Libya’s rebels, with support from NATO, now have a tentative upper hand in the fight against forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, the top UN political affairs official said on Monday.
“While we do not have a detailed understanding of the military situation on the ground, it is clear that the initiative, although halting, is now with the opposition forces, supported at times by NATO air power,” UN Under-Secretary--General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe told the UN Security Council.
It was the first time a top UN official suggested publicly that the tide may be turning against Qaddafi’s forces more than three months after NATO forces began bombing raids aimed at protecting civilians on the basis of a Security Council mandate.
Pascoe also echoed what reporters on the ground in Libya have been saying — that the fighting is moving closer to Tripoli.
He said that UN special envoy to Libya Abdelilah Al-Khatib was trying to “narrow the differences” between the rebels and Qaddafi’s government in order to launch indirect peace talks.
Both sides say they want peace, but the rebels insist that any peace deal must involve the ouster of Qaddafi and his family, which Qaddafi’s government rejects.
Meanwhile, in Libya, rebel fighters yesterday launched an attack on an arms depot held by pro-Qaddafi forces in a desert area 25km from the hilltown of Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, an Agence France-Presse correspondent at the scene said.
In the latest fighting in the Berber mountains, government troops fired Grad rockets, as rebels in armored cars circled a zone near Zintan with buildings used as depots for arms, which anti-Qaddafi forces need for any advance on Tripoli.
NATO warplanes have repeatedly struck the area over the past two months.
In other news, celebrations erupted in the besieged rebel-held city of Misrata, as the news that the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant for Qaddafi spread through the city.
Thousands of citizens bearing the Libyan rebel tricolor streamed into the central Liberation Square, while surrounding roads were jammed with cars and pickup trucks tooting their horns. Fighters fired volleys of machine-gun fire in the air in streets surrounding the square.
“I’m happy, more than happy,” said Ahmed Badi, a Misrata businessman. “We knew he was a criminal, now all the world knows he is a criminal.”
Sheikh Khalifa Zuwawi, chair of Misrata Council, said: “We hope all the world will now work together to catch Qaddafi.”
For a besieged city that has endured more than four months of fighting and suffers a daily pounding of Grad missiles fired from government forces, Monday’s celebrations were a moment of rare relief.
Concerns among diplomats that the arrest warrant may close the door to Qaddafi fleeing into exile were not shared, at least in public, by rebel fighters.
“It is better that he stays in Libya,” said Abdulhassan Swehli, leader of a rebel brigade on the frontline west of the city.
Misrata’s rebel administration says in the event of victory it plans to bring war crimes charges against several dozen generals and senior Qaddafi administration officials.
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