BERLIN – NATO allies met in Berlin Thursday seeking to bridge differences over their campaign in Libya, as rebels fighting to topple Moamer Gaddafi reported an intensive bombing blitz by alliance warplanes. The port area of Libya’s third city Misrata, meanwhile, came under heavy attack Thursday by Gaddafi’s forces, who fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells which killed at least 13 people and injured 50, a rebel spokesman said. In Cairo, UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a “political” solution and immediate ceasefire to the conflict in Libya, at an international conference hosted by the Arab League.European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who also attended the Cairo conference, appealed to Gaddafi to resign with immediate effect.
NATO foreign ministers played down any rift after France and Britain pressed allies to contribute more combat jets to the mission and intensify the raids against regime tanks and artillery shelling civilians. “We are also sharing the same goal which is to see the end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. And we are contributing in many ways in order to see that goal realised,” said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.She later told NATO allies: “For our part, the US is committed to our shared mission. We will strongly support the coalition until our work is completed.” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country shocked allies by refusing to back the UN resolution authorising the military operation, said NATO supports the aspirations of the Libyan people.
“We are united by the common goal, that we want a free and democratic Libya. The dictator Gaddafi, who started a civil war against his own people, must go,” Westerwelle said at the start of the two-day meeting in Berlin. But differences remained over the air raids against forces threatening the population, which are being conducted by just six of the 28 allies. Rebels have urged NATO to step up the air campaign as the mission has failed to shift the balance of power so far. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday’s meeting in Qatar of the international contact group on Libya, which promised the rebels cash and the means to defend themselves, “laid out a good foundation.”
“We will now discuss how we can continue the military operation leading to a successful result,” he said. The Berlin meeting came as NATO planes put on a show of force Thursday above the Libyan front line, with rebels reporting they were bombing targets on the road leading west, towards the key oil town of Brega, and beyond that Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte and, farther, the capital Tripoli. The woosh of warplanes flying too high to be seen was nearly constant above Ajdabiya, the eastern Libya town that has been fought over the past week by rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi.
Previously, their presence was only rarely heard. Rebels in Ajdabiya told AFP their commanders were ordering them to sit tight in the town because NATO planes were carrying out an intensive bombing campaign against Gaddafi’s forces. “We can’t go forward. With the planes flying, it’s risky. NATO tells us don’t go any further,” said one insurgent, Alteira Yussef, 30. A Western official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity said French, British and Italian military attaches were now in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and they were providing indirect information about the situation at the front line to NATO.
Mahmud Jibril, who handles foreign policy for the rebels’ Transitional National Council, was expected in Washington to meet with senior State and Defence Department officials as well as with congressional leaders. “These meetings will allow us to continue to have a better sense of the opposition and the TNC and its vision for Libya,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. The final statement in Doha said the parties “agreed to set up a temporary financial mechanism to act as a means for the Transitional National Council and international community to manage aid revenues and secure short-term financial needs.”
It gave no figures. Mahmud Shammam, a spokesman for the rebels, said “we will not use this money at all to buy weapons; it will be used for the basic needs of the Libyan people.” Misrata, where NATO jets have been bombing Gaddafi’s forces in a bid to break a weeks-old siege on the rebel-held city about 215 kilometres (130 miles) east of Tripoli, was said by the rebels to be under heavy attack on Thursday. “We have faced since dawn a cowardly and criminal attack on the area of the port and the district of Kasr Ahmed near the port,” a rebel spokesman said, adding that pro-Gaddafi forces fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells.
