Residents of an eastern rebel town fled yesterday fearing an attack by Muammar Qaddafi’s forces, as the UN was sending an envoy to Tripoli and the US came under pressure to arm Libya’s rebels.
As loyalist forces thwarted a rebel advance on Qaddafi’s hometown and recaptured a key town, the Libyan strongman angrily accused France of interference in Libya’s internal affairs and blamed al-Qaeda for the unrest rocking his country.
Residents of the oil town of Ras Lanuf, the new frontline after the rebels suffered a bitter defeat in the coastal hamlet of Bin Jawad further west, were seen fleeing eastward in cars toward Brega, captured by the rebels last week.
Pro-Qaddafi forces on Sunday beat back rebels making a westward approach to Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte.
Rebels also pulled back from Bin Jawad, occupied on Saturday, after clashes left seven dead and about 50 wounded, according to casualty lists at a hospital in the nearby town of Ajdabiya seen by reporters yesterday.
“We retreated from Bin Jawad. Ras Lanuf will be our line of defense,” said one rebel, Aqil al-Fars.
Untold numbers of “injured and dying” in the western city of Misrata, meanwhile, prompted a UN demand for urgent access to the civilian population repeatedly shelled by Qaddafi tanks on Sunday.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Qaddafi’s foreign minister agreed to let a “humanitarian assessment” team visit Tripoli and he named a special envoy to deal with the regime, former Jordanian foreign minister Abdelilah al-Khatib, to undertake “urgent consultations” with the Tripoli government.
“People are injured and dying and need help immediately,” UN emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said. “I call on the authorities to provide access without delay to allow aid workers to help save lives.”
Residents of Misrata, strategically located between the capital Tripoli and Sirte, said government tanks were shelling the town and warned of “carnage” if the international community did not intervene.
Washington is coming under mounting pressure to arm the rebels amid charges the administration of US President Barack Obama missed chances to oust Libya’s strongman in the early days of the uprising.
Obama has insisted that all options, including military action, remain on the table with respect to Libya..
With the administration cautioning a decision on a no-fly zone was still far off, US lawmakers and former officials appeared coalesced around the likelihood that supplying weapons to the outgunned rebels was a way forward.
“I assume that a lot of weapons are going to find their way there [to rebels in Libya] from one means or another over the course of the next weeks,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry told CBS’s Face the Nation.
A former US envoy to the UN, Bill Richardson, said it was time to “covertly arm the rebels” and enforce a no-fly zone over the north African country, to prevent Qaddafi using his air power against his own people.
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