A spokesman for Libyan rebels yesterday urged the US military to reassert a stronger role in the NATO-led air campaign or risk more civilian casualties in the stalemate fighting between Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and forces seeking to end his four-decade rule.
The appeal by the spokesman, Mahmoud Shammam, appeared to set the urgent tone for the rebels’ meetings with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other top Western and Arab envoys as they gathered in Qatar’s capital to discuss ways to end the Libyan crisis.
While peace efforts remain the top objective, there also appears to be a shift toward trying to boost the rebels’ firepower to protect their territory from government offensives. One proposal noted by Italy — Libya’s former colonial ruler — calls for allies providing defensive weapons.
However, Shamman said the anti-Qaddafi forces would not bend on their demands that any peace proposal require Qaddafi and his inner circle to leave the country.
The rebels’ conditions for Qaddafi’s ouster effectively killed a ceasefire bid by Africa’s main political bloc this week.
Shammam also urged NATO to step up its air campaign to hit pro-Qaddafi forces in efforts to protect civilians and appealed for a greater role by the US, which turned over operations to the military bloc last month. Shammam’s comments echoed calls by Libyan Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and others after government forces shelled the rebel-held city of Misrata in western Libya.
“When the Americans were involved the mission was very active and it was more leaning toward protecting the civilians,” Shammam said.
“NATO is very slow responding to these attacks on the civilians. We’d like to see more work toward protecting the civilians,” Shammam said before the one-day conference that includes Ban, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns.
It also is expected to be the first high-profile forum for Qaddafi’s former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who defected to Britain last month. However, rebel officials insisted Koussa has no role in their movement.
In Benghazi, the rebels’ stronghold in eastern Libya, rebel spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga said on Tuesday that talks with Koussa was “not on the agenda.”
“We did not invite him here. He is not part of our delegation,” Shammam told Britain’s Sky News.
The host for the first meeting of the Libyan Contact Group — the wealthy Gulf state of Qatar — is one of the few Arab countries providing warplanes to the NATO air campaign and has helped Libyan rebels sell oil to buy weapons and supplies.
Hague said he believed the Libyan opposition was “steadily becoming better organized,” but could not predict how long the military stalemate would persist.
“It will end at some stage with the departure of Qaddafi, with a political process in Libya that is a more inclusive process,” he told the BBC.
However, an official from the African Union suggested there is no international consensus on trying to force out Qaddafi.
“We cannot as international or regional organizations say, ‘Go,’” said Noureddine Mezni, a spokesman for the bloc’s chairman.
Italian foreign ministry spokesman Maurizio Massari said allies might consider providing “defensive weapons” and equipment to rebels, but did not give details on the type of arms.
“The discussion of arms is certainly on the table,” he said. “We are not talking about offensive arms ... Every country will decide. It is a political decision.”
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