Tuesday, Mar 01, 2011
BENGHAZI (AFP)--Rebel leaders in Benghazi said on Tuesday they are losing hope that a popular uprising can topple Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and are inclined to ask for foreign air strikes.
They gathered for hours at their headquarters in the country's second city to discuss their next move and announced the formation of a military council, but said they would delay any further announcements until Wednesday.
Salwa Bughaighi, a member of the coalition of lawyers and activists trying to run Benghazi after Gadhafi loyalists fled, told reporters government forces in the west of the country posed too strong a threat.
"There is no balance between our forces and Gadhafi's," she said.
"There is a crisis, conflicting emotions between despair and hope for an international solution."
Bughaighi said her coalition would demand a no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi from reinforcing his strongholds in Tripoli and the coastal city of Sirte.
But people who attended the meeting or had knowledge of its discussions said privately late on Tuesday that the coalition was inclining towards seeking foreign air strikes, perhaps under a U.N. mandate, against strategic targets.
"This is something the organisers agreed on in the meeting," said one source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Protesters have publicly rejected foreign intervention, but many are now taking stock of the disparity of strength between their forces--mostly disorganised army defectors--and Gadhafi's well-armed militias.
But the issue remains sensitive.
"This has been leaked to people to gauge their reaction," said one organizer, adding that they have heard favorable responses.
"But people don't want another Iraq or Afghanistan," he said.
Muftah Quwaidir, the father of a 26-year-old shot dead during the protests, stood outside the meeting with a list of targets he said should be attacked.
"We need logistical intervention (against) radar installations, communications (used by the government)," he said.
"The United States brought back democracy in Haiti and they intervened in Kosovo," he said.
"We have the will to fight Ghadafi, but he is stronger than us," he said.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-03-11 1937GMT
