TRIPOLI (Reuters) - NATO must expand the range of targets, it is the bombing in Libya or risk of not deleting Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi to power, Britain's highest military officer was quoted saying.
NATO planes, acting under a UN mandate to protect civilians, stopped Government troops on the rebel strongholds, but the collapse of the rule of Gaddafi, many Western Governments, seeking only to did not materialize.
After a series of air strikes on the Bab al-Azizia composed in Tripoli, Kadhafi has mocked the Western military alliance, saying audio recording broadcast Friday that he was in a place where NATO could not reach.
General David Richards, Chief of Britain's defence staff, said the military campaign date had been a success "important" for NATO, but more was needed.
"If we do not increase the implementation now there is a risk that the conflict could result in Gaddafi to cling to power," he was quoted in newspaper Sunday Telegraph of Britain as saying.
"Currently, NATO is not attack targets of Libya infrastructure.". But if we want to increase the pressure on the regime of Kadhafi then we must give serious consideration to increasing the range of targets, we are affected, he said.
A spokesman for the Libyan Government responded by saying that NATO had already gone beyond the mandate of the United Nations to protect civilians.
"They have already been targeting infrastructure," Khaled Kaim, who is also Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, told a press briefing.
"The interest here is Libyan oil, not protection." It must be called blood for oil, this is the proper name, "says Kaim.
The Libyan official also struck at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which the Prosecutor said that he will request arrest warrants on the murder of civilian protestors, with Gaddafi and some of its likely targets of sounds.
"The practices of the ICC are questionable." It is a baby of the European Union designed for decision makers and African politicians (Prosecutions), "said Kaim.
Spanish radio, citing sources from the ICC, said Friday the warrants would be sought Monday.
IMPASSE
Three months after a revolt began against the dominance of four decades of Gaddafi, fighting between rebels and Government forces on several fronts came to standstill and Gaddafi refuses to comply with efforts to force power.
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict in Libya, the bloodiest of the revolts which have upset the Middle East in what was called the "spring of Arabic".
Libyan officials deny killing civilians, saying that, instead, they were forced to take action against criminal armed gangs and al-Qaeda activists. They say that the NATO campaign is an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing the Libya oil.
In the rebel-held town of Misrata, scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the conflict, rebels said they were braced attacks renewed by forces loyal to Qadhafi.
"Brigades (pro-Gaddafi) still have military equipment, enabling them to bombard any area of Misrata," a spokesman for rebel called Abdelsalam said of the city. "The revolutionaries are in full possession of the port, but the danger is still there because the brigades have tanks and rocket launchers."
Another spokesman for rebels, Lee Salem, said that the city and the villages surrounding it are now entirely "under the control of the rebels from all sides, including the air base.
In an address after the prayer in the Vatican City, Pope Benedict XVI has denounced the bloodshed, Libya and the murder of civilians calling for negotiation and dialogue to prevail.
The uncertain direction of the Libya conflict poses a dilemma for Western Governments. They face voters are anxious for quick results and want to avoid a repeat of the lengthy fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An inconclusive result is likely to limit exports of Libyan oil, keeping the high world prices and lead thousands of migrants more risk death crossed the Mediterranean to Europe.
Previous NATO bombing campaigns, including in Kosovo in the 1990s, has shown that targeting more aggressive carries the risk of civilian casualties.
Libya Saturday held a funeral for nine imams, or Muslim cleric, said that NATO killed in an air attack on the town of Brega is a day earlier. The alliance, said the building it hit in Brega was a command-and-control-center.
A spokesman for rebel called Abdulrahman in the town of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli said NATO airstrikes had hit targets in an area 25 kilometres (16 miles) East of Zintan.
State the Tunisia news agency reported that a vessel has arrived in the southeast of the port of Zarzis carrying three officers who had deserted the security forces of Gaddafi, joining several other Libyan officers who arrive in Tunisia by boat these days, suggesting that there were divisions in the ranks of Gaddafi.
However, in Tripoli - where foreign journalists operate under restrictions on their movement - the outward signs were that the administration of Gaddafi held firm.
The security in North Africa and also warn branch North Africa of al-Qaida could try to exploit the chaos of a long conflict in Libya to acquire weapons and recruit supporters.
A security officer Tunisian told Reuters on Sunday that two alleged al-Qaeda members had been arrested near the border with the Libya carrying a belt of explosives and several bombs.
(Reported by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Avril Ormsby London, Sami Aboudi Cairo, Tarek Amara and Sylvia Westall Tunisia, Mariam Karouny in Beirut and Silvia Aloisi Rome; written by Christian Lowe and Matthew Bigg; editing by Alison Williams)
No comments:
Post a Comment