NATO concludes Libya mission after seven months

NATO concludes Libya mission after seven months

"NATO ends its military operation in Libya at midnight on Monday, seven months after launching an air and sea campaign that helped bring the overthrow and death of Muammar Gaddafi.

In announcing the decision last week, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called it "one of the most successful" operations in the history of the 62-year-old alliance.

Rasmussen will mark the end of the mission by visiting Libya on Monday, where he will meet Libya's National Transitional Council and members of civil society, the alliance said.

Despite Rasmussen's depiction of the mission, the NATO intervention caused sharp rifts in the alliance and went on much longer than Western nations had expected or wanted.

NATO stuck to its decision to end the operation despite NTC calls for it to stay engaged longer and says it does not expect to play a major post-war role, although it could assist the transition to democracy by helping with security sector reform.

NATO took over the mission on March 31, based on a United Nations mandate that set a no-fly zone over Libya and permitted foreign military forces, including NATO, to use "all necessary measures" to protect Libyan civilians.

That mandate was terminated last Thursday, despite a request for the U.N. Security Council to wait for the NTC to decide if it wants NATO help to secure its borders.

NATO allies have been keen to see a quick conclusion to a costly effort that has involved more than 26,000 air sorties and round-the-clock naval patrols at a time when budgets are under severe strain due to the global economic crisis. (...)"

in Reuters

Ler Mais

"We won't surrender", vows Gaddafi

"We won't surrender", vows Gaddafi

"Gaddafi vows fight as world backs new leaders"

"Muammar Gaddafi urged his supporters from hiding to fight on as Libya's new interim rulers met world leaders on Thursday to discuss reshaping a nation torn by 42 years of one-man rule and six months of civil war.

"Let it be a long battle. We will fight from place to place, from town to town, from valley to valley, from mountain to mountain," Gaddafi said in a message relayed by satellite TV on the anniversary of the coup that brought him to power in 1969.

"If Libya goes up in flames, who will be able to govern it? Let it burn," he said with his trademark verbal flamboyance.

In further comments broadcast later, he vowed to prevent oil exports, in the kind of threat that stirs fears of an Iraq-style insurgency: "You will not be able to pump oil for the sake of your own people. We will not allow this to happen," Gaddafi said. "Be ready for a war of gangs and urban warfare."

Amid conflicting reports of where the 69-year-old fugitive might be, a commander in the forces of the new ruling council said he had fled to a desert town south of the capital, one of several tribal bastions still holding out.

Seeking to avoid more bloodshed, opposition forces also extended by a week a deadline for Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, on the coast, to surrender.

Meeting the National Transitional Council in Paris at the invitation of France and Britain, prime backers of the Libyan uprising which followed other Arab Spring revolts, Western powers said Gaddafi was still a threat, but handed the NTC $15 billion of his foreign assets to start the job of rebuilding. (...)"

in Reuters

Ler Mais

Lybia: "Martyrdom or Victory"

Lybia: "Martyrdom or Victory"

"Gaddafi vows 'martyrdom or victory' after fleeing compound"

" Muammar Gaddafi has vowed "martyrdom or victory" hours after Libyan rebels swarmed into his fortified compound in Tripoli.

Following a day of heavy fighting in the Libyan capital, opposition fighters broke into Gaddafi's walled citadel, Bab al-Aziziya, where they were seen stamping on a gilded bronze head of the deposed despot and setting fire to his famous tent in a cathartic end to his 42-year rule.

But in an audio recording released to a Libyan television station, the dictator called his retreat from the compound a "tactical move". Gaddafi, who has not been seen in public for weeks, told al-Rai TV that Libyans must "cleanse the capital", and claimed he had made a discreet tour of Tripoli and felt the city was not in danger.

"All Libyans must be present in Tripoli, young men, tribal men and women must sweep through Tripoli and comb it for traitors. I have been out a bit in Tripoli discreetly, without being seen by people, and … I did not feel that Tripoli was in danger," he said.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, said 6,000 volunteers had arrived in Libya to join Gaddafi's cause, and warned that loyalist forces were ready and capable of fighting on for months, if not years.

In an audio recording, he warned they would turn Libya into "volcanoes, lava and fire against the imperialism". If the military strikes continued, he warned, Gaddafi forces would transform Tripoli into "a death trap".

"I don't think that the rebels will stand that fight because they haven't got the facilities to do that. They always ask Nato to help them and to intervene in their actions all the time. But I think Tripoli will be in two days or three days back to us," he said.

Rebel leaders said 400 people had been killed and 2,000 injured during the fighting, and there were reports of sporadic looting in the capital. But the whereabouts of the Libyan leader and his family remain unknown. (...)"

in The Guardian

Ler Mais