Libyan rebels promised aid

forces and send military liaison officers to help them as fighting raged in the besieged city of Misrata.
Rebels said they fought pro-government troops for control of a main thoroughfare in the port city that is the insurgents’ last stronghold in the west of the country. Eight people had been killed the previous day, mostly civilians.
In Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the Elysee presidential office said in a statement.
He did not say how NATO-led forces planned to break a stalemate on the ground after the United States and some European allies declined last week to join ground strikes.
US Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with the Financial Times that American strike aircraft were not needed to achieve the alliance’s mission in Libya.
“If the Lord Almighty extricated the US out of NATO and dropped it on the planet of Mars so we were no longer participating, it is bizarre to suggest that NATO and the rest of the world lacks the capacity to deal with Libya – it does not,” he was quoted as saying.
“Occasionally other countries lack the will, but this is not about capacity,” Biden said.
Abdel Jalil told reporters he had invited Sarkozy to pay a visit to the rebel-held eastern city of Benghazi to demonstrate France’s support for ending Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.
Abdel Jalil also said the opposition, little known to the world until an uprising against Gaddafi began in mid-February, was committed to building a democracy in Libya where the head of state would come to power “by the ballot box, not atop a tank”.
Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in Misrata, where aid groups say the humanitarian situation is worsening with a lack of food and medical supplies. The rebels say forces loyal to Gaddafi have been bombarding the city heavily over the last week, although the situation appeared calmer yesterday morning.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said the Libyan government’s reported use of cluster munitions and heavy weapons in Misrata may amount to a war crime under international law.
The government denies it is attacking civilians in Misrata.
Libyan state television said yesterday that NATO warplanes had hit telecommunication and broadcasting infrastructure in several cities. It did not say when the attacks took place of what damage was caused.
Western officials say NATO is attacking only military targets consistent with the alliance’s UN mandate to impose a no-fly zone and protect civilians from Gaddafi’s forces.
France’s decision to send up to 10 military advisers to work with the rebels came a day after Britain, the other main leader of the coalition, announced a similar move.
Asked whether the dispatch of liaison officers amounted to mission creep, French military analyst Jean-Dominique Merchet said it was only a small team and they would not be training fighters but advising their senior officers.
“It’s about putting a bit of organisation into the rebel forces. It’s the French and the British doing this, it’s clear that NATO is not very keen, nor the Americans,” Merchet said.
Italy, which had close ties to Gaddafi before the uprising, said Western forces may need to step up intervention. – Reuters.