Defiant Gaddafi tours Tripoli

Tripoli - Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi toured the streets of Tripoli on Thursday as Nato warplanes carried out a series of air raids that rocked the capital.

In an open-top 4x4 wearing dark glasses and a hunting hat, Gaddafi hailed bystanders with clenched fists as he put on a show of defiance amid intensifying diplomatic moves by Western governments engaged in an air war to dislodge him.

“God, Libya, Muammar and no one else,” supporters chanted as loud explosions rocked the Bab al-Aziziya neighbourhood where Gaddafi has his residence and most foreign journalists in the capital are based.

Cracks opened up in the Western alliance as Washington rebuffed French appeals for more assistance with the enforcement of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising all necessary means to protect Libyan civilians.

Nato initially denied it had again bombed the Libyan capital but later an alliance spokesperson acknowledged that raids had targeted the outskirts.

“Late mission reports from pilots returning from Libya indicate there appear to be two additional strikes that were conducted at targets closer to the city of Tripoli,” a Nato official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The official said the alliance is still trying to find out if the strikes took place inside Tripoli.

The official denied Nato was trying to cover up the strikes: “We will never cover up the actions we are taking to protect civilians.”

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe made a personal appeal to American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Washington to resume major air raids in Libya, but he said his plea was rebuffed.

“I told her we needed them back, we would have liked them to return,” Juppe said, adding that Clinton said US planes would continue to fly on a case-by-case basis.

Washington pulled back around 50 combat planes from Libyan operations last week after handing over control of the mission to Nato, although since then they took part in some missions to take out Gaddafi’s air defence systems.

The port area of Libya's besieged third city Misrata came under heavy attack by Gaddafi’s forces, who fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells that killed at least 13 people and wounded 50, a rebel spokesperson said.

The key crossroads town of Ajdabiya on the front line between the rebel-held east and the mainly government-held west, recaptured from loyalist forces at the weekend, came under renewed assault, an AFP correspondent reported.

In Cairo, UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for a “political” solution and immediate ceasefire, at an international conference hosted by the Arab League.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who also attended the Cairo conference, appealed to Gaddafi to resign with immediate effect.

And a NATO declaration said “we welcome the outcome of the first meeting of the contact group which took place yesterday (Wednesday) in (the Qatari capital) Doha and strongly endorse its call for Gaddafi to leave power.”

Alliance foreign ministers played down any rift after France and Britain pressed allies to contribute more combat jets to the mission and intensify the raids against regime tanks and artillery shelling civilians.

“We are also sharing the same goal which is to see the end of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. And we are contributing in many ways in order to see that goal realised,” said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

She later told Nato allies: “For our part, the US is committed to our shared mission. We will strongly support the coalition until our work is completed.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, whose country shocked allies by refusing to back the UN resolution authorising the military operation, said Nato supports the aspirations of the Libyan people.

“We are united by the common goal, that we want a free and democratic Libya. The dictator Gaddafi, who started a civil war against his own people, must go,” Westerwelle said at the start of the two-day meeting in Berlin.

But differences remained over the air raids against forces threatening the population, which are being conducted by just six of the 28 allies. Rebels have urged Nato to step up the air campaign as the mission has failed to shift the balance of power so far.

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Wednesday's meeting in Qatar of the international contact group on Libya, which promised the rebels cash and the means to defend themselves, “laid out a good foundation”.

“We will now discuss how we can continue the military operation leading to a successful result,” he said.

Military action was first launched by Britain, France and the United States on March 19, but Nato took over the operation two weeks ago after overcoming French reservations about letting the Western military organisation alliance lead it.

The Berlin meeting came as Nato planes put on a show of force on the front line, with rebels reporting they were bombing targets on the road leading west, towards the key oil refinery town of Brega on the central Mediterranean coast.

An AFP correspondent heard loud explosions just west of the town of Ajdabiya, where deadly exchanges raged on Saturday and Sunday killing dozens of loyalist troops and an undisclosed number of rebel fighters.

There was no immediate confirmation from Nato that warplanes under its command were engaged.

Libya's third-largest city Misrata, where Nato jets have been bombing Gaddafi’s forces in a bid to break a weeks-old siege, was said by the rebels to be under heavy attack.

“We have faced since dawn a cowardly and criminal attack on the area of the port and the district of Kasr Ahmed near the port,” a rebel spokesperson said, adding that pro-Gaddafi forces fired dozens of Grad missiles and tank shells.

“The toll will obviously worsen. We are still searching for other victims under the debris of houses,” he added, reached by telephone.

The besieged city gained some relief however with the arrival of a French Red Cross boat carrying 80 tons of food and medical supplies, the aid group said.

The aid has already been handed over to the local Red Crescent which will distribute it to inhabitants, to displaced foreigners including Egyptians, Ghanians and Chadians, and to a few Europeans awaiting evacuation, it said. - Sapa-AFP