Stop your barbaric offensive: Gaddafi

TRIPOLI – Colonel Muammar Gaddafi urged world powers meeting in London yesterday to end their ‘barbaric’ offensive against his oil-rich country, as rebels in the east set their sights on the key city of Sirte.

The Libyan strongman likened the Nato-led air strikes targeting his artillery and ground forces to military campaigns launched by Adolf Hitler during World War II.’Stop your barbaric, unjust offensive on Libya,’ Gaddafi said in the letter published by the state news agency Jana.’Leave Libya for the Libyans. You are committing genocide against a peaceful people and a developing nation,’ he said in the letter addressed to the London meeting of more than 35 countries to map out a post-Gaddafi future for the north African country.’It seems that you in Europe and America don’t realise the hellish, barbaric (military) offensive which compares… to Hitler’s campaigns when he invaded Europe and bombed Britain,’ Gaddafi said.The air offensive was launched on March 19 by Britain, France and the United States to enforce a UN no-fly zone over Libya and to protect civilians under attack by Gaddafi’s forces.Britain, France, Germany and the United States have agreed that the London talks, due to start at 14h00, should aid ‘the political transition in Libya,’ said a French presidency statement.British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said ahead of the meeting that the current regime had lost all legitimacy.’Gaddafi must therefore go immediately. We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late,’ a joint statement said.On the eve of the London gathering, US President Barack Obama urged the international community to support ‘a transition to the future that the Libyan people deserve.’Obama staunchly defended his decision to rain missiles on the Libyan leader’s troops in a UN-mandated bid to protect civilians.’As president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action,’ Obama said, arguing that America had a ‘responsibility’ to intervene to prevent civilian massacres.But he cautioned the military campaign was not aimed at ousting the veteran Libyan leader by force and forcing regime change.On the ground, rebels who launched their uprising against Gaddafi’s four-decade rule in mid-February, were regrouping yesterday after being pummeled by loyalist forces at the village of Harawa, 60 kilometres from Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace.Life, meanwhile, returned to something like normal in the rebel’s eastern stronghold of Benghazi after a fierce onslaught last week, but the insurgents say it will not become the capital of a rebel state – their aim is to take Tripoli and rule over a unified, post-Gaddafi Libya. – AFP

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