Muammar Gaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya’s east at dawn on Wednesday, sparking a rebel call for foreign airstrikes on African mercenaries they said were helping him stay in power.
The veteran ruler twinned the attack with a fiery propaganda broadside against the rebels, playing on both nationalist opinion and Western jitters by saying much blood would be shed in “another Vietnam” if foreign powers intervened in the crisis.
“We will enter a bloody war and thousands and thousands of Libyans will die if the United States enters or Nato enters,” Gaddafi told Tripoli supporters at a gathering televised live. “We are ready to hand out weapons to a million, or two million or three million, and another Vietnam will begin. It doesn’t matter to us. We no longer care about anything.”
On the battlefield, government troops briefly captured Brega, an oil export terminal, before being driven back by rebels who have held the town 800 km east of Tripoli for about a week, rebel officers said, adding they were ready to move westwards against Gaddafi’s forces if he refused to quit.
Further bombing raids near the oil terminals were carried out in the afternoon. Estimates of the death toll during the day ranged between five and 14. There has been talk among the international community of the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, but on Wednesday US defence secretary Robert Gates said such a move would first require an attack to cripple Libyan air defences. “One of our biggest concerns is Libya descending into chaos and becoming a giant Somalia,” US secretary of state Hillary Clinton told US legislators. Gaddafi, who once said ballot box democracy was for donkeys, told the gathering in Tripoli the world did not understand he had given power to the people long ago.
“We put our fingers in the eyes of those who doubt that Libya is ruled by anyone other than its people,” he said, referring to his system of “direct democracy” launched at a meeting attended by visiting Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1977.
Referring to an unprecedented two-week-old popular uprising against his rule, Gaddafi also called for the UN and Nato to probe what had happened in Libya, and said he saw a conspiracy to colonise Libya and seize its oil.
A Tripoli resident and Gaddafi opponent, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters afterwards: “Gaddafi will hang on for a while. It’s not going to be easy for an unarmed crowd to face highly armed forces eager to shoot their own people.” The assault on Brega appeared to be the most significant military operation by Gaddafi since the uprising erupted in mid-February and set off a confrontation that Washington says could descend into a long civil war unless Gaddafi steps down.
Witnesses said the attack was backed by heavy weapons and air strikes. One of the witnesses said Gaddafi’s forces were two to three km from the city centre and had 300-350 rebels pinned down at an oil industry airport on the city outskirts.
Hisham Mohammed, a 33-year-old mechanic on the side of the rebels, was defiant. “I’m going to Brega to help our brothers there. I’m washed, I’ve prayed, and I’m ready to go to God,” he told Reuters.
In the opposition bastion of Benghazi, a rebel National Libyan Council called for UN-backed airstrikes on African mercenaries it said Gaddafi was using. “We call for specific attacks on strongholds of these mercenaries,” said council spokesman Hafiz Ghoga. “The presence of any foreign forces on Libyan soil is strongly opposed. There is a big difference between this and strategic airstrikes.”
Any sort of foreign military involvement in Arab countries is a sensitive topic for Western nations uncomfortably aware that Iraq suffered years of bloodletting and Al Qaeda violence after a 2003 US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.
In a possible response to Western hints that the opposition needs to unify to facilitate rebel links with outside powers, Ghoga added that a former justice minister, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, would be chairman of the Council which will have 30 members and be based in Benghazi before moving later to Tripoli.
In the Netherlands, the International Criminal Court prosecutor said he would begin an investigation into the violence. Across Libya, tribal leaders, officials, military officers and Army units have defected to the rebel cause and say they are becoming more organised. However, Tripoli remains a stronghold for Gaddafi. Washington says it will keep pressure on Gaddafi to quit, and is moving ships and planes closer to Libya in what is widely seen as a symbolic show of force. On Wednesday two US amphibious assault ships, the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce, passed through Egypt’s Suez Canal, arriving in the Mediterranean. —Reuters