Gaddafi insists Libya ‘ready for battle’ as coalition talks tactics

A DEFIANT Muammar Gaddafi said Libya is “ready for battle”, as Western leaders mulled yesterday their next steps on the fifth day of UN-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 yesterday, 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.

There was also renewed fighting outside Ajdabiya, south of the rebel strong- hold of Benghazi.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said he expected “clarity” on the future command structure of allied military operations in “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?

“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.”

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Cairo on an unannounced visit yesterday 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.

Doubts persist over the best way to confront the regime.

Coalition forces, led by the United States, 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 co-ordination but no unified command, and moves to hand over control of the operation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 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 Juppé 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.

NATO could then be left with the task of running day-to-day operations.

In talks on Tuesday, ambassadors agreed to use NATO’s naval power to enforce an arms embargo on Libya ordered under Resolution 1973.

Yesterday, Turkey offered a submarine and warships to help enforce a UN arms embargo against Libya.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Arab nations Kuwait and Jordan will provide logistical contributions to the action against the Libyan regime.

The countries join Qatar, which has deployed Mirage fighter jets to become the only Arab state so far to actually commit military assets to the coalition.

Destroying radar and missiles under Gaddafi’s control would pave the way for a no-fly zone that could be patrolled by combat aircraft, with the US assuming a supporting role, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Moscow.

The Pentagon said Tuesday the United States had flown 212 aerial missions against Libya, while coalition allies had conducted 124.

Juppé 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.

A standoff 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.

In Misrata, the only city in western Libya still held by the rebels, the BBC reported the “situation is becoming increasingly desperate, with supplies of food, water and medicine running low”.

It quoted a doctor as saying “the situation in the local hospital is disastrous”.

“The doctors and medical teams are exhausted beyond human physical ability and some of them cannot reach the hospital because of tanks and snipers.”