GEO WORLD

 Kadhafi seen on 'back foot' as fighting rages

 Updated Wednesday, April 27, 2011
 MISRATA: Libyan rebels appear to be gaining ground against Moamer Kadhafi, the British defence minister said Tuesday, despite a deadly attack on Misrata port by the Libyan strongman's forces.

"We've seen some momentum gained in the last few days. We've seen some progress made in Misrata. And it's very clear that the regime is on the back foot," British Defence Secretary Liam Fox said.

After nearly three hours of talks at the Pentagon with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Fox painted an optimistic picture of the Libya conflict despite fears on both sides of the Atlantic that the war could turn into a stalemate.

A NATO spokeswoman, meanwhile, said the alliance was considering sending a civilian "contact point" to Libya's eastern rebel bastion of Benghazi in order to improve political relations with the opposition.

Earlier Tuesday, forces loyal to the veteran Libyan leader, who has ruled the north African nation for some four decades, fired Grad rockets at Misrata port, killing at least three refugees and forcing an aid ship to stay out to sea.

As the United States and its allies pondered how to help the rebels, US President Barack Obama formally ordered a drawdown of $25 million in urgent, non-lethal American aid to Libya's Transitional National Council.

Officials said last week the aid could include vehicles, fuel trucks, ambulances, medical equipment, protective vests, binoculars, and radios.

A day after allied warplanes struck Kadhafi's compound in Tripoli, Gates and Fox also insisted that command centres for the regime's forces were legitimate targets.

"We have considered all along command and control centres to be a legitimate target and we have taken those out elsewhere," Gates told reporters.

Earlier, Tripoli said it had asked Russia to convene an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council over what it called an "assassination attempt" on Kadhafi when the NATO raid destroyed his office on Sunday night.

Tripoli said the bombardments went against Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973, which passed thanks to a Russian abstention, and "were in violation of international laws and conventions."

Kadhafi's chief ally in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused NATO of trying to kill his "friend."

"You know that Kadhafi is our friend, but this has nothing to do with friendship. Who has the right to drop bombs like this? They are looking for Kadhafi to kill him," said the leader of Latin America's radical left.

"We don't agree with everything Kadhafi is doing or has done, but who has the right to drop bombs on him each morning?"

Chavez also announced that Kadhafi was sending a delegation to Venezuela in a bid to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the fighting which has raged
in Libya since mid-February, causing scores of deaths and thousands of casualties.

In northwestern Misrata, several Grad rockets hit the port and an International Organisation for Migration (IOM) ship that had come to rescue refugees remained offshore as a precaution, a journalist said.

At least three African refugees were killed in the attack, a medic and a Western journalist said. The medical source also spoke of "around 20 wounded."

The IOM ship had been due to take on board 550 African refugees, of whom some 2,000 are reported to be still stranded in Misrata.

NATO warplanes overflew the rebel-held city where explosions were also heard after 24 hours of relative calm. At least one air strike was reported.

"NATO asked that the IOM boat leave the port," said a rebel source, adding that "around 20 vehicles" containing Kadhafi loyalists were approaching.

Elsewhere, witnesses in the northwestern town of Kabao reported insurgents fought heavy battles against Kadhafi's forces, leaving dozens of regime troops dead and many captured.

Witnesses said 45 loyalists were killed and 17 captured around the town of 15,000 people 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of Nalut. Two rebels had also been killed and three wounded on Monday.

Misrata's port has been a strategic conduit for international humanitarian aid, as well as rebel fighter reinforcements and guns and ammunition from their Benghazi stronghold.

Rebels there had said they pushed Kadhafi's troops out after a siege lasting more than seven weeks, but opposition officials in Benghazi downplayed the reports.

"The situation in Misrata remains grave. The revolutionaries are in control but they remain surrounded and bombed," opposition Transitional National Council spokesman Jalal al-Gallal told AFP.

TNC military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani also dismissed reports of significant progress in Misrata.

"It is a disaster there," he said. "Kadhafi is not going anywhere. Misrata is the key to Tripoli. If he lets go of Misrata, he will let go of Tripoli. He is not crazy enough to do that."

Tripoli said it asked the African Union to convene an extraordinary summit to find ways for the continent to fight "external forces."

And, a day after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italy's air force would take part in "targeted action" in Libya, Rome announced it would host a meeting on May 5 of the international contact group on Libya.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, praised the UN Security Council's action on Libya for allowing military action to patrol a no-fly zone and taking sanctions against Kadhafi's regime.

"Clearly, the Security Council's decisive and unified action has saved many lives," the UN chief said.

"It is also clear that the Libyan regime has lost both legitimacy and credibility, particularly in terms of protecting its people and addressing their legitimate aspirations for change," he said.

Russia, however, has stressed it will not back a new UN Security Council resolution on further intervention in Libya.

Moscow could back new UN action if it "calls for an immediate end to all violence, bloodshed, the use of force, military action, and calls on all sides to immediately sit down at the negotiating table," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Meanwhile, the former chief of the CIA praised Kadhafi's past cooperation with the United States and said his downfall could complicate US interests in the short term.

"Whatever you think of Kadhafi and Mussa Kussa... they were good and they were good counter-terrorism partners," said retired general Michael Hayden, referring to the former Libyan foreign minister who has defected. (AFP)