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allies vowed to keep bombing Muammar Gaddafi’s forces until he stepped down.
A local doctor told Al Jazeera at least eight people died and seven others were wounded in the second day of intense bombardment of Misrata, a lone rebel bastion in western Libya. Residents told Al Jazeera at least 120 rockets had hit the city, where hundreds of civilians are reported to have died in a six-week siege.
The attack followed intense fire from Russian-made Grad rocket launchers into a residential district on Thursday when rebels said 23 people died, mostly women and children. They said more than 200 missiles fell in the port.
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States said in a joint newspaper article that they would press on with their three-week-old air campaign until Gaddafi left power.
“It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government.”
The suffering of Misrata is heaping pressure on Western allies to step up air attacks to stop the bombardment, but NATO is split over providing more planes for the task.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen voiced optimism that allies would supply more combat planes, but Italy immediately ruled out ordering its aircraft to open fire.
The clear intention of Britain, France and the United States to achieve regime change in Libya goes beyond the explicit terms of a United Nations resolution authorising air strikes to protect civilians and other allies have misgivings.
Russia warned the alliance not to use excessive force and called for a political settlement to end the civil war. Gaddafi’s daughter Aisha told a rally in Tripoli that demanding his departure was an insult.
Libyan state television said NATO planes had attacked Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, and Al-Aziziyah south of Tripoli yesterday.In their strongly worded article, published on both sides of the Atlantic, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama said leaving Gaddafi in power would be an “unconscionable betrayal”.
“So long as Gaddafi is in power, NATO and its coalition partners must maintain their operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds,” they said.
The statement seemed intended both to paper over cracks in the Atlantic alliance and increase resolve to stick with the air campaign despite increasing differences. The United States has taken a back seat after handing command to NATO on March 31, and France has suggested Washington needs to resume a more robust combat role in the campaign.
This would bring to bear US precision ground attack aircraft that analysts say could tip the balance against Gaddafi while providing stronger safeguards against hitting civilians. France and Britain, NATO’s hawks on Libya, have led the air campaign but are growing impatient with lack of commitment and provision of ground strike aircraft from other members.
Italy has made several bases available for operations against Gaddafi, but as the former colonial power in Libya is ambivalent about the campaign. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had a personal friendship with Gaddafi before his violent suppression of protests in February. NATO’s Rasmussen said after a foreign ministers’ meeting in Berlin: “We have got indications that nations will deliver what is needed.”
Aisha Gaddafi told a rally in Tripoli marking the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Gaddafi’s compound there by US President Ronald Reagan: “Talk about Gaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Gaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans.”
On the fluid eastern front in Libya’s two-month civil war, rebels said Gaddafi forces advancing from the oil port of Brega had opened fire on the western edge of the insurgent-held town of Ajdabiyah on Friday, killing one of their fighters. Fighter Mansour Rachid said Gaddafi’s forces were spread out in the desert and hard to locate. The rebels have begged for more air strikes to avert what they say is a potential massacre in Misrata.
A rescue ship carrying nearly 1 200 Asian and African migrants, many needing urgent medical attention after weeks with little food or water, left Misrata yesterday for Benghazi.
In their article, the US, British and French leaders said Misrata was “enduring a medieval siege as Gaddafi tries to strangle its population into submission”.
Al Qaeda’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, has urged Muslims in a video message to fight NATO forces in Libya, according to the SITE monitoring group. – Reuters.