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1 April 2011

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TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

Battles rage in Libya amid defections of key Gadhafi allies (CNN)

(Libya) As Moammar Gadhafi's inner circle showed possible signs of cracking Friday,
heavily armed forces loyal to the Libyan leader continued pounding cities that were
once some of the country's most prosperous places.

Libya Rebels Seek Cease-Fire After U.S. Vows to Withdraw Jets (Bloomberg)
(Libya) Libya’s opposition called for a cease-fire after the U.S. said it’s withdrawing
aircraft used to attack Muammar Qaddafi’s forces following adverse weather that
prevented strikes allowing Libyan loyalists to push back rebels.

Robert Gates again rules out U.S. ground forces for Libya (LA Times)
(Libya) Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates reiterated Thursday that the U.S. would not
put ground forces in Libya, but conceded that allies involved in the operation might
provide arms and send in trainers to aid the rebels, who have lost ground to Col.
Moammar Kadafi's forces in recent days.

In Libya’s rebel base, a mix of hope and fear (Washington Post)

(Libya) On one Saturday, residents saw a burning airplane fall over their city as tanks
shelled their homes. Eight days later they were kept up all night by celebratory gunfire
and rocket blasts as rumors circulated, falsely, that Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s home
town had fallen to the rebel army.

Opposition Hopes to Gain Information from Libyan Defector (VOA)

(Libya) A member of the rebels fighting forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi says members of the Transitional Council have begun efforts to gain “strategic”
information from defecting Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa in their objective to force
the embattled leader from power.

In Libya, Regime Change Should Be the Goal (Washington Post Op-Ed)

(Libya) President Obama made a compelling case for our intervention in Libya on
Monday evening, and U.S. actions there deserve bipartisan support in Congress. As the
president rightly noted, failure to intervene militarily would have resulted in a
humanitarian and strategic disaster. Because of our actions, the Gadhafi regime has
been prevented from brutally crushing its opposition.

NATO Rules Out Arming Rebels (Wall Street Journal)

(Libya) Officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which early Thursday
assumed control of allied operations to enforce the United Nations mandate in Libya,
said they aren't considering arming Libyan rebels.

The battle for Libya: The colonel is not beaten yet (The Economist)
(Libya) AFTER rebel forces retook Ajdabiya and the oil-refining towns of Ras Lanuf and
Brega, it seemed that Muammar Qaddafi’s troops might crumble fast in the face of
Western air attacks. But that hope was fleeting. At a hastily assembled conference in
London on March 29th, attended by nearly 40 delegations representing the international
coalition that is enforcing UN Security Resolution 1973, the turn of events on the
ground saw Libyan government forces dramatically regain the initiative. And that
prompted a more sober assessment of the rebels’ progress.

Can the US really take a supporting role in Libya operation? (Christian Science
Monitor)
(Libya) The United States may have officially transferred command of the international
Libya operation to NATO on Thursday. But it is unclear if that means the US has indeed
retreated to the limited “supporting role” that President Obama says it has.

Liberia Uneasily Linked to Ivory Coast Conflict (NYT)

(Ivory Coast) Standing by a burned-out house on a road speckled with spent
ammunition casings, Brig. Gen. Gueu Michel, the commander of rebel forces in western
Ivory Coast, outlined his plan to stem an influx of Liberian mercenaries he said were
fighting for Ivory Coast’s embattled strongman, Laurent Gbagbo.

Ivory Coast: 'Heavy fighting' near Gbagbo residence (BBC)

(Ivory Coast) There has been heavy fighting in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan,
between forces loyal to the UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, and
supporters of incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

US Names New Sudan Envoy Amid Concern Over Abyei (VOA)

(Sudan) The Obama administration on Thursday named veteran diplomat Princeton
Lyman as its new special envoy for Sudan. The announcement came amid growing
U.S. concern about tensions in Sudan’s central Abyei region that threaten the country’s
north-south peace process.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 UN mission deploys troops to Ivorian church to protect civilians seeking refuge
  UN envoy on sexual violence welcomes African commitment to eradicating the
vice
 UN-backed meeting concludes with call for stronger measures to protect gorillas
 New energy-efficient UN offices in Kenya serve as model for future – Ban
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, April 7, 2011; 9:30am; Dirksen Senate Office Building

Room SD-106
WHAT: Armed Services: Testimony on AFRICOM
WHO:  Full Committee; General Carter F. Ham to testify
Info: http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=5073
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Battles rage in Libya amid defections of key Gadhafi allies (CNN)

(Libya) As Moammar Gadhafi's inner circle showed possible signs of cracking Friday,
heavily armed forces loyal to the Libyan leader continued pounding cities that were
once some of the country's most prosperous places.

Officials and analysts said the surge in firepower from the Libyan government sends a
message: Gadhafi is determined to prevail, and defections of some of his high-profile
allies are making him nervous.

"You're certainly getting evidence that there are a lot of tensions. ... Each person that
leaves, that makes it a little scarier for the people that are still remaining. And you may,
at some point, get a tipping effect," said Anne-Marie Slaughter, a professor of
international affairs at Princeton University.

On Thursday word emerged that Gadhafi's pick for U.N. ambassador had defected to
Egypt -- a day after Libya's foreign minister fled to London and told the government
there that he had resigned.

Citing unnamed British government sources, the Guardian newspaper reported Friday
that a senior adviser to one of Gadhafi's sons was in London for secret talks with British
officials. The adviser to Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, Mohammed Ismael, told CNN earlier this
week that he would be traveling to London for family reasons. Calls placed to his
mobile phone by CNN on Friday were not answered.

Asked about the Guardian report, a UK Foreign Office spokesman neither confirmed
nor denied it.
"We are not going to provide running commentary on our contacts with Libyan
officials," the spokesman said. "In any contact that we do have, we make it clear that
Gadhafi has to go."

Rebel fighters also said they remained determined to topple Gadhafi's nearly 42-year
reign.

But the battles over key cities are far from over.

Rebels massed on the outskirts of the government-controlled oil town of al-Brega,

which has changed hands six times in six weeks under dramatically shifting
circumstances in the country's civil war.

Misrata, Libya's third largest city and the final rebel stronghold in the western part of
the country, was under siege by pro-Gadhafi forces. Badly damaged buildings lined
streets covered with wreckage after weeks of urban combat.

Witnesses said most residents fled the downtown area after government forces
positioned snipers on tall buildings and used tanks and artillery in the city center.

Clearly outgunned, opposition forces have pinned their hopes on more NATO
airpower.

"We want to bring a speedy end to this," Col. Ahmed Omar Bani, an opposition
spokesman, told CNN. "A strike is not a strike unless it kills."

U.S. officials claim Gadhafi's military capabilities have been steadily eroded since the
onset of U.N.-sanctioned airstrikes.

But the dictator's forces still outnumber rebels by about 10-to-1 in terms of armor and
other ground forces, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen told the House
Armed Services Committee Thursday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, also speaking before the House committee,
warned that the Libyan rebels still need significant training and assistance.

"It's pretty much a pickup ballgame" right now, he said.

U.S. and British officials say no decision has been made about whether to arm the
opposition.

Gates reiterated the Obama administration's promise that no U.S. ground forces will be
used in Libya, telling committee members that the rebels had indicated they didn't want
such an intervention.
But the United States does have CIA personnel on the ground.

CIA operatives have been in Libya working with rebel leaders to try to reverse gains by
loyalist forces, a U.S. intelligence source said. The United States, insisting it is now
fulfilling more of a support role in the coalition, shifted in that direction as NATO took
sole command of air operations in Libya.

A U.S. intelligence source said the CIA is operating in the country to help increase U.S.
"military and political understanding" of the situation.

But officials leaving Libya may end up playing a more decisive role than troops or CIA
agents on the ground.

After defecting Wednesday, former Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa was
voluntarily speaking with officials in the United Kingdom, British Foreign Secretary
William Hague said.

Hague said Koussa's departure from Libya provides evidence "that Gadhafi's regime ...
is fragmented, under pressure and crumbling from within."

Koussa did not tell the Libyan government he was planning to quit before he arrived in
Britain, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Thursday.

But Ibrahim downplayed the defection itself, saying Koussa was an old man in poor
health who had not been able to handle the pressure of his job.

On Thursday an opposition leader and a relative said that the man Gadhafi tapped as
the country's U.N. envoy had defected to Egypt.

Former Foreign Minister Ali Abdussalam Treki, who recently served as the president of
the U.N. General Assembly, was to replace Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham as
ambassador in New York. But he never arrived.

"I do think it's evidence that Gadhafi is increasingly isolated in his own country. ...
Some of the key participants in his regime and people closest to him are abandoning
him," Alan Solomont, the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, told reporters Friday.

Such defections are significant, but not as important as the departure of one of
Gadhafi's family members would be, according to Robert Baer, a former CIA operative
in the Middle East.

"Crack that clan and he's done. Those elite units will fall apart, the tribe will defect, and
it will all be over," Baer told CNN's AC360.
----------------------------
Libya Rebels Seek Cease-Fire After U.S. Vows to Withdraw Jets (Bloomberg)
(Libya) Libya’s opposition called for a cease-fire after the U.S. said it’s withdrawing
aircraft used to attack Muammar Qaddafi’s forces following adverse weather that
prevented strikes allowing Libyan loyalists to push back rebels.

Libya’s rebels would accept a cease-fire if their demands for freedoms are met, said
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel National Transitional Council, during a news
conference televised today from their stronghold of Benghazi. Any agreement would
have to involve Qaddafi’s fighters withdrawing from cities and their surrounding areas,
he said.

The rebel move comes one day after Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said U.S. jets, won’t be flying with NATO forces over Libya after April 2. Mullen
said planes would be made available only if requested by NATO. Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates told Congress the U.S. will “significantly ramp down our commitment” to
Libya except for electronic warfare, aerial refueling and surveillance.

Rebels have been in retreat for three days as Qaddafi’s troops regain the initiative after
almost two weeks of allied air strikes against them. This week’s recapture of the oil port
Ras Lanuf by Qaddafi forces underscored the military weakness of his opponents.
Intensive fighting continues around another oil port, Brega, which is under Libyan rebel
control, Al Arabiya television reported.

“Seems to me, we are not doing everything necessary in order to achieve our policy
goals and including relieving what is happening to the anti-Qaddafi forces,” Senator
John McCain said at the hearing in Congress yesterday with Mullen and Gates. “I hope
we don’t learn a bitter lesson from it.”

Can’t See Targets

Mullen said poor weather over the past three days in Libya meant pilots “can’t get on
the targets; they can’t see the targets.”

Oil rose to a 30-month high in New York as economic data from China spurred hope of
growing demand in the world’s biggest energy user and fighting in Libya fanned
concern that output cuts may spread to Middle East producers. Crude for May delivery
rose as much as 93 cents to $107.65 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York
Mercantile Exchange, the highest front- month price since Sept. 26, 2008. It was at
$107.06 at 11:34 a.m. London time.

“It’s quiet today but there are snipers present and yesterday night a number of mortar
rounds were fired and there was indiscriminate shelling from tanks as well,” Reda
Almountasser, a resident in the western city of Misrata whose residents rose up against
Qaddafi and have defied efforts by his forces to regain control, said in a telephone
interview.

Rebel Leaders

U.S. political and military leaders said they’re unwilling to start providing arms and
training for rebels fighting against Qaddafi. Mullen said there are “plenty of countries
who have the ability, the arms, the skill set to be able to do this.” Gates said the U.S.
doesn’t know enough about the insurgent groups beyond a “handful” of leaders.

“The rebels need more heavy weapons,” said Jan Techau, director of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Brussels and a former analyst at the NATO
Defense College. “They need simple stuff -- not high-tech weaponry that requires
extensive training and would be dangerous if it fell into terrorist hands.”

The conflict in Libya, which began as a wave of anti- government protests similar to
those in Egypt and Tunisia, escalated into armed conflict as the country’s army split and
some soldiers joined the rebels. Oil prices have risen more than 25 percent since fighting
began in mid-February.

‘Desperation, Fear’

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said the defection of Libyan Foreign Minister
Moussa Koussa on March 30 is evidence of “the desperation and the fear right at the
heart of the crumbling and rotten Qaddafi regime.” He said the former minister hasn’t
been offered immunity. The Scottish prosecutor’s office said it wanted to interview
Koussa about the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie that killed 270 people.

While dozens of Libyan diplomats have quit since the uprising against Qaddafi began,
Koussa is one of the most senior officials to flee. Libya’s former deputy ambassador to
the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said more diplomats and senior-ranking Libyans
are likely to defect from the Qaddafi regime “within days,” Sky News reported, adding
that up to 10 top Libyan officials may abandon the regime.

Another senior Libyan official, Mohammed Ismail, visited London in recent days for
confidential talks, the Guardian reported today citing unidentified U.K. officials.

Gates said he saw several end-game scenarios involving Qaddafi.

‘Family Kills Him’

“One is that a member of his own family kills him, or one of his inner circle kills him, or
the military fractures, or the opposition, with the degradation of Qaddafi’s military
capabilities rise up again,” Gates said.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization jets carried out more than 90 missions yesterday,
Charles Bouchard, the Canadian air force general commanding the operation, said via
videolink from Naples, Italy. A total of 20 of the 28 member states of the alliance are
expected to contribute forces in the initial stages, NATO said. Germany has declined to
take part.

Qaddafi said Western air strikes could lead to a war between Christians and Muslims
that could spiral out of control, Sky News reported, citing a statement by the Libyan
leader broadcast by state television.
----------------------------
Robert Gates again rules out U.S. ground forces for Libya (LA Times)
By David S. Cloud
March 31, 2011
Washington— Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates reiterated Thursday that the U.S.
would not put ground forces in Libya, but conceded that allies involved in the
operation might provide arms and send in trainers to aid the rebels, who have lost
ground to Col. Moammar Kadafi's forces in recent days.

In his strongest language since the U.S. deployed warplanes to protect Libyan civilians,
Gates ruled out sending any U.S. forces to Libya "as long as I'm in this job" — a
viewpoint that he said President Obama shared. But he admitted that the rebels needed
help to withstand the assault from Kadafi's forces, even with NATO warplanes
overhead.

Gates acknowledged the administration is still considering whether to provide arms to

the rebels, but said what the opposition forces need most is training.

"What the opposition needs as much as anything right now is some training, some
command and control and some organization," Gates said. "That's not a unique
capability for the United States, and as far as I'm concerned, somebody else can do that."

Gates spoke on the same day NATO assumed full command of the air campaign over
Libya after almost two weeks of airstrikes led by the U.S.

Gates faced tough questioning in his appearance before the House Armed Services
Committee as lawmakers from both parties complained that the White House had failed
to set clear goals for the air operation and was facing a protracted military commitment,
despite handing off command responsibility for the operation to the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization.
"We really want to know what the commitment's going to be," said Rep. Adam Smith of
Washington, the panel's ranking Democrat, at the start of daylong hearings on the Libya
crisis. "How long can we sustain this and where is this going?"

With Kadafi's forces appearing to have seized the initiative, several members warned
that the U.S. was in an increasingly difficult position as it attempts to scale back its
military involvement even though Obama has made removal of Kadafi a U.S. objective.

Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services

Committee, opened the hearings with a warning that "history has demonstrated that an
entrenched enemy like the Libyan regime can be resilient to airpower."

Gates conceded that a stalemate is one possible outcome and he acknowledged under
questioning that the U.S. "has no contingency plan" if Kadafi remains in power "other
than keeping the pressure on."

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the NATO-led air
campaign had been hampered in recent days because bad weather had reduced the
coalition's ability to carry out airstrikes. He also said that there were tensions within the
28 members of NATO and other governments involved in the air campaign over
whether to escalate the military effort to drive Kadafi from power.

"There are certainly some tensions with regards to that, and I think those tensions will
continue," Mullen said, without providing more details.

Gates refused to address reports that CIA operatives are already on the ground in
Libya, gathering intelligence and assisting the rebels. He also played down the
possibility that the U.S. would provide arms to the beleaguered rebels, but did not rule
out that NATO allies or other countries could aid the rebels directly.

"My view is that there are plenty of sources for it, other than the U.S," he said, when
asked about the possibility that the Pentagon would supply the military assistance.

A U.S. official confirmed Thursday that Obama signed a secret finding authorizing the
CIA to coordinate with and help the rebels. CIA operatives have been on the ground for
weeks, gathering intelligence and providing non-lethal aid to the rebels. The CIA
helped locate and rescue a U.S. airman who had been picked up by rebels after the
March 21 crash of an F-15E Strike Eagle, another U.S. official said.

Mullen said that the Pentagon was examining ways of assisting the rebels, including
"options from not doing it to doing it," and then added, "there are plenty of countries
that have the abilities, the arms, the skill set, to be able to do this."
It was not clear what government, if any, might step in to provide weapons to the
rebels. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking in Stockholm,
suggested that there was no agreement within NATO on whether to arm the rebels,
despite statements by U.S. and British officials that the U.N. resolution authorizing
international intervention allows arming Libyan rebels.

"We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm people," Rasmussen said,
according to wire service reports.

At a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, NATO's Military Committee Chairman

Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, an Italian officer, acknowledged the question of arming
rebels was far from resolved. "If I listen to where the debate is going, there are those
who say that there might be a different interpretation," Di Paola said. "So it's not that
clear if it would be in breach or non-breach of the [UN] resolution."

Many lawmakers appeared worried that the U.S., as the most powerful member of
NATO, could find itself drawn more deeply into the conflict. The Pentagon has said its
plan is for other countries participating in the air campaign to handle most of the
combat missions against Libyan ground targets and for U.S. aircraft to handle aerial
refueling, surveillance and other noncombat roles.

Several lawmakers complained that the administration had not consulted with
Congress adequately before its decision almost two weeks ago to intervene and
questioned whether the White House had exceeded its constitutional prerogatives by
failing to secure congressional authorization.

Gates noted that many lawmakers from both the House and Senate had called for the
U.S. to establish a no-fly zone over Libya before the White House decision to intervene.
----------------------------
Obama administration pushes dual-track policy in Libya (CNN)
By Tom Cohen
March 31, 2011 8:45 p.m. EDT
Washington - Despite having CIA agents on the ground and Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi's exit as stated policy, U.S. officials continue to say the NATO-led military
mission in Libya is only for its authorized humanitarian purposes.

The seeming discrepancy is part of a delicate diplomatic posture by the Obama

administration on the complex overseas operation that involves a U.N. Security Council
resolution, a multinational military force and the symbolism of presidential statements
and actions.

With the military mission shifting Thursday to a new phase of full NATO control after
initial U.S. leadership, divisions among alliance partners and within Congress became
more evident, exacerbated by the administration's differing military and political goals.
President Barack Obama continues to insist that arming the Libyan rebels remained an
option under consideration, while NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
and French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet ruled it out.

At House and Senate committee hearings, Republicans grilled Defense Secretary Robert
Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen on the U.S. role in Libya.

"To say this is not about regime change is crazy," said Republican Rep. Mike Coffman of
Colorado. "Of course this is about regime change. Why not just be honest with the
American people?"

Obama has said the motivation for launching military action on March 19 was to
prevent a massacre of civilians by Libyan military forces descending on the rebel
stronghold of Benghazi.

Since then, airstrikes carried out mostly with U.S. planes and missiles have taken out
much of Gadhafi's anti-aircraft capability and destroyed ground forces and supply
lines.

While Gadhafi's forces have pulled back from Benghazi, they reclaimed territory from
the rebels in recent days, leading to fears of a prolonged stalemate without stronger
military support for the rebels.

On Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney noted the United States turned over
control of the Libya mission to NATO that morning -- 12 days after it began -- to fulfill
Obama's pledge to the nation that U.S. leadership would end within "days, not weeks."

While Carney said the United States and its allies would keep up pressure on Gadhafi's
government, he acknowledged that it was impossible to say when the mission would
end. Regardless of when, he said, "the scope of the U.S. involvement will be limited"
and Obama continues to reject any possibility of sending in U.S. ground troops.

At the same time, a former counterterrorism official confirmed the existence of a

presidential finding that authorizes the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct
operations supporting U.S. policy in Libya.

A presidential finding is a type of secret order authorizing some covert intelligence

operations, and a former senior intelligence official said such operations could include
"advising on how to target the adversary, how to use the weapons they have,
reconnaissance and counter surveillance."
Top administration officials distinguished between the military mission charged with
protecting Libyan civilians and the other non-military efforts -- including sanctions,
freezing assets and CIA operations -- aimed at hastening Gadhafi's departure.

"Does the United States have the capacity to unilaterally with military force produce
regime change in Libya or another country? It probably does. We probably do," Carney
told reporters. "Is that a desirable action to take when you have your eye on the long
game here in terms of Libya's future, the future ... interests of the United States and the
region? No."

Obama's dual-track policy, with the military coalition protecting Libyan civilians while
the United States pursues "as a political, diplomatic and economic policy" the end of
Gadhafi's rule, is the best fit for the Libya situation, Carney insisted, citing the
international backing for the military mission through a U.N. Security Council
resolution and Arab League support.

Critics complained that it is both dishonest and a mistake for the military objective to
differ from the policy objective.

At a House Armed Services Committee hearing, Rep. Chris Gibson, R-New York, said
the mission's "military and political goals are not harmonized," while Coffman called it
"just the most muddled definition of an operation probably in U.S. military history."

On the Democratic side, liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio challenged Obama's legal
power to commit U.S. forces to a combat role without congressional authorization.

"This is a clear and arrogant violation of our Constitution," Kucinich declared on the
House floor. "Even a war launched ostensibly for humanitarian reasons is still a war
and only Congress can declare a war."

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee in

2008, warned that pulling U.S. forces back to a supporting role under NATO control
undermined the military mission at a key moment.

"For the United States to be withdrawing our unique offensive capabilities at this time
sends the exact wrong signal both to our coalition partners as well as to the Gadhafi
regime, especially to those Libyan officials whom we are trying to compel to break with
Gadhafi," McCain said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

"I need not remind our witnesses that the purpose of using military force is to achieve
policy goals," McCain told Gates and Mullen. "But in this case, not only are our military
means out of alignment with our desired end of Gadhafi leaving power, we are now
effectively stopping our strike missions all together without having accomplished our
goal."

While Obama administration officials have described the continuing U.S. role in the
military mission as supportive -- involving refueling, intelligence, surveillance and
communications -- Gates said Thursday that U.S. strike aircraft such as A-10 and AC-
130s could still be made available to NATO.

However, he added that he believed NATO allies had the capacity to take out Libyan
ground forces as necessary under the mission's mandate of protecting civilian
populations.

Appearing before both the House and Senate panels at separate hearings, Gates said the
no-fly zone had been established and now needed to be sustained, but acknowledged
"you could have a situation in which you achieve the military goal but do not achieve
the political goal."
---------------------------
In Libya’s rebel base, a mix of hope and fear (Washington Post)
By Tara Bahrampour
March 31, 2011, 9:35 PM
BENGHAZI, Libya — On one Saturday, residents saw a burning airplane fall over their
city as tanks shelled their homes.

Eight days later they were kept up all night by celebratory gunfire and rocket blasts as
rumors circulated, falsely, that Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s home town had fallen to the
rebel army.

Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and the stronghold of the uprising that swept
through the nation six weeks ago, is suspended in a delicate balance between
exuberance and apprehension.

On one hand the city is home to a cadre of highly educated, professional and
cosmopolitan leaders who speak confidently of a democratic state to come, and
cultivate international partners to help bring that state to fruition. Gaddafi, they swear,
will fall in a week or so and a glorious new Libya will rise.

But 100 miles to the west, a ragged collection of untrained civilians struggles in an
uneven battle to keep government tanks at bay. Since midweek, as Gaddafi’s forces
have crept closer, Benghazi residents have gone to bed wondering whether they will
wake to a city under siege.

“I just want a normal life,” said Mohammad el-Sayed, 27, a lecturer at Benghazi’s
Technical Engineering College, as he drove down a road where light poles and highway
overpasses bore the scars of missile attacks. “I want this to be over. We just want
everything to be stable.”

But the only thing certain in Benghazi is that nothing is certain. With a battle line that
races erratically backward and forward up the coastal road, even fighters returning
from the front cannot say for sure what is happening there.

Government spokespeople give press conferences almost daily to a crush of journalists

hungry for news. But for this fledgling government, solid information is hard to come
by. The officials try to answer questions about how the new Transitional National
Council plans to develop education, infrastructure and a viable economy, while at the
same time hoping each day that there will still be a country to develop. Libyans will
win their independence, they declare, while at the same time acknowledging that the
rebel army is in danger of annihilation without help from NATO.

“They’re doing the most with the least,” said Ahmed Hnesh, 29, a Libyan-American
resident of Falls Church who came here in February to help with the uprising. “They’re
creating a state from scratch.”

In this city, whole neighborhoods are left unpaved, and building projects begun
decades ago linger on in a state of half-constructed abandon.

Benghazi residents are used to their crumbling infrastructure. What is new for them is
the strange juxtaposition of urgency and idleness the rebellion has wrought.

All around the city, newly minted fighters zoom by in pickup trucks hastily fitted with
antitank artillery and swathed in the red, black and green flag of Libyan independence.
They crackle with a sense of purpose, if not a clear idea of how to carry it out.

Meanwhile, teachers, students, architects and traders sleep late and wonder when their
schools and companies will reopen. On many blocks, only a few stores are open; the rest
have metal gates pulled down while their owners wait for more tranquil times.

And amid the triumphant freedom anthems on the radio, the effigies of Gaddafi
hanging in front of the courthouse, the “Game Over” and “No More Dictator” tags
spray-painted on downtown buildings, a sense of foreboding lingers.

Gaddafi’s forces are not only in the tanks down the road. Some still live among the
people of Benghazi. They are the neighbors who were once members of Gaddafi’s
Revolutionary Committees, which helped promote their leader and kept tabs on those
who didn’t.

“We know who was on these committees,” Sayed said. “Now, of course, they are saying
they support the revolution, but we don’t know.”
Sniper attacks two weeks ago on a Benghazi radio personality and a cartoonist, both
outspoken promoters of the revolution, are attributed to Gaddafi loyalists.

Such violence is one reason that few women walk the streets. Another is the random
firing of automatic weapons by young revolutionaries who are overly excited to be
picking up a gun for the first time.

“All the women are home; they don’t feel safe right now,” said Ahmad Mohammad, 32,
a businessman whose work has dried up since the uprising began in mid-February.
“People are very afraid, very disturbed. . . . The feeling right now is it’s not safe, and
people are afraid of what will happen tomorrow.”

But at the same time, he has hope for better days. “We have a saying in Arabic: When
it’s been tight,” he said, squeezing his fists together, “it will open wide.” He let his
hands relax and fall away from each other. “And it will be good, inshallah.”
-------------------------
Opposition Hopes to Gain Information from Libyan Defector (VOA)
By Peter Clottey
March 31, 2011
A member of the rebels fighting forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi says
members of the Transitional Council have begun efforts to gain “strategic” information
from defecting Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa in their objective to force the embattled
leader from power.

Awad Juma says recent defections are, in his words, the beginning of the end of
Gadhafi’s over four-decade year rule.

“I don’t think a foreign minister defecting [from] his government is insignificant. The
guy [Moussa Koussa] has got a lot of information to tell; he’s got information about [the
1988 Pan Am] Lockerbie bombing. He was [the] hand to carry out a lot of dirty jobs for
Gadhafi. So, saying it is not significant, I think Gadhafi is playing down the loss as if it’s
not important,” Juma said.

“They [Transitional Council] are already trying to get in touch with him [Moussa
Koussa]. But, he is watching his steps carefully because he didn’t declare that he is
joining the rebels yet. I don’t know if he wants some guarantees,” he added.

Juma says the defections are growing signs of weakness of the Gadhafi administration
despite its sharp denial that the defections have had no effect on the ongoing crisis.

“There is Ali Treki [who] refused appointment to replace the representative to the
United Nations. He declared his resignation from Gadhafi’s regime. And, this is another
beginning of his fall because they have been with him for 42 years,” Juma said.
“We know that Gadhafi is holding the whole cabinet at gunpoint in his barracks with
their families. Even if one of them goes on a mission, he goes by himself, while his
family is held at gunpoint until they come back. This sounds like fiction, but this is what
Gadhafi does,” he added.

Libya's FM Moussa Koussa holds a news conference in Tripoli Mar 18 2011

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has repeated his strong opposition to
putting any American forces in Libya.

Gates insisted Thursday there will be no U.S. military boots on the ground “as long as I
am in this job.” He spoke as U.S. media reported that the Central Intelligence Agency
has small teams working with anti-government rebels in the North African country,

Reports say the teams were sent to gather intelligence and make contact with
opposition forces. Gates said he could not “speak for the CIA” about its role. He
acknowledged the United States has information only “on a handful of [the] rebels”
trying to topple Gadhafi.

Gates told a U.S. congressional hearing that political and economic pressures will
eventually drive Gadhafi from power. He says the NATO-led operation now under way
can degrade the Libyan leader's military capacity, but that Gadhafi's removal will
happen only over time and by his own people.
-----------------------------
In Libya, Regime Change Should Be the Goal (Washington Post Op-Ed)
By JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN AND JOHN MCCAIN
President Obama made a compelling case for our intervention in Libya on Monday
evening, and U.S. actions there deserve bipartisan support in Congress. As the
president rightly noted, failure to intervene militarily would have resulted in a
humanitarian and strategic disaster. Because of our actions, the Gadhafi regime has
been prevented from brutally crushing its opposition.

The president was also correct in framing what is happening in Libya within the
broader context of the democratic awakening that is sweeping across the broader
Middle East—the most consequential geopolitical realignment since the fall of the Berlin
Wall.

If Gadhafi is allowed to hang onto power through the use of indiscriminate violence, it
will send a message to dictators throughout the region and beyond that the way to
respond, when people rise up peacefully and demand their rights, is through repression
and slaughter—and that the rest of the world, including the U.S., won't stand in the
way.
What is needed now is not a backward-looking debate about what the administration
could or should have done differently, but a forward-looking strategy that identifies
America's national interests in Libya and works to achieve them.

As President Obama has rightly and repeatedly insisted, a successful outcome in Libya
requires the departure of Gadhafi as quickly as possible. It is not in our interest for
Libya to become the scene of a protracted stalemate that will destabilize and inflame the
region.

While both Arab leaders and public opinion are hostile towards Gadhafi personally—a
fact that helps explain the Arab League's unprecedented decision to support
intervention in Libya—we are concerned that regional support will waver if Western
forces are perceived as presiding over a military deadlock. We cannot allow Gadhafi to
consolidate his grip over part of the country and settle in for the long haul.

A Libyan rebel
There are several steps urgently needed to prevent this outcome. First, while we
understand the diplomatic reasons behind the Obama administration's reluctance to
make Gadhafi's removal an explicit goal of the coalition military mission, the reality on
the ground is that our coalition's air strikes against his forces must work toward this
objective.

In the days ahead, it is imperative that we maintain and if necessary expand our air
strikes against Gadhafi's ground forces, which pose a threat to civilians wherever they
are. In doing so, we can pave the way for the Libyan opposition to reverse Gadhafi's
offensive and to resume their quest to end his rule.

The battlefield reversals suffered by the opposition this week, when weather conditions
hampered coalition air strikes, underscore the need for a more robust and coherent
package of aid to the rebel ground forces.

The U.S. should also expand engagement with the Libyan opposition, led by the interim
Transitional National Council currently based in Benghazi. We have been encouraged
by the Obama administration's growing rhetorical support for the opposition, but we
hope to see more tangible manifestations of it in the days ahead.

In particular, we and our allies should be providing the council with the
communications equipment, logistical support, training, tactical intelligence and
weapons necessary to consolidate rule over the territory they have liberated and to
continue tilting the balance of power against Gadhafi. We do not need to put U.S. forces
on the ground precisely because the Libyans themselves are fighting for their freedom.
But they need our help, and quickly, to succeed.
Another immediate priority should be getting humanitarian assistance into eastern
Libya and restoring telecommunications access there, where Gadhafi has cut off land
lines, mobile networks and the Internet. While top opposition leaders have satellite
phones, we have both humanitarian and strategic interests in restoring the ability of
people in liberated parts of Libya to communicate with each other and the rest of the
world. We should also take steps to get Gadhafi's satellite, television, and radio
broadcasts off the air, while helping the opposition air its broadcasting.

Finally, we should follow France and Qatar in recognizing the Transitional National
Council as the legitimate government of Libya, and we should encourage other allies
and partners to do the same.

Some critics still argue that we should be cautious about helping the Libyan opposition,
warning that we do not know enough about them or that their victory could pave the
way for an al Qaeda takeover. Both arguments are hollow. By all accounts, the
Transitional National Council is led by moderates who have declared their vision for (as
their website puts it) Libya becoming "a constitutional democratic civil state based on
the rule of law, respect for human rights and the guarantee of equal rights and
opportunities for all its citizens."

If there is any hope for a decent government to emerge from the ashes of the Gadhafi
dictatorship, this is it. Throwing our weight behind the transitional government is our
best chance to prevent Libya's unraveling into postwar anarchy—precisely the
circumstance under which Islamist extremists are most likely to gain a foothold.

We cannot guarantee the success of the Libyan revolution, but we have prevented what
was, barely a week ago, its imminent destruction. That is why the president was right to
intervene. He now deserves our support as we and our coalition partners do all that is
necessary to help the Libyan people secure a future of freedom.
---------------------
NATO Rules Out Arming Rebels (Wall Street Journal)
By Daniel Michael and Charles Duxbury
March 31, 2011
BRUSSELS—Officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which early Thursday
assumed control of allied operations to enforce the United Nations mandate in Libya,
said they aren't considering arming Libyan rebels.

Simmering debate in Washington and Europe about whether to arm rebel groups and
intensified amid the opposition's recent retreat from territory they had gained under the
umbrella of coalition airstrikes.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Stockholm that he

has taken note of the "ongoing discussion in a number of countries" about arming the
rebels but "as far as NATO is concerned...we will focus on the enforcement of the arms
embargo," which he said applies "across the board to all sides in this conflict."

WSJ Middle East Bureau Chief Bill Spindle explains how Libyan rebels are receiving
assistance from CIA operatives. Also, Libya's foreign minister abruptly resigned and
flew to England.
.NATO took full control of operations in Libya at 6 a.m. Brussels time Thursday. Lt.
Gen. Charles Bouchard, the commander of NATO and non-NATO forces in the
operation said that by midday, NATO had run more than 90 flights and sorties. He said
he had more than 100 fighters and support aircraft, and more than 12 ships and
submarines, under his command.

Adm. Giampaolo Di Paola, chairman of the NATO Military Council and the alliance's
most senior military official, said the NATO operation, dubbed Unified Protectorate,
entails enforcing an arms-embargo and no-fly zone and protecting civilians, as set out
by the U.N. resolution.

"NATO is not in Libya to decide the future of the Libyan people," he told a news
briefing in Brussels. "We are helping enforce the will of the international community."

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed a secret order that could facilitate weapons
transfers to rebels. Under the authorization, the Central Intelligence Agency has placed
covert operatives on the ground in parts of Libya, officials say.

"We have done very well in attacking the targets that air power can attack," said retired
Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in
Washington. "But we will not be able to protect civilians to the point expected through
air power alone."

WSJ's Paul Sonne reports from London on allied leaders moving toward the goal of
removing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and democratizing the Northern Africa
country. Also, a report on Syrian president al-Assad addressing the public to quell
protests.
.On Edge in Libya
Track the latest events in the fight for Libya.

Adm. Di Paola said that NATO is running operations based partly on intelligence
supplied by alliance members and isn't itself in contact with any rebels. "We are not
coordinating operations with anyone" outside the alliance and its partners, he said.

He said that if allies are gathering information using intelligence officials on the ground
in Libya, "it's not for us to question the source."
He stressed that any intelligence-gathering on the ground is being done by member
countries, not NATO itself. "If [alliance] nations have forces on the ground, these are not
NATO forces," Adm. Di Paola said. "We don't have NATO forces on the ground."
------------------------
The battle for Libya: The colonel is not beaten yet (The Economist)
By Unattributed Author
Mar 31st 2011
Benghazi and London - AFTER rebel forces retook Ajdabiya and the oil-refining towns
of Ras Lanuf and Brega, it seemed that Muammar Qaddafi’s troops might crumble fast
in the face of Western air attacks. But that hope was fleeting. At a hastily assembled
conference in London on March 29th, attended by nearly 40 delegations representing
the international coalition that is enforcing UN Security Resolution 1973, the turn of
events on the ground saw Libyan government forces dramatically regain the initiative.
And that prompted a more sober assessment of the rebels’ progress.

A day earlier General Carter Ham, the American officer who was running operations in
Libya until NATO assumed command, had presciently warned: “The regime still vastly
overmatches opposition forces militarily. The regime possesses the capability to roll
them back very quickly. Coalition air power is the major reason that has not happened.”
The general added that apart from some “localised wavering” there had so far been
only a few cases of military or government officials defecting to the opposition.

For a time, it looked as if a pattern had been established. Allied air power would take
out the government’s tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons, shell-shocked loyalist
soldiers would flee and the ragtag army of rebels toting AK-47s and captured RPGs
would surge forward into the vacuum, driving hell-for-leather to the next town along
the coast road in a motley cavalcade of elderly cars and pickup trucks.

In fact, the only emerging pattern is one of wildly see-sawing fortunes, as coastal towns
change hands with almost metronomic regularity. On March 28th the advancing rebels
ground to a halt at Bin Jawad, a small town some 160km (100 miles) to the east of
Colonel Qaddafi’s birthplace, Sirte, and halfway between Benghazi and Tripoli. Control
of Bin Jawad had already switched three times in the past month and the town is now
largely deserted.

There is still no sign that the rebels have a proper chain of command. Khalifa Belqasim
Haftar, a former general who has returned from exile in the United States, is their
commander-in-chief, with Colonel Qaddafi’s former interior minister, Abdel Fatah
Younis, as his chief of staff. But the units of the regular army that defected seem to have
stayed largely out of the fray, leaving the fighting to untrained youths. Time after time,
they have rushed frantically along the main roads, only to run into ambushes laid by
the colonel’s snipers dug into the roadside. Inexperienced rebels have shot up their own
cars with anti-aircraft fire. Full of bravado, young farmers in straw hats vow to defy
Colonel Qaddafi’s Grad rockets, but as soon as any start landing nearby they flee.
Rebel supply-lines of food and fuel are badly stretched. The colonel’s forces sabotaged
petrol stations and power lines when they retreated west. Many shopkeepers have fled.
Taxi drivers smuggle ammunition and AK-47s from Egypt beneath punnets of
strawberries. But the rebels know they are heavily outgunned.

Their attempt on March 29th to push on past Bin Jawad towards Sirte ended abruptly
when their vehicles came under heavy rocket and artillery fire from loyalist forces
moving up the road from the politically important city. Fleeing eastward, abandoning
Bin Jawad, Ras Lanuf and Brega in quick succession, the rebels were said to be
mystified as to why their advance had not been supported by coalition air strikes and
why the planes had still not shown up to attack Colonel Qaddafi’s advancing tanks at
their most vulnerable.

Use the interactive "Graphics Carousel" to browse our coverage of unrest in the Middle
East.One theory was that the decision, reached on March 27th after a week of
wrangling, to hand full control of the military operation to NATO had led to a less
aggressive targeting by the coalition. Cloudy weather may also have cut the tempo of
attacks on ground targets.

But coalition commanders insist that their targeting policy and the rules of engagement
are unchanged and that the sortie rate has been maintained. It is most likely that as
NATO took over it was caught on the hop by the speed of the loyalist advance and by a
change of tactics, in which the loyalists left behind their tanks and mounted rocket-
launchers on pickup trucks. That made them hard to distinguish from rebels. On March
30th the coalition resumed hitting government forces on the ground. David Cameron,
the British prime minister, telephoned Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme
commander, to express his hope that the deteriorating situation could be swiftly
reversed.

But the uncomfortable truth is that, despite big losses of tanks and artillery and the
battering of his command-and-control centres, the 10,000 or so men in the tribally based
militias loyal to Colonel Qaddafi are proving tenacious. The rebels, for their part, are
still far from turning themselves into a force sufficiently disciplined or well-armed to
engage loyalist soldiers with much prospect of success.

Sirte also looks as if it is becoming a military and political problem for the coalition. As
long as the town remains loyal to Colonel Qaddafi, it both blocks the road to Misrata,
the rebels’ western redoubt some 220km to the west, and provides a springboard for
rolling back the rebels in the east. The plight of Misrata, Libya’s third-biggest city,
grows more desperate by the day. Government tanks close to the centre are continuing
to shell buildings and residents indiscriminately, and food and water are said to be
running low. On March 30th coalition aircraft sank five government ships blocking the
supply of humanitarian aid to the city.
Digging in at home

Sirte is of unique importance to the regime, both as a garrison and for what it
represents. Once a poor village, it is now a city of 130,000 people, showered with money
and privileges during most of Colonel Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. In 1988 he moved many
government departments and the country’s rubber-stamp parliament there from
Tripoli, the capital. In 1999 he proposed it as the administrative centre of a “United
States of Africa”. Western reporters in Sirte say its people’s declarations of devotion to
the colonel and their willingness to fight for what they have are sincere.

That makes things tricky for the coalition. It cannot claim to be protecting local civilians
when attacking government forces defending Sirte. But its commanders argue that the
colonel’s troops remain a legitimate target in Sirte since they still threaten civilians
elsewhere.

Such operational dilemmas were blurred at the London conference. And there was little
sign of any desire by the participants to lessen the pressure on the regime. Indeed, for
all the previous insistence that regime change is not on the agenda, the leaders
attending the conference could not have been clearer that the military campaign will
continue until Colonel Qaddafi has gone.

In the conference corridors there was some talk of whether or how to offer the colonel
an exit if it would end the violence rather than demand that he be dragged before the
International Criminal Court. But the main concern of the coalition was to hasten a
resolution to the conflict and avoid a stalemate.

To that end, Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state, raised the possibility that
the coalition could provide arms for the opposition without needing the cover of a new
UN resolution. In her view, Security Council resolution 1973 trumps the previous
resolution 1970 with enough latitude to allow the supply of defensive weapons, such as
anti-tank missiles, if they would save civilian lives.

The idea was given tentative support by Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague
who, with Mrs Clinton, had earlier met the Libyan opposition leader, Mahmoud Jibril.
In a series of interviews on American television aimed at winning support for his
Libyan policy from a sceptical public, Barack Obama added that he was neither ruling
out arming the rebels nor ruling it in (see Lexington). But a leak on March 30th
suggested that the president had signed a secret “finding” that would authorise covert
support for the rebels.

Apart from possible legal obstacles, arming the rebels is fraught with difficulty. The
coalition leadership would almost certainly want Egypt to be the conduit for any
weapons supplies, but that would trouble its transitional government in Cairo. And
unless more officers and troops defect from the Libyan army, there is no guarantee that
the rebel side would be capable of using sophisticated weapons—nor that they could
easily be prevented from falling into the wrong hands.

Moreover, the coalition has nagging doubts about who exactly it might be arming.
Despite a magnificently politically correct declaration of principle published by the self-
styled Interim National Council to coincide with the London conference, worries persist
that the most ardent rebel fighters have strongly Islamist credentials.

An even more delicate question, raised by the rebels’ poor military performance, is
whether there would be any circumstance in which coalition (though not American)
ground forces might go in. That is not something that anyone wants to talk about, but it
will not go away.

The priorities just now are to halt the advance of loyalist troops, bring some relief to the
civilians in Misrata and encourage members of the regime to start looking for a way
out. On March 30th Colonel Qaddafi’s foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, a former
longtime head of intelligence, ran away to London. The addition to the coalition’s
armoury this week of American A-10 Thunderbolts and AC-130 gunships, lumbering
aircraft equipped with fearsome cannon that can hit targets in built-up areas with less
risk than fast jets of killing civilians, could tilt the balance in Misrata and elsewhere. But
any Western belief that Colonel Qaddafi would be quickly clobbered on the battlefield
has, for the moment, been shaken.
--------------------
Can the US really take a supporting role in Libya operation? (Christian Science
Monitor)
By Howard LaFranchi
March 31, 2011
Washington - The United States may have officially transferred command of the
international Libya operation to NATO on Thursday. But it is unclear if that means the
US has indeed retreated to the limited “supporting role” that President Obama says it
has.

With US forces plying the waters off the Libyan coast, Central Intelligence Agency
operatives on Libyan soil, many NATO countries sitting out the operation, and the
staying power of the US unmatched by the French, British, or anyone else in the
international coalition, it remains to be seen just how secondary the US role will be in
the coming days.

“It’s too early to say that” the US has indeed moved down to second fiddle, says
Christopher Preble, director of foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute in
Washington. An initial indicator to watch, he adds, will be “the numbers for the next 48
hours” – what airstrikes or other operations are reported and who carries them out.
Think you know the Middle East? Take our geography quiz.

The US may indeed step back from the lead role, others say, but that doesn’t mean it
will be limited to merely supportive roles, like intelligence providing and radio-signal
jamming, as the Obama administration has suggested.

“The idea that we’re never going to drop another bomb and withdraw ... I don’t believe
it for one minute,” says Geoffrey Kemp, director of regional strategic programs at the
Center for the National Interest in Washington. “If we’re not dropping bombs, we’ll be
shooting.”

The CIA operatives that Mr. Obama has authorized to enter Libya are ostensibly there
to evaluate the Libyan rebels and their capacities, and eventually to assess where
supplies might be directed if the US and other foreign powers decide to supply arms to
the Libyan forces fighting to oust Muammar Qaddafi.

But the CIA operatives are also providing information to guide airstrikes aimed at Mr.
Qaddafi’s forces and other assets, administration officials have said.

Obama has characterized the coalition taking over command from the US as very
broad-based – encompassing not only NATO but also having the participation of
countries from the Arab League. But not only are some NATO countries sitting on the
sidelines of the operation – Germany is a prime example – but so far, only three Arab
countries have actively joined the coalition, some military analysts point out.

President Bush, some Republican foreign-policy analysts note, was ridiculed for
claiming to have assembled an international coalition to invade Iraq when it was largely
a US operation. They point out that the Iraq war at one point included military
contributions from more than three dozen countries, considerably higher than the Libya
operation so far.

But what’s clear, some say, is that Obama’s intention is to put the US in the role of
something like best supporting actor. That being a new role for the US, they add, it may
take some time to see how this works.

“I think [Obama’s] objective is indeed to draw the US away from the cutting edge of
this operation,” says Stefan Halper, a senior fellow at the University of Cambridge’s
Centre of International Studies in England. “He wants to save money, and he doesn’t
want the US leading a military intervention in a Muslim country for a third time.”

But the fact remains that there are some things that only the US can do. No one should
be surprised that the CIA is in Libya, Dr. Halper says, since perhaps the only other
intelligence organization that could approach the CIA’s capacities would be the British
SAS.

Others say Obama’s intentions may in the end be thwarted, if the Libya operation drags
on and outlives the capacities of other militaries involved in the mission. “Neither [the
French nor the British] has the ability to sustain operations for any length of time,” says
Charles Boyd, a retired US Air Force general now at the Center for the National Interest.

The reality, Mr. Boyd says, is that the “smell” of an international operation eventually
seen to go bad would stick to the US. But others suggest that may not matter.

Obama is likely to remain unscathed even if his assertions about an American retreat to
a “supporting role” in Libya don’t match reality, some observers say.

Mr. Kemp of the Center for the National Interest speaks of a high “capacity of the
American public and Congress to live with ambiguity and nuance – as long,” he adds,
“as there are no American casualties.”
-------------------------
Liberia Uneasily Linked to Ivory Coast Conflict (NYT)
By SIMON AKAM
March 31, 2011
PÉHÉ-KANHOUÉBLI, Ivory Coast — Standing by a burned-out house on a road
speckled with spent ammunition casings, Brig. Gen. Gueu Michel, the commander of
rebel forces in western Ivory Coast, outlined his plan to stem an influx of Liberian
mercenaries he said were fighting for Ivory Coast’s embattled strongman, Laurent
Gbagbo.

“Gbagbo’s troops are composed of the Ivorian Army, the Liberian mercenaries and the
militia,” he said recently, pointing to a carefully folded map. “We want to cut off the
mercenary flow into Côte d’Ivoire.”

But the traffic at the border moved in two directions. As General Michel’s troops gained
ground, a tide of refugees escaping the crisis crossed the porous and remote border into
Liberia, a country with a fragile grip on stability itself.

According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have fled to Liberia, an
exodus visible in the women with bundles on their heads and babies on their backs,
trudging on or sitting exhausted by trail sides. And as the struggle over Ivory Coast
spills beyond its borders, many fear it will rattle a region still trying to recover from its
own history of civil war.

“It’s a serious threat to the stability of Liberia and, I might say, to the stability of all
neighboring countries,” President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia said in an interview.
“There’s been a lot of investment for peace in this subregion; we’re beginning to see the
result of that investment,” she added. “If nothing is done to resolve the crisis, all of
these efforts will be undermined.”

Ivory Coast was once a bastion of stability in a troubled region, its skyscraper-studded
commercial capital, Abidjan, a favored expatriate posting. Then a civil war in 2002 left
Ivory Coast divided between a south loyal to Mr. Gbagbo and a rebel-controlled north.

Ivorians went to the polls in November to heal those wounds, but Mr. Gbagbo refused
to step down after losing to his rival, Alassane Ouattara, prompting a long standoff
with the international community and, now, a rebel advance to try to expel Mr. Gbagbo
by force.

As part of that campaign, General Michel’s entourage included fashionable young men
in sunglasses and civilian clothes alongside fighters in fatigues carrying Kalashnikovs.
The general himself wore a neatly pressed uniform, with a name tag on his breast, and
insisted he was operating under the command of Mr. Ouattara.

Liberian and United Nations officials said the general was correct to suspect Liberian
mercenaries of crossing into Ivory Coast to help Mr. Gbagbo stay in power. Harrison S.
Karnwea Sr., Liberia’s interior minister, pointed to the recovery of a Liberian voter
registration card from a combatant inside Ivory Coast.

“According to what we hear, both sides are recruiting Liberian mercenaries,” he said.
“When people have been used to living on violence, they have got no profession to earn
their living on.”

But officials contended that the biggest risk to regional destabilization was the exodus
heading in the other direction. Liberia is profoundly fragile after being consumed by
civil war for much of the 1990s, a conflict that created warlords and drugged-up child
soldiers. Today, eight years after the end of hostilities, there are still 8,000 United
Nations troops in the country. While Liberia’s entire budget is $375 million, the
peacekeeping mission costs $500 million a year, the United Nations said.

Ellen Margrethe Loej, the head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia, is most
concerned about arms from Ivory Coast crossing the border. “After the civil war,
disarmament was fairly — if not very — successful in Liberia, but there are still a lot of
weapons around in Côte d’Ivoire,” she said. “The border is very porous.”

A generation of young Liberians knew only war, and at least some found opportunity
in taking part in it. Since then, great efforts have been made to encourage a different
way of life.
“Liberia’s taken the last seven years and some months to rein in the guys who had been
fighting,” said Michael McGovern, a political anthropologist at Yale who studies West
Africa. Now, he said, there is a risk of people being “torn out of the social fabric they
had been woven back into.”

The refugees have already overwhelmed some villages. At Old Pohan, a Liberian
settlement next to the thickets that extend to the border, refugees greatly outnumbered
the local population, and more were arriving all the time.

“We don’t have sleeping places, and the refugees are more than us; no food,” said a
villager, Victor Gaye.

The refugees themselves, some wearing Laurent Gbagbo campaign T-shirts that
suggested they were opposed to the advancing rebels, spoke of a desperate trek south
after an attack on the Ivorian town of Bloléquin.

“We were in the bush for one week,” said Zoué Bah Suzanne, 52. “Since I arrived, I
want food to eat, I want a sleeping place to lie down.”

With tens of thousands of refugees already in Liberia, United Nations officials said they
were struggling to muster an international response, at a time when many other crises
were demanding the world’s attention.

“If you see the news in any international TV channel today you see Libya, Libya,
Libya,” said António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees,
during a tour of affected areas in Liberia.

Seeking to move the Ivorians away from border settlements, the United Nations has
opened a camp about 25 miles inside Liberia. Lines of tents stretch out in freshly cleared
jungle, itself dust-blanched at the end of the dry season.

But only a few thousand refugees have come, because those at the border do not want
to go farther, some already having settled for weeks.

Refugees are also starting to cross in significant numbers into eastern Ghana, which is
far more stable than Liberia. But Abidjan, which rebel forces reached on Thursday, lies
close to the border, potentially sending a surge of refugees into Ghana.

Ivory Coast has millions of foreign laborers, including many from Burkina Faso. If they
are forced to flee, their home country, which is desperately poor, may struggle to
accommodate them.

“If there is a total collapse of the economy, there will be a further social impact on their
countries of origin,” Mr. Guterres said.
Konate Sidiki, a former Ivorian minister of tourism, now the secretary of organization
for the rebels, argued that despite the humanitarian consequences, “there is no other
solution” but force against Mr. Gbagbo.

“For three months we try to discuss, we try to negotiate,” he said.

---------------------
Ivory Coast: 'Heavy fighting' near Gbagbo residence (BBC)
By Unattributed Author
March 31, 2011
There has been heavy fighting in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, between forces loyal
to the UN-recognised president, Alassane Ouattara, and supporters of incumbent
Laurent Gbagbo.

Witnesses have reported hearing intense gunfire near Mr Gbagbo's residence, while Mr
Ouattara's supporters say they have taken control of state television.

His government earlier closed Ivory Coast's borders and declared a curfew.

Mr Gbagbo has refused to relinquish the presidency since November's election.

But the national army has put up almost no resistance since Mr Ouattara's supporters
launched an offensive on Monday.

Pro-Ouattara forces reportedly now control about 80% of the country.

'Final assault'

As the battle for control of the country appeared to reach a climax, gunfire was heard
around several strategic buildings in Abidjan.

Heavy fighting was reported close to the headquarters of RTI state TV and Mr Gbagbo's
residence, both in the northern district of Cocody.

"The gunfire has been intense and they're shooting in four or five directions at a time.
There's a lot of people," a resident told the AFP news agency. "It looks like a final
assault."

A spokesman for Mr Ouattara's government, Patrick Achi, said the former president
had so far shown no signs of giving up.

Mr Gbagbo has not been seen in public for weeks. His residence is mainly protected by
members of the elite presidential guard, and is located on a peninsula in Abidjan's
lagoon.
Mr Achi also said Ouattara loyalists had taken control of RTI. This could not be
confirmed, but the channel went off-air late on Thursday.

Earlier, Mr Ouattara's government said Ivory Coast's land, sea and air borders had been
closed until further notice. It also declared that there would be a curfew from 2100 GMT
to 0600 GMT in Abidjan until Sunday.

Inside Ivory Coast's captured capital

And after looting was reported in several parts of the city, UN and French peacekeepers
took control of Abidjan's international airport.

The BBC's John James in Bouake says growing panic seems to be setting in among Mr
Gbagbo supporters, especially following the decision of the head of the army, Gen
Phillippe Mangou, to seek refuge with his wife and five children at the home of the
South African ambassador.

On Thursday evening, Mr Ouattara's television channel featured several high-level

military officers pledging allegiance to his government. A source also told the BBC that
the head of the gendarmerie, Edouard Kassarate, had defected.

The head of the UN mission, Choi Young-jin said that as many as 50,000 soldiers, police
and gendarmes had abandoned Mr Gbagbo, with only the Republican Guard and
special forces personnel remaining loyal.

"[My troops] have come to restore democracy and ensure respect of the vote by the
people," Mr Ouattara said in an address. "To all those who are still hesitating, whether
you are generals, superior officers, officers, sub officers, rank-and-file... there is still time
to join your brothers-in-arms."

Western diplomats say it is only a matter of time now before Mr Gbagbo flees or is
captured, our correspondent says.

Mr Ouattara's government is giving assurances that the outgoing president will not be
harmed, he adds. They say, instead, that Mr Gbagbo will be made available to the
International Criminal Court.

Lightning advances

Earlier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon again demanded that Mr Gbagbo

immediately cede power to Mr Ouattara "to enable the full transition of state
institutions to the legitimate authorities".
The US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, urged both
sides to exercise restraint and protect civilians. Both Mr Gbagbo and his wife would be
held accountable if significant violence broke out, he added.

Mr Ouattara was internationally recognised as president last year, after the electoral
commission declared him winner of the November run-off vote.

The UN, which helped organise the vote, certified it as legitimate. However, Mr Gbagbo
claimed victory after the Constitutional Council overturned Mr Ouattara's win.

The forces supporting Mr Ouattara have made lightning advances since Monday,
moving out from their base in the northern half of the country.

On Wednesday, his fighters captured Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, and the key
port of San Pedro. Mr Gbagbo's hometown of Gagnoa also fell.

Since the crisis began in December, one million people have fled the violence - mostly
from Abidjan - and at least 473 people have been killed, according to the UN.

Sanctions and a boycott on cocoa exports in what is the world's biggest producer of
cocoa beans have brought West Africa's second-biggest economy to its knees, with
banks closed for more than a month.

An armed rebellion in 2002 split the nation in two - a division the elections were meant
to heal.
----------------------
US Names New Sudan Envoy Amid Concern Over Abyei (VOA)
By David Gollust
March 31, 2011
The Obama administration on Thursday named veteran diplomat Princeton Lyman as
its new special envoy for Sudan. The announcement came amid growing U.S. concern
about tensions in Sudan’s central Abyei region that threaten the country’s north-south
peace process.

Lyman came out of retirement last year to become the administration’s advisor on
Sudan’s north-south negotiations, and he is taking on the wider role of Sudan special
envoy amid worrisome north-south tension in Abyei.

The status of oil-rich Abyei, which straddles Sudan’s north-south dividing line, remains
undecided despite January’s referendum in which southerners voted for independence.

Reports in recent days speak of a military buildup by both sides in Abyei, which is
nominally demilitarized under Sudan’s 2005 peace accord.
At a press event introducing Lyman as the administration’s choice to replace former
U.S. Air Force General Scott Gration as Sudan envoy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
voiced concern about what she called the "dangerous standoff" in Abyei.

"We call on both sides to take immediate steps to prevent future attacks and restore
calm. Violence is simply unacceptable. The deployment of forces by both side is in
violation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and undermines the goodwill
from January’s referendum, which was a very important foundation for the peaceful
future of Sudan," he said.

Abyei was supposed to vote in January on whether to become part of the north or
south, but the polling was postponed because of disputes over voter eligibility.

Clinton, with new envoy Lyman at her side, praised the Sudanese government’s role in
allowing the vote in the south to be held without coercion and for moving the process
forward since January with a spirit of cooperation.

The Obama administration has laid out a "road map" for normalizing relations with
Khartoum that is dependent on its cooperation. Lyman told reporters he expects a
decision removing Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism at the time the
south becomes independent in July.

Lyman, a former Assistant Secretary of State, also credited the Khartoum government
with helping to revive long-running negotiations in the Qatari capital, Doha, among
Sudan and rebel groups on a settlement of the Darfur conflict.

"What’s happened most recently is that the Doha process has suddenly taken on life.
JEM [i.e., the Justice and Equality Movement], which is one of the big rebel groups, has
now rejoined the process. They’re working from the same text. [Sudanese] President
[Omar al-] Bashir was there yesterday saying we support the Doha process, which is a
step forward because they weren’t clear on that. So that’s an important step," he said.

Lyman said the U.S. diplomatic point man for Darfur, Dane Smith, will return to the
region next week, and that he himself will leave Washington Saturday on his first
mission as special envoy, for meetings in Sudan and Ethiopia.

Scott Gration, the previous U.S. Sudan envoy, has been named by President Barack
Obama to be the next U.S. ambassador to Kenya.
------------------------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

UN mission deploys troops to Ivorian church to protect civilians seeking refuge

31 March – The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire has deployed
troops to a key town in the country’s west to protect an estimated 10,000 civilians
seeking refuge at a church amid mounting international concern about the
humanitarian situation in the West African nation.

UN envoy on sexual violence welcomes African commitment to eradicating the vice

31 March – The United Nations envoy on sexual violence in conflict today underlined
the role of the African leadership in combating sexual violence in the continent, and
welcomed the commitment expressed by the African Union (AU) to ensure that the
problem is eradicated.

UN-backed meeting concludes with call for stronger measures to protect gorillas
31 March – A United Nations-backed meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, has concluded with a
call for better enforcement of laws to protect endangered gorillas in 10 African
countries.

New energy-efficient UN offices in Kenya serve as model for future – Ban

31 March – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today officially opened the new energy-
efficient United Nations office complex in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, calling it a model
for environmentally sustainable architecture in Africa and beyond.