatib said in Athens he would travel to Tripoli on Sunday after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier in the week had said the special envoy would hold talks in the Libyan capital with Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi.
A Greek foreign ministry source said Khatib would be flying aboard a Greek military aircraft to Tripoli.
Ban in Geneva said he had urged Mahmudi on Tuesday to halt attacks on civilians immediately and called for “immediate verifiable ceasefire negotiations towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict and unimpeded access to humanitarian workers.”
General David Richards, Britain’s chief of the defence staff, told the Sunday Telegraph more military action was needed against the Libyan strongman. “The vice is closing on Kadhafi, but we need to increase the pressure further through more intense military action,” he said.
The general said he wanted NATO member states to support the targeting of Kadhafi’s regime, not just targets which pose an immediate threat to civilians, such as tanks and artillery.
“The military campaign to date has been a significant success for NATO and our Arab allies. But we need to do more. If we do not up the ante now there is a risk that the conflict could result in Kadhafi clinging to power,” Richards said.
“At present, NATO is not attacking infrastructure targets in Libya. But if we want to increase the pressure on Kadhafi’s regime then we need to give serious consideration to increasing the range of targets we can hit.”
Protests against Kadhafi’s 41-year autocratic rule began on February 15 and quickly escalated into a popular uprising, inspired by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt that toppled their respective hardline rulers. Kadhafi ordered his forces to crush the uprising, prompting an armed rebellion which has claimed thousands of lives while seeing much of eastern Libya fall into the hands of insurgents who have vowed to march on Tripoli and topple Kadhafi.
On March 19, French, US and British forces, under a UN mandate to protect civilians, launched air strikes on Kadhafi’s forces in a campaign that was taken over by NATO on March 31.
The alliance has been accused by the Libyan regime of failing to comply with its mandate by going after civilian targets and putting Kadhafi himself in their crosshairs. State news agency JANA reported new NATO air strikes late Saturday in the Libyan regions of Bir Al-Ghanam, Njila and the city of Al-Azizya, southwest of Tripoli.
Citing a military source, the agency reported that “civilian and military” sites had been targeted and that the strikes had caused “human and material damage.” It provided no further details.
Pope Benedict XVI meanwhile said Sunday he was following the conflict in Libya “with great apprehension” and called for negotiations to end the violence. “I renew a pressing appeal that the voice of negotiations and dialogue be stronger than that of violence, with the help of international organisations that are looking for a solution to the crisis,” the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer in St Peter’s Square.
