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Today's Top News
Battle for Control Rages in Libya
Gaddafi forces inch towards opposition stronghold of Benghazi while wrangle over UN decision on no-fly zone crawls.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader's forces and rebels are fighting for control of the oil town of Brega as the battle for eastern Libya edged closer to Benghazi, the so-called "rebel capital" in the east.
A man plays with his son in front of a cartoon depicting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Benghazi February 26, 2011. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic) Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley reported from Benghazi that "there is no immediate threat to Benghazi, and the rebels have a new commander, an experienced commander, who has defected from Gaddafi forces.
"This is good news for the rebel forces as he is reported to have some 8,000 men with him and heavy weapons too.
"Militarily, it is difficult for Gaddafi to come all the way to Benghazi, street fighting will make Gaddafi lose men and their morale may go down."
Separately, rebels say they are fortifying the town of Ajdabiya, against a possible assault by advancing forces loyal to Gaddafi, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Ahmed al-Zwei, a rebel spokesman, said on Tuesday, "intermittent" fighting between the two sides was taking place on an 80-kilometre stretch of road between Ajdabiya and Brega.
On Monday, Libyan jets flew behind rebel lines to bomb Ajdabiyah, the only sizeable town before Benghazi.
Rebels said there had been no casualties.
Colonel Milad Hussein, Libyan army spokesman, said that government forces were "marching to cleanse the country" of insurgents, whom he called "rats and terrorists" and vowed to take on Benghazi.
The lightly armed rebels have been pushed back some 200 kilometres by Gaddafi's better equipped and better trained forces in the past week.
"In Brega it is still advance and retreat, we are not in control and they are not either," rebel fighter Hussein al-Wami told the Reuters news agency.
His report was seconded by fighter Addel Ibriki, who returned to Ajdabiya from Brega on Tuesday morning. "It is still to and from," Ibriki said.
However, according to earlier claims, rebel fighters said they captured and even killed Gaddafi troops in Brega - but government forces contest that claim, saying that they are in control of the town.
Libyan state TV showed some images, on Monday, from Brega port, claiming that it was in government control and at peace.
Al Jazeera correspondents said it was difficult to verify the claims made by both sides.
Meanwhile, Libyan government artillery and tanks re-took the small town of Zuwarah, 120 km west of Tripoli after heavy bombardment, Tarek Abdallah, a resident said by telephone.
Amnesty offer
On Monday, Gaddafi offered an amnesty to rebel fighters if they agreed to lay down their arms, Libyan state television reported.
Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tripoli said the offer will play on to the emotions of very anxious rebel forces who don't know how they will be able to put up a fight against Gaddafi's forces, given the overwhelming superiority of his military forces.
"There is an enormous degree of anxiety. It's an all-or-nothing game now," Anita McNaught said.
"If the rebels do not manage to hold out against Gaddafi and establish some kind of protective zone in the east of the country, it is almost certain in the wake of this, there would be some dreadful purge of those who dared to raise their hands against the Gaddafi administration.
"People know that unless they are able to keep Tripoli at bay, that the alternative is almost too awful to contemplate. Those fears apply equally in Tripoli; they are just not expressed as openly as they are in the east."
'No-fly zone delay'
As commanders of Gaddafi forces vowed to push deeper into rebel-held territory, diplomatic efforts to impose a no-fly zone made little headway.
On Monday, France pressured G8 foreign ministers at a meeting in Paris, to formalise a move on Libya and back its efforts to speed up a UN Security Council decision on imposing a no-fly zone over the country to prevent Gaddafi forces from using warplanes, but the effort hit snags as partners such as Germany raised doubts.
Guido Westerwelle, German foreign minister called for urgent talks in the Security Council for targeted sanctions on Gaddafi's government, but voiced opposition towards military action.
"We are very sceptical about a military intervention and a no-fly zone is a military intervention," he told reporters after the dinner with G8 counterparts.
In the end, a divided Security Council failed to produce a consensus among its 15 members on a no-fly zone, and Russia said it had questions about the proposal.
"Fundamental questions need to be answered, not just what we need to do, but how it's going to be done," Vitaly Churkin, Russian ambassador, said in New York.
Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, also held a late-night, 45-minute meeting in Paris, on Monday, with Mahmoud Jibril, a senior Libyan opposition figure, after discussing the widening crisis with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Arab League on Saturday endorsed a no-fly zone, and its decision satisfies one of three conditions set by the Western NATO alliance for it to police Libyan air space, which is the need for regional support. The other two are proof that its help is needed and a Security Council resolution.
Nawaf Salam, Lebanese ambassador, sole Arab representative on the council, said Lebanon wanted it to act as fast as possible.
"We think it is not only a legitimate request, it is a necessary request," he said. "Measures ought to be taken to stop the violence, to put an end to the ... situation in Libya, to protect the civilians there."
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23 Comments so far
Show AllNotice carefully how the United States is doing no more than paying equivocal lip service to Gaddafi's opposition. That's because Gaddafi's still our guy. But we'd switch sides in a heartbeat if the opposition gave us better terms on the oil.
What, in your esteemed opinion, SHOULD the United States do regarding Libya?
At this point there's nothing we can do. We frittered away all of our moral authority long ago. Besides, IF we act, then only to install a regime that does what we want. Those in power in our country don't give a damn about the welfare of Libyans. Certainly you've figured that out by now.
There's civil war in Libya, likely to be short. It's not really about "rebels" against a dictator, as much as warring between different tribes and ethnic groups.
As the surprise element's gone from the faction-attack, Ghaddafi's probably won this one.
The "west" supports the "rebels" in the hope of better control of Libya, as Ghaddafi's not submissive enough for western comfort. Ghaddafi's politically smart and cynical, though - that's why he's been in power for 40-odd years.
"The "west" supports the "rebels" in the hope of better control of Libya"
How is the West supporting the rebels? The West has been all talk, and no action ...
Felicity Arbuthnot writes:
"Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois told Al Jazeera (10 March) that the proposed no fly zone was illegal, and: ” … recognising the Libyan rebels as a legitimate government”, simply signalled intention of interfering in Libya’s affairs, and that all the U.S. was interested in was re-stealing Libya’s oil.
"Presenting as altruism, another kleptomaniac foray for resources (and subsequent, inevitable disastrous, quagmire) is important. The buzz word currently for carpet bombing and invasion is “humanitarian intervention.” The indisputable tragedy of thirty deaths was “a massacre.” Implication: “intervention” is a moral duty. Yet strangely, when US/NATO in Afghanistan killed sixty four villagers on 20th February (locals said twenty were women, twenty nine were children and young adults, aged seven to twenty, and fifteen, men) it was declared by spokesmen, not a “massacre” but a “mistake.”
"On 1 March when nine children, aged seven to fifteen were killed whilst collecting firewood, near a village in Kunar province, Defence Secretary, Robert Gates described their annihilation as a ” … a setback.” The Washington Post (3 March) described the children’s deaths as: “the latest irritant” between US/NATO forces and the Afghan government. Killings of protesters in Iraq, by forces of America’s puppet government, are met with silence. There was no call for a “no fly zone” as Israel decimated Gaza and mercilessly destroyed fourteen hundred lives, trapped in a tiny land, with nowhere to hide."
Very good. Right to the point !!!!
Robert Fisk, the well-known chronicler of Middle Eastern affairs for the Independent newspaper of London, wrote a sensational dispatch on Monday that the Obama administration had sought help from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia for secretly ferrying American weapons to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi, for which Riyadh would pick up the tab so that the White House would need no accountability to the US Congress and leave no traceable trail to Washington.
The moral depravity of the move - chartering the services of an autocrat to further the frontiers of democracy - underscores Obama's obsessive desire to camouflage any US unilateral intervention in Libya with "deniability" at all costs.
Once more stability trumps democracy. A Saudi-US conspiracy to send Saudi troops to Libya is probable
To compound the advanced wave of hypocrisy, while Europe debated no-fly in Libya, the House of Saud came up with its "all-drive" and sped to Manama in the dead of night. al-Wefaq, the largest Shi'ite party in Bahrain, now describes Saudi Arabia as an occupation force. Imagine the outrage in the "international community" - and the calls to start carpet-bombing right away - if this was Iran invading Lebanon.
By the way, GCC members - also part of the Arab League - support no-fly in Libya (not because they love the eastern Libya revolutionaries, but because they hate Gaddafi). Yet they drive in Bahrain with tanks and weapons to suppress the majority voice.
I am surprised that there is no article on CD on Bahrain uprising and Saudi "invasion" of Bahrain!!!
"Should anyone harbour doubts as to how casual invasion has become, the banter between General Petraeus and Robert Gates, on his recent arrival in Afghanistan, should allay them. ‘Apparently unaware of an open microphone, Gen Petraeus greeted Mr Gates at Kabul airport joking: “Welcome back, sir, flying a little bigger plane than normal … you gonna launch some attacks on Libya or something?”
"The US Defence Secretary responded to the comment by laughing and replied, “yeah, exactly.”
"Since the imposition of sanctions on Iraq in 1990, the subsequent bombings, George W, Bush’s declaration of a “Crusade” before Iraq’s invasion, the carpet bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the bombing, invasion, and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. and U.K., have led twenty one, shameful, homicidal, infanticidal, blood-soaked years against Muslim lands."
Well, there's one happy guy about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It's Ghaddafi. Took all world's attentions off of Libya. He can do whatever he wants now while no one is looking that way.
That's quite true. The earthquake in Japan saved the world from more nukes, as well as from another "humanitarian intervention". And Ghaddafi's probably a better ruler for the totality of people in Libya and less brutal than the alternative.
"And Ghaddafi's probably a better ruler for the totality of people in Libya and less brutal than the alternative."
That's madness ...
The world no longer has the luxury to ponder who is the better ruler for what. If the Tripolitnian people want Gadaffi as their ruler the world should not try to unseat him. If the Tripolitanian people do not want Gadaffi as their ruler it is up to them and not to the outside world to unseat him. Foreign observers in Tripoli report that the first is closer to the truth than the second.
It is equal madness to think that an insurgent ruler for the totality of people of Libya is good for that land.
"Foreign observers in Tripoli report that the first is closer to the truth than the second."
Only after all the protests in Tripoli were shredded with bullets from mercenary soldiers ...
I think that there are a few happy chaps in D.C. and Tel Aviv as well. None of the western powers or their Middle Eastern satraps want any scent of democratic change whatsoever.
As usual it is the French government that has acted the most quixotically by recognizing a "Libyan government" of the insurgents at a time when it was far from clear that they could take Tripoli. When Gadaffi's forces regrouped and the insurgents were fighting at the end of a supply line through iffy territory the French's rash pie-in-the-sky act quickly crashed. It was eminently predictable that the French then became the loudest to call for a no-fly zone in an attempt to distract the world from their sublime idiocy. President Obama should resist the temptation to risk the life of even a single US aviator to lift the French out of their petard.
President Obama must also resist the temptation to recognize an insurgent Libyan government which can only become the ruler of all of Libya with foreign (read USAn) troops on the ground either as fighters or as trainers. The second option was how the war in Vietnam was enlarged by President Kennedy even though his trainers were called "advisers". No one outside our nation was fooled by JFK.
If Gadaffi fails to take Benghazi that should be welcome news because that would create exactly the situation to call for a truce and begin the division of Libya into two entities, Tripolitania (West) and Cyrenaica (East). Only at that stage should our administration recognize Gadaffi as the ruler of Tripolitania and an insurgent entity as the government of Cyrenaica. The first may be hard to swallow but its swallowing must be done to stop the civil war in that land. Unfortunately the window of this opportunity is now at most a few weeks and the Obama administration has not shown any sign of thinking outside the traditional box.
The EU/US dithering over a no-fly zone is deliberate. At the present rate Gaddafi Duck is annihilating city after city, in a few weeks it will be too late for any no-fly zone. Then the retaliatory bloodbaths against the rebels and their families will go on for years. Bush Sr. left Saddam Hussein armed and in power after Gulf War I with his Republican guard intact and equipped with helicopter gunships. Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Shiias and Marsh Arabs that Bush Sr. had encouraged to revolt, promising U.S. aid, and left them high and dry to Saddam's mercy. Saddam drained the famous Persian marshes that dated back to the Biblical Bronze Age--an ecological catastrophe that has been un-remediated since then. Expect no better from Gaddafi.
The U.S. is also quietly backing the Saudi invasion of Bahrain and the violent suppression of protests inside U.S.-occupied Iraq. The overriding concern of contemporary Dims, Rethugs and Baggers in supporting all these "stand-down" betrayals of democracy is OIL SOURCE STABILITY UNDER STRONG-MAN DICTATORS.
All you gooey far-left types who want us to sit back and ignore the consequences of this don't understand how the Muslim street regards it. There will be decades of blow-back if the revolutions in Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Iraq fail due to our inaction, diplomatic or military.
Yet another chickenhawk who views wars of aggression as a fantasy sport.
When will people like you learn that foreign intervention doesn't fix anything? Look at where intervention got Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, the Philippines, etc. Our country won't save or fix any of those nations. It will be the same old song: our nation invades then sets up shop by establishing a puppet government and building military bases.
What always gets me is that the interventionists like you are blissfully detached and ignorant of how foreign intervention causes more problems than it solves. We're already suffering "blowback" from our past interventions in the Middle East. The Tunisian and Egyptian people have made it clear that such intervention is not only unwelcomed but that it has harmed them in the past.
Will you be going to Libya in any capacity? Will you take up arms against Gaddafi? Or will you be cheerleading our nation while it bombs and occupies Libyan cities from the safety of your living room? You want our military to occupy and micromanage yet another developing nation. You seem to think that freedom rides on the backs of American tanks. Meanwhile you'll be patting yourself on the back for your insipid warmonging, mistaking it for humanitarianism and internationalism, when it's really militarism and imperialism.
You don't actually care about Libya or any of those nations. If you did, your main solution to the problem wouldn't be to send in the Marines. I really can't believe your stupid enough to trust our military to do anything remotely benevolent in the Middle East after what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Overall I would say you're not only a cowardly, bloodthirty chickenhawk but an anti-Arab, Islamophobic bigot who has too much bad faith in the "White Man's Burden" concept.
It was clear a week ago that the rebels were going to be defeated. Benghazi will be one big blood bath! The West will moan and groan for a while then it will be back to supporting the dictator for his oil. The son will probably take over and all sanctions will be lifted--all forgiven. Just give us the oil.
I guess Sarkosy was funded by kadafi in his last election. That should be an interesting twist to the story when the details come out! Ha, ha.
We all know America prefers dictators to demos; as long as they do our bidding. Just look at Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, etc. Old story. Truth is they never wanted Mubarak to fall. America likes to pretend to believe in democratic structures. History says otherwise.
I see that the French and some Arab countries want to intervene militarily in Lybia! I propose invading the Saudi kingdom. It is the worst of the lot! No different than Kadafi's insane kingdom. All these "kingdoms" are obsolete anachronisms on the face of the earth. Walker's Wisconsin included. And the little fascist dictatorship being set up in Ohio, etc. Kasich has gone insane!
Plus we could get all that oil and sell it cheap!
I quote you: "Besides, IF we act, then only to install a regime that does what we want". Well, that has been tried in S. Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. Obviously it does not work and may not work in a united Libya either!