Nato denies Tripoli bombing

Kadhafi on Tripoli streets amid NATO rifts

LIBYA: A defiant Moamer Kadhafi toured the streets of Tripoli as world powers struggled to stay united over a NATO-led air campaign that has so far failed to budge him from power in Libya.

In an open-top 4x4, Kadhafi, sporting shades and a hunting hat, hailed bystanders with clenched fists Thursday. “God, Libya, Moamer and no one else,” supporters chanted as loud explosions rocked the Bab al-Aziziya neighbourhood home to Kadhafi’s residence and a base for most foreign journalists in the capital.

NATO initially denied it had again bombed Tripoli, but an alliance spokesman later 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.

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

In a bid to put on a united front, however, British Prime Minister David Cameron, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President Barack Obama penned a joint article dismissing a Libyan future with Kadhafi as “unthinkable” and an “unconscious betrayal” by the rest of the world.

“It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government,” said the article, which appeared in the London Times, The Washington Post and French daily Le Figaro.

Responding, Kadhafi’s daughter Aisha said calls for her father to step down were insulting for all Libyans.

“To speak of Kadhafi’s resignation is a humiliation for all Libyans,” she said in a brief statement at her father’s Tripoli residence before hundreds of young supporters.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe made a personal appeal to US 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.

With nearly 100,000 US troops fighting a grinding war in Afghanistan, Washington pulled back around 50 combat planes from Libyan operations last week after handing over control of the mission to NATO, but they have since participated in some missions to take out Kadhafi’s air defences.

A senior US official said the United States was performing a quarter of all missions and that it saw no need to do more on the military front.

“We have said all along that we want to see allies step up and that we are certainly doing at least our fair share,” the official said.

Friday, AFP