Western powers strike Libya; Arab League has doubts

Boots of soldiers loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi hang from a destroyed tank after an air strike by coalition forces, along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah yesterday. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

TRIPOLI,  (Reuters) – Western powers pressed ahead  yesterday with a campaign of air attacks in Libya, promising  more strikes despite criticism by the Arab League.

Boots of soldiers loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi hang from a destroyed tank after an air strike by coalition forces, along a road between Benghazi and Ajdabiyah yesterday. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

U.S. military officials said Saturday’s strikes had halted  an advance by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces on the eastern rebel  stronghold Benghazi and hit his air defences, allowing western  powers to send in planes to impose a no-fly zone.

But the day-old U.N.-mandated military intervention to force  Gaddafi’s troops to end attacks on civilians hit a diplomatic  setback when the Arab League chief questioned the bombardment.

“What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing  a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians  and not the bombardment of more civilians,” Egypt’s state news  agency quoted Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa as  saying.

Gaddafi himself said the air strikes amounted to terrorism  and vowed to fight to the death, although at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT)  yesterday an armed forces spokesman said the army was ordering  all troops to cease fire immediately.

The United States and Britain, who along with France, Italy  and Canada have joined operation “Odyssey Dawn”, dismissed the  ceasefire announcement, arguing that Gaddafi’s government had  promised and then broken a ceasefire on Friday.

In central Benghazi, sporadic explosions and heavy firing  could be heard in the streets late in the evening. A Reuters  witness said the firing lasted about 40 minutes.

Residents had said they feared some of Gaddafi’s troops  could try to force their way into the city, where they would be  surrounded by civilians and protected from attacks from the air.

Outside Benghazi, the advance by Gaddafi’s troops was  stopped in its tracks, with smouldering, shattered tanks and  troop carriers littering the main road. The charred bodies of at  least 14 government soldiers lay scattered in the desert.

However, government tanks did move into Misrata, the last  rebel-held city in western Libya, seeking the shelter of  built-up areas after a base used by Gaddafi’s forces outside was  hit by Western air strikes, residents said.

Abdelbasset, a spokesman for the rebels in Misrata, told  Reuters: “There is fighting between the rebels and Gaddafi’s  forces. Their tanks are in the centre of Misrata … There are  so many casualties we cannot count them.”

CIVILIAN
CASUALTIES

A Libyan government health official said 64 people had been  killed in the Western bombardment overnight from Saturday to  yesterday, but it was impossible to verify the report.

The Arab League’s Moussa called for an emergency meeting of  the group of 22 states to discuss Libya. He requested a report  into the bombardment, which he said had “led to the deaths and  injuries of many Libyan civilians”.Arab backing for a no-fly zone provided crucial underpinning  for the passage of a U.N. Security Council resolution last week  that paved the way for Western action to stop Gaddafi killing  civilians as he fights an uprising against his rule.

The intervention is the biggest against an Arab country  since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Withdrawal of Arab support  would make it much harder to pursue what some defence analysts  say could in any case be a difficult, open-ended campaign with  an uncertain outcome.

Britain and the United States rebuffed Moussa’s comments.

A senior U.S. official said a U.N. resolution endorsed by  Arab states covered “all necessary measures” to protect  civilians, “which we made very clear includes, but goes beyond,  a no-fly zone”.

The safe enforcement of the no-fly zone required the  targeting of Libya’s air defence capabilities, a British Foreign  Ministry spokesman said.