Envoy: Gaddafi 'seeking way out'

An envoy of Muammar Gaddafi told Greece’s prime minister the Libyan leader was seeking a way out of his country’s crisis two weeks after his government’s attacks to put down a rebellion sparked international air strikes, Greek officials said.

Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi, a former Libyan prime minister who has served as a Gaddafi envoy during the crisis, will travel next to Turkey and Malta in a sign that Gaddafi’s regime may be softening its hard line in the face of the sustained attacks.

“From the Libyan envoy’s comments it appears that the regime is seeking a solution,” Greek foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas said last night after the meeting in Athens.

The minister said the Greek side stressed the international community’s call for Libya to comply with the United Nations resolution that authorised the air strikes and demanded Gaddafi and the rebels end hostilities.

The message, Mr Droutsas said, was “full respect and implementation of the United Nations decisions, an immediate ceasefire, an end to violence and hostilities, particularly against the civilian population of Libya”.

Gaddafi’s government has declared several ceasefires but has not abided by them.

Few other details of the Athens talks were released publicly.

On Friday, the Libyan envoy had said Gaddafi’s government was attempting to hold talks with the US, Britain and France in an effort to halt the air strikes that began on March 19 and which have pounded Libya’s troops and armour and grounded its air force.

Gaddafi’s superior forces had been close to taking the rebel capital of Benghazi in eastern Libya before the international military campaign.

Rebel forces made up of defected army units and armed civilians have since seized much of Libya’s eastern coast, but have been unable to push westward towards the capital Tripoli.

Yesterday Gaddafi’s forces pressed on with attacks against Misrata, the last key city in the western half of the country still largely under rebel control despite a weeks-long assault.

Government troops besieged civilian areas for around two hours with Grad rockets and mortar shells and lined a main road with snipers, said a doctor in the city.

Two shells landed on a field hospital, killing one person and injuring 11, he said. The attacks, including tank fire, began again after nightfall.

A Turkish ship carrying 250 wounded from Misrata docked in Benghazi yesterday. The boat, which carried medical supplies, was also expected to pick up around 60 wounded people being treated in various hospitals in Benghazi, as well as 30 Turks and 40 people from Greece, Ukraine, Britain, Uzbekistan, Germany and Finland.

A leader of the rebel movement, meanwhile, sought to ease concerns from Western governments about its character and goals, emphasising in an interview that the rebels would not allow Islamic extremists to hijack their plans to instal a parliamentary democracy in place of Gaddafi’s four-decade rule.

The issue takes on added importance as Western officials debate whether to send the rebels weaponry in an attempt to help them gain the upper hand over Gaddafi’s superior troops.

“Libyans as a whole – and I am one of them – want a civilian democracy, not dictatorship, not tribalism and not one based on violence or terrorism,” said Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, vice chairman of the opposition’s National Provisional Council.

The council, based in Benghazi, was formed to represent the opposition in the eastern Libyan cities that shook off control of the central government in a series of popular uprisings that began on February 15.

Other fighting yesterday was concentrated around the strategic oil town of Brega, as it has been repeatedly during weeks of back-and-forth battling along Libya’s eastern coast. The rebels, backed by air strikes, made incremental advances.

Rebels fired truck-mounted rocket launchers, then moved to avoid government counter-strikes, suggesting improving tactics and training.

In Tripoli, an opposition supporter said yesterday that anxiety was spreading in areas of the capital as dozens of people disappear in pre-dawn raids, apparently carried out by Gaddafi’s security apparatus.

“They pick them up from their houses and they disappear. We don’t know if they’re still alive or dead,” said the activist.

He also described the city as being locked down, saying many people were staying at home, shops were closed and hundreds of cars were lining up for hours at petrol stations as people hoarded supplies.

The US was to have stopped flying strike missions in Libya as of Sunday after it passed control of the air operation to Nato last week, but alliance spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said the US approved a request to extend that role until today because of “poor weather conditions over the last few days”