NATO considering military options in Libya: Obama

UK, France drafting UN resolution on no-fly zone

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday that NATO was considering military options in
response to the situation in Libya as Britain and France are drafting a UN resolution on a no fly zone over the North African country. Obama, speaking after talks with visiting Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said the two countries agreed that violence by the Libyan government against its people was unacceptable.

Meanwhile, Britain and France are drafting a UN resolution on a no fly zone over Libya which could be put to the Security Council this week, a diplomat said.

“You should expect something on Libya this week,” the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Saturday that his country is working with Britain on a no-fly zone resolution. Britain has spoken out strongly for an exclusion zone to stop raids by Muammar Gaddafi’s warplanes on opposition rebels.

“The French and the British are working on a text. It will be put to the 15 members of the UN Security Council quite quickly. There is a feeling of urgency now,” the UN diplomat said.

“You cannot leave the population to be massacred and do nothing,” the envoy added.

Crimes against humanity

Earlier, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said attacks against civilians in Libya may amount to “crimes against humanity”, making it difficult for the world to stand “idly by.”

“These widespread and systematic attacks against the civilian population may amount to crimes against humanity,” Rasmussen told a news conference at NATO headquarters.

He said the “outrageous” response of Gaddafi’s regime to protests had created “a human crisis on our doorstep which concerns us all” and reiterated his strongest condemnation.

While he said events on the ground were fast-moving, Rasmussen added that: “I can’t imagine the international community and the UN standing idly by if Colonel Gaddafi and his regime continue to attack his own people systematically.”

Separately, Gaddafi accused France of interference in the country’s internal affairs and blamed al-Qaeda for the revolt against his regime, in an interview aired Monday by France24 television.

When asked about France’s backing for the national council — the embryonic provisional government formed by rebels in the second city of Benghazi — Gaddafi said: “It makes one laugh, this interference in internal affairs.”

“And what if we interfered in the affairs of Corsica or Sardinia?” he said, speaking in Arabic.

He claimed there was a “plot” in Libya, evoking the presence of “armed extremists,” and al-Qaeda “sleeper cells.”

“Libya plays a vital role in regional peace and world peace,” he added. “We are an important partner in fighting al-Qaeda.”

“There are millions of blacks who could come to the Mediterranean to cross to France and Italy, and Libya plays a role in security in the Mediterranean,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.

Gaddafi has denied his security forces shot innocent people, and in the interview on Monday repeated his assertion that the violence was orchestrated by al-Qaeda.

“The African Union has sent a commission of enquiry to show that what is published about Libya abroad is 100 percent lies,” Gaddafi said in the interview.

“The world has an image which is not based on anything and which is unreasonable,” he said. “A distorted image has been formed of peaceful demonstrations.”

An official at the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, said a fact-finding mission was being planned but had yet to set off for Tripoli.

France on Sunday hailed the creation of the national council by the leaders of the armed revolt against Gaddafi, and said it supported its objectives, in a foreign ministry statement.

The council met on Saturday in the rebel-held city of Benghazi in eastern Libya, declaring itself the sole representative body for all of Libya, despite Gaddafi’s continued control of the capital and much of the West.

“Those who are bearing arms in Benghazi are al-Qaeda and they have no economic or political claims. They are what you call AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb)”, he added, referring to al-Qaeda’s North African offshoot.

He said the national council in Benghazi “is sailing on a wave of Islamism. If ever the terrorists win… They don’t believe in democracy.”