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By Cheng Gang, Gu Di in Tripoli and Huang Jingjing in Beijing The US has rebuffed a personal appeal for a ceasefire made directly from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to US President Barack Obama, restating that the colonel must resign and go into exile. Referring to Obama as "our son," the Libyan leader urged the US to end an "unjust war against a small people of a developing country," and dismissed the rebels as Al Qaeda militants. In response, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters Wednesday that Gaddafi must leave. The US and Italy are both considering training and arming Libyan opposition forces to try and quicken Gaddafi's departure, according to an official involved in closed-door talks between Clinton and Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Washington on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. The rebels in Benghazi, where the opposition Transitional National Council (TNC) is based, said Thursday that they had received arms from "allies" but would not give the weapons' origins. Anthony Tucker-Jones, a defense analyst, said that Libya's rebels need training, not guns. "Such a move (arming the rebels) would never get approval within the UN Security Council. It is thought unlikely that new weaponry would help the opposition overcome Gaddafi's loyalists completely," Tucker-Jones said in a commentary on defencemanagement.com. "Well-armed, ill-disciplined militias are always a concern, especially when they come into contact with vulnerable civilian populations," he added. To seek a political solution, the international contact group on Libya, which includes the US, Canada, the EU, Gulf states, the Arab League and the African Union, will meet Wednesday in the Qatari capital Doha, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Thursday. Juppe said France wants leaders from the TNC to attend a European Union foreign ministers' meeting next week ahead of the contact group's summit, according to AFP. Separately, Libyan rebels said Thursday that an air strike by NATO had mistakenly hit their fighters on the front lines and caused a retreat from the outskirts of the key oil town of Brega, killing at least five, and wounding 10, AFP reported, quoting witnesses and medics. "It was the planes of NATO. They fired twice at our tank and blew up the position," a 41-year-old rebel fighter, Ali Sahli, told AFP. Several militiamen fleeing back toward rebel-held Ajdabiya in eastern Libya said they saw several of their tanks destroyed by apparent NATO bombing runs, reports say. |
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