Libya’s interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil on Wednesday urged NATO to continue its Libya campaign until year’s end, saying loyalists of slain despot Muammer Gaddafi still pose a threat to the country.
Abdel Jalil’s comments, made at a Doha conference of military allies of his National Transitional Council (NTC), came a day after Gaddafi’s body was buried in secret under cover of darkness after being displayed in public for four days.
“We hope (NATO) will continue its campaign until at least the end of this year to serve us and neighbouring countries,” Abdel Jalil, NTC chairman, told the Conference of Friends Committee.
This request is aimed at “ensuring that no arms are infiltrated into those countries and to ensure the security of Libyans from some remnants of Gaddafi’s forces who have fled to nearby countries,” he added.
The NTC is also seeking help from NATO in “developing Libya’s defence and security systems,” Abdel Jalil told the conference.
In Brussels, diplomats said NATO had decided to delay a formal decision to end Libyan air operations until Friday after the NTC’s request for an extension and a Russian demand for UN consultations.
In the wake of Gaddafi’s capture and death last week, NATO’s decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), had been expected to agree formally on Wednesday to set October 31 as the date to end the seven-month-old air war.
“The NAC will meet with partners this Friday to discuss the Libya mission and take a formal decision,” NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told AFP.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, on a visit to Japan, said that a future US military role in the new Libya would hinge on decisions by NATO.
Qatar also revealed for the first time on Wednesday that hundreds of its military had been involved alongside Libyans in their battle to topple the longtime despot.
Previously the gas-rich country said it had only lent the support of its air force to the operations.
Qatari chief of staff Major General Hamad bin Ali Al-Atiya said the Qataris had been “running the training and communication operations.”
“Qatar had supervised the rebels’ plans because they are civilians and did not have enough military experience. We acted as the link between the rebels and NATO forces,” he said.
Jalil told the meeting that Qataris had “planned” the battles which paved the way for NTC fighters to gradually take over Gaddafi-held towns and cities.
Meanwhile, the United Nations urged Libya’s new rulers to respect the rights of all detainees, amid raging controversy over the circumstances of the death of Gaddafi.
The last top figures of his ousted regime, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, were poised to cross the border into Niger on Tuesday, a Tuareg official said.
Saif al-Islam was “near the Niger border, he hasn’t entered Niger yet but he’s close,” a local official from the northern Niger Agadez region told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In June, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Gaddafi, Saif and Senussi for “crimes against humanity” allegedly committed by troops under their command as they tried to quell the uprising.
In Paris on Wednesday, Marcel Ceccaldi, a French lawyer who previously worked for Gaddafi’s regime and now represents his family, told AFP that a war crimes complaint would be filed with the Hague-based ICC because a NATO attack on his convoy had led directly to his death.
“The wilful killing (of someone protected by the Geneva Convention) is defined as a war crime by Article 8 of the ICC’s Rome Statute,” he said.
He could not yet say when the complaint would be filed, but said it would target both NATO executive bodies and leaders of alliance member states.
“Gaddafi’s homicide shows that the goal of (NATO) member states was not to protect civilians but to overthrow the regime,” Ceccaldi said.
Disquiet has grown internationally over how Kadhafi met his end after NTC fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his falling hometown.
Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point.
According to Libya’s interim premier Mahmud Jibril, an autopsy report showed Kadhafi was killed in “crossfire from both sides.”
The former strongman was buried overnight Monday in a religious ceremony, along with another of his sons, Mutassim, and former defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis Jaber.
Their bodies had been displayed in a market freezer in Misrata where thousands of Libyans had queued to view and photograph the man who had ruled their lives for 42 years.