REUTERS -
NATO carried out a
rare daytime air strike on Tripoli on Saturday after a fifth
straight night of attacks, adding to military and diplomatic
pressure on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to quit after 41
years of power.
A big boom shook the Libya capital at about 0800 GMT but it
was unclear if it was caused by a bomb or missile, or what
the target was. No further information was immediately
available.
NATO bombed several sites in the capital on Friday night,
Libyan state television and Arab news channel Al Arabiya
reported. The Libyan broadcaster said NATO raids also caused
“human and material” damage near Mizda, to the south.
Russia joined Western leaders on Friday in urging Gaddafi to
step down and offered to mediate his departure, providing an
important boost to NATO powers seeking to end his long rule.
It was a striking change in tone from Moscow, which has
previously criticised the 10-week bombing of Libya. NATO
intervened under a United Nations mandate to protect
civilians from Gaddafi’s forces, but has effectively placed
itself on the side of rebels trying to topple him in a
deadlocked civil war.
NATO said it was preparing to deploy
attack helicopters over the Arab North African state for the
first time to increase the pressure on Gaddafi’s forces on
the ground.
“There are signs that the momentum against Gaddafi is really
building. So it is right that we are ratcheting up the
military, the economic and the political pressure,” British
Prime Minister David Cameron said at a Group of Eight summit
in France.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Gaddafi, who seized
power in a 1969 coup, no longer had the right to lead Libya.
Russia to hold talks in Libya
“The world community does not see him as the leader of
Libya,” Medvedev told reporters at the summit, adding that
he was sending an envoy to Libya to begin talks. But he
presented no plan to remove Gaddafi from power.
In Tripoli, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told a news
conference the government had not been officially informed
of the Russian position. “Any decision taken about the
political future of Libya belongs to the Libyans, no one
else,” he said.
Despite Russia’s move, there was scepticism that Gaddafi
would agree to go. “Knowing his state of mind, I don’t think
he is going to step down,” Arab League Secretary-General Amr
Moussa said.
Previous attempts at mediation, by the African Union, Turkey
and the United Nations, have foundered on Gaddafi’s refusal
to leave and the insurgents’ refusal to accept anything
less.
Rebel-held Misrata, Libya’s third biggest city and scene of
some of the fiercest battles in the conflict, suffered a
second day of heavy fighting on its western outskirts on
Friday.
Doctors at Misrata’s hospital said five rebels were killed
and more than a dozen wounded.
Gaddafi’s forces stepped up their attacks too on Zintan,
part of a chain of mountain settlements near Libya’s border
with Tunisia, where rebels have been holding off assaults
for months.
The pro-rebel Libyan Youth Movement, in an open Internet
letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
appealed for help for the people of two western towns,
Yefren and Al-Gala’a, which it said had been under siege by
government forces since April 3.
“Gaddafi forces have specifically targeted the Amazigh
(Berber) people in these two cities, threatening to wipe out
the entire population,” it said, complaining of “an epidemic
of ethnic cleansing”.
The account, which could not be independently verified, said
residents had no electricity and were running out of food,
water and medical supplies. It said three civilians had been
killed in the past day, and two had died of heart attacks in
the past 48 hours.
In rebel-held eastern Libya, the administration based in
Libya’s second city, Benghazi, is trying to present itself
as a credible government-in-waiting.
That effort was helped on Friday when Farhad Omar Bin
Guidara, Libya’s central bank governor until he left the
country in February, said he was working with the rebel
finance team.
