A defiant Muammar Gaddafi said Libya is “ready for battle” as Western leaders on Wednesday mulled their next steps on the fifth day of United Nations-backed military strikes on his oil-rich country.
“We will win this battle,” footage showed Gaddafi telling supporters at his Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli that was the target of a coalition missile strike.
Early on Wednesday, CNN reported coalition air strikes were launched overnight near the city of Misrata, east of Tripoli.
Rebels said they had been under intense attack in their Misrata enclave, which has been besieged by Gaddafi’s forces for weeks, with a doctor there saying 17 people were killed on Tuesday by snipers and shelling.
Meanwhile, United States President Barack Obama, due in Washington on Wednesday after cutting short a Latin American trip, said he expected “clarity” on the future command structure of allied military operations “over the next several days”.
Obama said there has been a “significant reduction” in US military flights over Libya as Western forces try to establish a UN-approved no-fly zone aimed at protecting civilians.
Despite Gaddafi’s boasts, there were reports the Libyan leader may be looking for a way out of the conflict.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News that people close to Gaddafi have been contacting Libya’s allies worldwide to see how they can “get out of this”.
“We’ve heard about … people close to him reaching out to people that they know around the world — Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North America, beyond — saying what do we do? How do we get out of this?” she said.
Clinton added: “If there is a true opposition in Libya that is trying to assert itself, we’re going to give them a much better chance than they had before the Security Council acted.”
Shoring up Arab support
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Cairo on an unannounced visit on Wednesday that would include talks with Egyptian officials on the crisis in neighbouring Libya, officials said.
Washington is anxious to shore up Arab support for the intervention in Libya and Gates is the second senior member of Obama’s administration to visit Egypt, following Clinton last week.
As a senior US officer said Gaddafi forces were still attacking civilians, doubts persisted over the best way to continue the campaign to confront the regime.
Coalition forces, led by the US, France and Britain and including some other European states and Arab country Qatar, are acting under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorising “all necessary means” to protect civilians.
There is coordination but no unified command, and moves to hand over control of the operation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) are dividing the alliance.
Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed Nato should play a key role in the command structure of the Libyan mission, the White House said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Nato will not take “political leadership” of the coalition but will have a planning and operational role to enforce the no-fly zone.
His comments came as Nato ambassadors discussed a French proposal to create a special committee of foreign ministers, with Arab participation, to control the mission, in a third day of meetings to overcome their divisions.
That would leave Nato, and members that oppose the air strikes, such as Turkey, out of the political equation as well as military operations.
“It would avoid putting countries that refuse to take part in the operations in an embarrassing situation,” French security analyst Francois Heisbourg told AFP.
Nato could then be left with the task of running day-to-day operations, although Heisbourg said the allies still need to clarify the details of the proposal.
In talks on Tuesday, ambassadors agreed to use Nato’s naval power to enforce an arms embargo on Libya ordered under resolution 1973.
Juppe said future actions of the coalition, which began air strikes on Saturday on Gaddafi military installations, depend in part on the embattled Libyan leader. “The military operations could stop at any moment. All it would take is for the Tripoli regime to adhere precisely and completely with UN Security Council resolutions, and to accept a genuine ceasefire,” the French minister said.
Clashes
In reports of fighting on Tuesday, residents of Yafran, 130km south-west of Tripoli, said at least nine people had been killed in clashes between the two sides.
But rebels also said they had managed to drive back loyalists and retake the outskirts of the western town of Zintan.
A stand-off persisted in eastern Libya, where loyalists in and around Ajdabiya, south of the insurgents’ capital of Benghazi, easily fought off attempts by the disorganised and ill-armed rebels to advance.
Obama warned Gaddafi may still hang on to power, but that a military approach was not the only way Washington can push for his ouster.
The embattled Libyan leader “may try to hunker down and wait it out, even in the face of a no-fly zone”, Obama told CNN.
“But keep in mind that we don’t just have military tools at our disposal in terms of accomplishing Gaddafi’s leaving,” he added.
On Tuesday, Washington imposed sanctions on 14 firms controlled by Libya’s National Oil Corporation to cut off sources of funds for the Gaddafi regime.
And on Wednesday, the European Union agreed in principle to impose sanctions as well.
Pressure on oil prices
The conflict in Libya continued to press the markets, after forcing the shutdown of more than three-quarters of the country’s oil production.
Crude turned lower in Asian trade on Wednesday but the escalating unrest in Libya and the rest of the Middle East and North Africa maintained upward pressure on prices, analysts said.
New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, eased 26 cents to $104,71 per barrel while Brent North Sea crude for May dropped 41 cents to $115,29.
Oil-rich Libya was producing 1,69-million barrels a day before the conflict, according to the International Energy Agency. It is now producing 400 000 barrels a day.
Meanwhile, three journalists including two Agence France-Presse employees held by Gaddafi’s forces since the weekend were released in Tripoli early on Wednesday. Dave Clark, Roberto Schmidt and Getty photographer Joe Raedle had been arrested Saturday. — AFP