European Forum

Pro-Gaddafi forces launch counter attack

Libyan government forces are advancing towards the oil port of Ras Lanuf, checking the rebels' westward progress. The town of Bin Jawad, 50km (30 miles) from Ras Lanuf, has now fallen to forces loyal to Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi. Pro-Gaddafi forces launched an air strike on Ras Lanuf on the 7th of March, news agencies reported.

UN
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Jordan's former foreign minister, Abdelilah Al-Khatib, as his special envoy. A statement from Mr Ban's office said he noted "that civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence, and calls for an immediate halt to the government's disproportionate use of force and indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets".
Almost 200,000 people have now fled the violence in Libya, the UN also says.
The UN is launching an appeal for 2m (£99m) to help 600,000 people within Libya who are expected to need humanitarian aid, in addition to a projected total of 400,000 leaving the country in the short term. Mr Ban also said Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Kusa had agreed to accept the immediate dispatch of a humanitarian assessment team to the capital.
Residents are supposed to have called for the international community to establish a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Col Gaddafi's air force from attacking.

Gaddafi calls for international investigation
Meanwhile, Gaddafi has called for an international investigation into the unrest rocking his country, as forces loyal to him fight hard to hold on to their territory.
In an interview released on Sunday with the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Gaddafi said he wants the United Nations or the African Union to investigate the violence.
He would be in favour of France “co-ordinating and leading” the investigation.
He also used the interview to lash out at Western nations for turning their backs on him, saying that he is embroiled in a fight against terrorism. "I am surprised that nobody understands that this is a fight against terrorism. We have helped you a lot these past few years. So why is it that when we are in a fight against terrorism here in Libya no one helps us in return?" Col Gaddafi also warned that Libya plays a vital role in restraining illegal immigration to Europe from sub-Saharan Africa. "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 in an interview with the France 24 television channel.

NATO
Events in Libya were "absolutely outrageous", NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told BBC. "These systematic attacks against the civilian population may, as stated by the UN Security Council, amount to a crime against humanity," he said.
However, he said NATO had no plans to intervene, and any operational role would be pursuant to a UN mandate. However the US and NATO navel base at Souda Bay in Crete has been placed in a state of alert as two US naval ships arrived on the 5th of March. On board are 4000 militaries. 

EU fact finding
An EU fact-finding mission has landed in Tripoli on the 7th of March and met with Libyan and EU diplomats to discuss the safety of European citizens who are still in Libya. Agostino Miozzo, right-hand-man on crisis management of EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton's, reported from Tripoli on the 7th of March: "The situation is relatively calm. He estimated that 200 EU citizens still want to get out while another 1,100-or-so aim to stay. The EU team landed the same day that Gaddafi's son, Seif Al-Islam, repeated claims that foreign media are distorting the situation in the country and that the EU will face an Islamist menace if his father falls.”

Sources: BBC; ; Photo: Flickr, giladlotan