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Britain, France push NATO allies on Libya

AFP

Britain and France have pressed NATO allies to step up air raids in Libya by deploying more combat jets to protect civilians, as rebels claimed Muammar Gaddafi's regime killed 10,000 people.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, complaining that NATO was not doing enough, said it was unacceptable for the rebel-held city of Misrata "to continue to come under fire from bombs" launched by Gaddafi loyalists.

"I hope other countries will come to relieve us," said Juppe, whose country had been reluctant to hand command of the campaign to NATO, after a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg.

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After talks with the EU ministers, Ali Al Isawi, a representative of Libya's rebel National Transition Council, said that Gaddafi forces have killed 10,000 people, while 20,000 were missing and 30,000 wounded.

"We want more efforts regarding protection of civilians against this aggression," he said after the first meeting between the opposition group and the 27-nation bloc.

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet complained that Paris and London, the nations that launched the first salvos against Gaddafi's regime on March 19, have been left to bear "the bulk of the effort".

He noted that the United States was now only providing logistical support to the operation after withdrawing its combat jets last week.

"Today we have no support in the ground attack role, without which there's no chance of breaking the siege of towns like Misrata or Zenten," he told the French parliament.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, taking a less forceful tone, noted that London had supplied additional ground-attack aircraft and said he would "welcome if other countries also do the same".

"We must maintain and intensify our efforts in NATO," Hague said.

In the US, the Pentagon said it had no plans to alter its role in the air campaign in Libya, with NATO allies taking the lead in air strikes.

"We're not reassessing whether or not we should stick with the strategy," press secretary Geoff Morrell told AFP.

The US military's ground-attack aircraft remained on standby pending a request from the allied commander of the air operation.

After earlier criticism from Libyan rebels over the pace of strikes, a NATO general said the alliance was doing a "great job" with the assets available to the Western military organisation.

NATO has led air strikes against Gaddafi's forces for almost two weeks since taking over from a US-led coalition that began bombing the regime's heavy weaponry on March 19.

"NATO absolutely wanted to lead this operation at the military level, well, now I trust Mr. Rasmussen to gather the necessary assets," Juppe said, referring to NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Juppe said he would raise his concerns at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin on Thursday and Friday.

Spanish junior minister for European affairs, Diego Lopez Garrido, however, said more contributions were "not necessary."

Italy said it was considering taking a direct role in strikes, but that its principal concern was the safety of civilians on the ground.

EU foreign ministers also discussed whether to throw EU military resources behind humanitarian aid delivery to Misrata.

Although NATO has 28 members, not all of them have the capability or desire to take part in the strikes, especially Turkey and Germany, which were opposed to any military intervention from the start.

AU urges Libya rebels to cooperate, France slams NATO

The African Union urged Libyan rebels on Tuesday to "fully cooperate" as it fought to salvage its tottering ceasefire plan and France accused its NATO allies of not pulling their weight.

The AU reacted swiftly to the rebels' rejection of a truce plan presented by the continental body on Monday.

"Due to a political demand set as a pre-condition by the Transitional National Council (TNC) to launching urgent talks on the implementation of a truce, it was not possible at this stage to reach an agreement on the key issue of a cessation of hostilities," said an AU statement on the visit to Libya by a high-ranking African delegation.

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The delegation "makes an urgent call on the TNC to fully cooperate, for the sake of Libya's higher interests, and assist in the quest for and implementation of a fair and lasting political solution", the statement said.

Libya's strongman Moamer Kadhafi accepted the AU's plan but the rebels' leadership in the city of Benghazi argued the initiative was obsolete and insisted Kadhafi should be ousted.

Former foreign minister Mussa Kussa, who is in Britain after defecting from the regime, said Monday the restive nation could become a "new Somalia" if civil war broke out.

"I ask everyone, all the parties, to avoid taking Libya into a civil war," the former minister said in a statement issued to the BBC. "This would lead to so much blood and Libya will be a new Somalia.

"We refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any resolution and settlement for Libya," he added. "The solution in Libya will come from the Libyans themselves through democratic dialogue."

France's NATO allies are not pulling their weight in Libya and their forces should do more to help destroy Kadhafi's heavy weaponry, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Tuesday.

"NATO must fully play its role, and it is not doing so sufficiently," the minister told France Info radio, adding that France would bring the matter up with EU ministers on Tuesday and with NATO in Berlin on Thursday.

France which, with Britain and the United States, led the drive for air strikes, was sceptical about handing political control of the operation to the NATO Western alliance.

Now, Juppe said, it feels that the full coalition is not taking a robust enough attitude in pushing forward with the bombardment of Libyan government forces besieging rebel-held cities.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also stuck to US demands for Kadhafi to step down and leave Libya as part of a peaceful transition, but declined to comment on the proposed African Union deal before being fully briefed.

She told a news conference in Washington however that "there needs to be a transition that reflects the will of the Libyan people and the departure of Kadhafi from power and from Libya".

Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam admitted that it was time for "new blood" in Libya, but called talk of his father stepping down "ridiculous".

"The Libyan Guide (Kadhafi) does not want to control everything. He is at an advanced age. We would like to bring a new elite of young people onto the scene to lead the country and direct local affairs," he told France's BFM TV.

"We need new blood -- that is what we want for the future -- but talk of the Guide leaving is truly ridiculous," he added.

In Benghazi, rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil said the African initiative did not go far enough.

"From the first day the demand of our people has been the ouster of Kadhafi and the fall of his regime," he said.

"Kadhafi and his sons must leave immediately if they want to be safe... Any initiative that does not include the people's demand, the popular demand, essential demand, we cannot possibly recognise."

NATO, meanwhile, said it struck more loyalist targets around Ajdabiya and the besieged port of Misrata on Sunday and Monday, destroying 11 Kadhafi regime tanks and five military vehicles.

The regime warned that any foreign intervention under the pretext of bringing aid into Misrata would be met by "staunch armed resistance," the official JANA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying.

Diplomats in Brussels said on Friday that the EU was gearing up to deploy military assets for a humanitarian mission to evacuate wounded from Misrata and deliver food, water and medicine to the city.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that warplanes will keep pounding Libyan forces as long as civilians are at risk.

"I would also like to stress that the guiding principle for us will be how to implement the UN Security Council resolution fully, that is to protect the civilians against any attack," he said.

Shamsiddin Abdulmolah, a spokesman for the TNC, welcomed the African Union efforts but demanded Kadhafi's overthrow.

"The people must be allowed to go into the streets to express their opinion and the soldiers must return to their barracks," he told AFP.

"If people are free to come out and demonstrate in Tripoli, then that's it. I imagine all of Libya will be liberated within moments."

He also demanded the release of hundreds of people missing since the outbreak of the popular uprising and believed to be held by Kadhafi's forces.

South African President Jacob Zuma said earlier that Tripoli had accepted the African Union plan for a ceasefire.

"We also in this communique are making a call on NATO to cease the bombings to allow and to give a ceasefire a chance," he said.

The rebels, however, doubted Kadhafi would adhere to a truce.

"The world has seen these offers of ceasefires before and within 15 minutes (Kadhafi) starts shooting again," Abdulmolah said.

France bans Muslim full-face veil

AFP

Police in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim population, have arrested two protesters wearing niqab veils after a ban on full-face coverings went into effect.

The women, part of a demonstration that erupted in front of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, were detained for taking part in an unauthorised protest rather than for wearing their veils.

But, in theory at least, French officials can now slap fines on Muslim women who refuse orders to expose their faces when in public.

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"Today was not about arresting people because of wearing the veil. It was for not having respected the requirement to declare a demonstration," said police spokesman Alexis Marsan.

Two women in niqabs, a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf that did not cover her face and a protest organiser were arrested, Marsan said.

Separately, businessman and activist Rachid Nekkaz told AFP he and a female friend wearing the niqab were arrested by police in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy's Elysee Palace.

"We wanted to be fined for wearing the niqab, but the police didn't want to issue a fine," said Nekkaz, who has promised to auction off a two-million-euro ($A2.74 million) property to start a fund to pay off fines for veil-wearers.

One of those arrested in front of Notre Dame was 32-year-old Kenza Drider from the southern city of Avignon, who was due to appear on television and has become a symbol of France's tiny community of niqab wearers.

"This law infringes my European rights; I cannot but defend them. That is to say, my freedom to come and go and my religious freedom," Drider told reporters as she boarded a train for Paris before the protest.

Many French police fear the law will be impossible to enforce, since they have not been empowered to use force to remove head coverings, and could face resistance in already tense immigrant districts.

"The law will be infinitely difficult to enforce, and will be infinitely rarely enforced," said ManuelRoux, deputy head of a union representing local police chiefs, in an interview with France Inter radio.

"It's not for the police to demonstrate zeal," he said, predicting that when patrol officers meet veiled women they will simply try to explain the law to them and to persuade them to remove their face covering.

"If they refuse, that's when things get really complicated. We have no power to force them," he said.

"I can't begin to imagine we're going to pay any attention to a veiled woman in a sensitive area, where men are proud."

But Interior Minister Claude Gueant insisted the ban would be enforced, in the name of "secularism and equality between men and women ... two principles upon which we cannot compromise".

"The police and the gendarmerie are there to apply the law and they will apply the law."

The law came into effect at an already fraught moment in relations between the state and France's Muslim minority, with Sarkozy accused of stigmatising Islam to win back votes from a resurgent far right.

French officials estimate only about 2000 women, from a total Muslim population estimated at between four and six million, wear the full-face veils that are traditional in parts of Arabia and South Asia.

Many Muslims and rights activists say the rightwing president is targeting one of France's most vulnerable groups to signal to anti-immigration voters that he shares their fear that Islam is a threat to French culture.

But support for the ban bridges the left-right divide.

Although the bulk of opposition lawmakers abstained from the vote on the law, 20 supported it and some feminists traditionally associated with the left support a ban on a garment they feel demeans women.

Anyone refusing to lift his or her veil to submit to an identity check can be taken to a police station.

There, officers must try to persuade them to remove the garment, and can threaten fines.

A woman who repeatedly insists on appearing veiled in public can be fined 150 ($A205.50) and ordered to attend re-education classes.

There are much more severe penalties for anyone found guilty of forcing someone else to hide his or her face "through threats, violence, constraint, abuse of authority or power for reason of their gender".

Clearly aimed at fathers, husbands or religious leaders who force women to wear face-veils, and applicable to offences committed in public or in private, the law imposes a fine of 30,000 ($A41,096) and a year in jail.