US under pressure to arm Libyan rebels as Gaddafi attacks kill 21

RAS LANUF, Libya, Monday

Libyan rebels ceded ground to Muammar Gaddafi ’s advancing forces today as the United States came under increasing pressure to arm the opposition and the UN appointed a special humanitarian envoy.

The rebels began pulling back from the key oil port of Ras Lanuf as fighter jets targeted defences on the edge of town, throwing up palls of smoke amid fears that government forces were gearing for an attack.

After the bloodiest fighting of the three-week old conflict Sunday, the United Nations demanded urgent access to scores of “injured and dying” in the western city of Misrata.

A doctor in Misrata said 21 people, including a child, had been killed in shelling and clashes there, and 91 people wounded.

“The overwhelming majority of them are civilians, including a boy aged two and a half,” he said of the casualties in Libya’s third city which had been shelled by Gaddafi tanks.

Residents contacted yesterday by telephone warned of “carnage” if the international community did not intervene.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon named former Jordanian foreign minister Abdul Ilah Khatib as his special envoy to deal with the regime on the humanitarian front.

Mr Ban’s office said he noted “that civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence, and calls for an immediate halt to the government’s disproportionate use of force and indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets”.

Mr Khatib, 56, will leave for New York “in the next few days before travelling to Libya, where he should meet with all parties involved in the conflict,” an associate of the former minister told AFP in Amman.

Mr Ban’s office also said Gaddafi’s foreign minister had agreed to let a “humanitarian assessment” team visit Tripoli.

With the military situation worsening and population centres threatened, influential US politicians argued strongly for a US operation to arm the rebels and secure a no-fly zone over Libya to thwart Gaddafi’s air force.

Former US ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson said it was time to “covertly arm the rebels” and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry said he assumed “a lot of weapons are going to find their way there from one means or another over the course of the next weeks.”

The New York Times reported that US defence planners are preparing a range of land, sea and air military options in Libya in case Washington and its allies decide to intervene there, including air-drops of weapons to rebels.

France meanwhile announced that a no-fly zone had won support from the Arab League, after talks between League secretary general Amr Mussa and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in Cairo.

Gaddafi has not hesitated to use his air power against rebel positions, and reports that his jets bombed protesters in Benghazi in the early days of the revolt are among reported atrocities being investigated by war crimes prosecutors from the International Criminal Court.

The rebels were forced to withdraw from Bin Jawad, 30 kilometres west along the coast from Ras Lanuf, where at least 12 people were killed and more than 50 wounded when pro-Gaddafi troops ambushed outgunned and inexperienced rebel forces, medics said.

Ras Lanuf’s sole hospital was empty today after the wounded were moved to Ajdabiya, further east in rebel territory at Ajdabiya.

Meanwhile, Britain and France said they were preparing Libya no-fly zone resolution for this week as six Gulf Arab states appealed to the UN Security Council to protect civilians in Libya. (AFP)