Obama, Cameron vow to keep pressure on Gaddafi

Reuters/London/Tripoli

A Libyan carrying a child looks at a building damaged during clashes between rebels and forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli Street, Misrata, yesterday

US President Barack Obama warned Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi yesterday there would be “no let-up” in pressure on him to go, following a second successive night of heavy Nato bombing in Tripoli. Six loud explosions rocked Tripoli late on Tuesday within 10 minutes, following powerful strikes 24 hours earlier, including one on Gaddafi’s compound that Libyan officials said killed 19 people. Obama told a London news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron he could not predict when Gaddafi, who is fighting a three-month-old insurgency, might be forced to go. “I absolutely agree that given the progress that has been made over the last several weeks that Gaddafi and his regime need to understand that there will not be a let-up in the pressure that we are applying.” “We have built enough momentum that as long as we sustain the course that we are on that he is ultimately going to step down,” he said. “Ultimately this is going to be a slow, steady process in which we are able to wear down the regime.” Fighting between Gaddafi’s forces and rebels has reached a stalemate, despite two months of Nato aerial support under a UN mandate intended to protect civilians. Gaddafi denies his troops target civilians and says rebels are criminals, religious extremists and members of Al Qaeda. Strikes drove back Gaddafi forces shortly after he pledged “no pity, no mercy” to rebels in their stronghold of Benghazi. Rebels have since proved unable to achieve any breakthrough against better-trained and equipped government troops. Cameron echoed Obama’s calls for the departure of Gaddafi, who denies targeting civilians and portrays the disparate rebel groups as religious extremists, mercenaries and criminals serving Western schemes to seize Libya’s oil. “I believe we should be turning up that pressure and on Britain’s part we will be looking at all the options of turning up that pressure,” he said. Such pressure will not include Nato troops, Obama said. “We cannot put boots in the ground in Libya,” he said. “There are going to be some inherent limitations to our air strikes in Libya.” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday the Nato bombing should achieve its objectives within months. France said this week it would deploy attack helicopters to ensure more precise attacks against Gaddafi forces embedded among the civilian population of Libyan cities. Britain said on Tuesday it was considering doing the same. In the second day of heavy Nato bombing of Tripoli, the alliance hit a vehicle storage bunker, a missile storage and maintenance site and a command- and-control site on the outskirts of Tripoli, a Nato official said. Government targets around the Western rebel outpost of Misrata had also been hit. Libyan news agency Jana says Nato hit a telecommunications station in Zlitan overnight, causing “material and human casualties losses” west of Misrata.