The United Nations will debate imposing sanctions on Libya today after Muammar Qaddafi told loyalists he’s prepared to arm them to fight opposition forces holding the eastern part of the country.
“When needed, all the weapons stores will be opened,” Qaddafi told a crowd in Tripoli’s Green Square. In New York, Libya’s ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Shalgham, pleaded for the Security Council to act and “save Libya.”
With French President Nicolas Sarkozy saying it’s time for Qaddafi to go, the U.S. and its allies are working out how to oust an Arab leader eight years after the invasion of Iraq sparked a wave of anti-Western sentiment. Britain and France yesterday circulated a draft resolution that would impose an arms embargo on Libya and would refer reported violence to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Security Council has scheduled a meeting for 11 a.m. in New York for further talks on the text.
“There isn’t a clear end-game here,” Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, said in a telephone interview. “There isn’t a rebel army marching on Tripoli attempting to take it over from Qaddafi.”
Qaddafi is digging himself into the Libyan capital after army units defected in the east of the country and Al Arabiya television reported yesterday that his forces shot at worshippers leaving Friday prayers. Libya’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told reporters that security forces killed hundreds of protestors yesterday and “thousands” more fatalities were expected.
Oil Prices
The prospect of civil war in North Africa’s biggest oil producer has pushed crude prices to a 2 1/2-year high, and led to calls for action to stop the worst violence seen in the two months of unrest across the Middle East and North Africa.
Hundreds of Egyptian migrants crossed the border into Tunisia yesterday, joining thousands of others who had been stranded there for three days, Human Rights Watch said in an e- mailed statement today.
“West of Tripoli in Zawiyah city, government security forces firing on demonstrators are causing bloodshed and chaos,” the statement cited Sarah Leah Whitson, regional director for the rights group, as saying. “Pro-Gaddafi thugs have terrorized Egyptian migrant workers, causing hundreds to flee to Tunisia.”
Regional Unrest
Across the Arab world yesterday, protesters streamed into squares after Friday prayers to demand more rights, two weeks after the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Demonstrations took place in Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia, the country that last month sparked the unrest sweeping the region when President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted.
President Barack Obama signed an order freezing any U.S. assets of Muammar Qaddafi, his family and members of his regime in Libya, as the first of what the administration says will be a series of sanctions.
The order says that Qaddafi “and close associates have taken extreme measures against the people of Libya, including by using weapons of war, mercenaries, and wanton violence against unarmed civilians.”
Ahead of the UN meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron spoke by phone and agreed that the Security Council must quickly pass “tight sanctions” against the Libyan regime.
“The inhuman policy of Colonel Qaddafi must come to an end,” German government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said in an e-mailed statement today detailing the conversation.
“France’s position is clear, Mr. Qaddafi must go,” Sarkozy said at a news conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara yesterday. Sarkozy, the first leader of a major power to call openly for Qaddafi’s resignation, said intervention wasn’t a good option.
--With assistance from Mariam Fam and Ola Galal in Cairo, Indira Lakshmanan in Washington, Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul and Patrick Donahue in Berlin. Editors: Digby Lidstone, Leon Mangasarian.
“When needed, all the weapons stores will be opened,” Qaddafi told a crowd in Tripoli’s Green Square. In New York, Libya’s ambassador to the UN, Mohammed Shalgham, pleaded for the Security Council to act and “save Libya.”
With French President Nicolas Sarkozy saying it’s time for Qaddafi to go, the U.S. and its allies are working out how to oust an Arab leader eight years after the invasion of Iraq sparked a wave of anti-Western sentiment. Britain and France yesterday circulated a draft resolution that would impose an arms embargo on Libya and would refer reported violence to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Security Council has scheduled a meeting for 11 a.m. in New York for further talks on the text.
“There isn’t a clear end-game here,” Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar, said in a telephone interview. “There isn’t a rebel army marching on Tripoli attempting to take it over from Qaddafi.”
Qaddafi is digging himself into the Libyan capital after army units defected in the east of the country and Al Arabiya television reported yesterday that his forces shot at worshippers leaving Friday prayers. Libya’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told reporters that security forces killed hundreds of protestors yesterday and “thousands” more fatalities were expected.
Oil Prices
The prospect of civil war in North Africa’s biggest oil producer has pushed crude prices to a 2 1/2-year high, and led to calls for action to stop the worst violence seen in the two months of unrest across the Middle East and North Africa.
Hundreds of Egyptian migrants crossed the border into Tunisia yesterday, joining thousands of others who had been stranded there for three days, Human Rights Watch said in an e- mailed statement today.
“West of Tripoli in Zawiyah city, government security forces firing on demonstrators are causing bloodshed and chaos,” the statement cited Sarah Leah Whitson, regional director for the rights group, as saying. “Pro-Gaddafi thugs have terrorized Egyptian migrant workers, causing hundreds to flee to Tunisia.”
Regional Unrest
Across the Arab world yesterday, protesters streamed into squares after Friday prayers to demand more rights, two weeks after the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Demonstrations took place in Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia, the country that last month sparked the unrest sweeping the region when President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted.
President Barack Obama signed an order freezing any U.S. assets of Muammar Qaddafi, his family and members of his regime in Libya, as the first of what the administration says will be a series of sanctions.
The order says that Qaddafi “and close associates have taken extreme measures against the people of Libya, including by using weapons of war, mercenaries, and wanton violence against unarmed civilians.”
Ahead of the UN meeting, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron spoke by phone and agreed that the Security Council must quickly pass “tight sanctions” against the Libyan regime.
“The inhuman policy of Colonel Qaddafi must come to an end,” German government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said in an e-mailed statement today detailing the conversation.
“France’s position is clear, Mr. Qaddafi must go,” Sarkozy said at a news conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul in Ankara yesterday. Sarkozy, the first leader of a major power to call openly for Qaddafi’s resignation, said intervention wasn’t a good option.
--With assistance from Mariam Fam and Ola Galal in Cairo, Indira Lakshmanan in Washington, Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul and Patrick Donahue in Berlin. Editors: Digby Lidstone, Leon Mangasarian.
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