US and allies agree on key NATO role for Libya

U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday won British and French support for a NATO role in the air campaign against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi as the western allies thrashed out operational details aimed at transferring U.S. control of the mission.

Obama, lobbying hard to hand off U.S. command of Libya operations to allies within days, telephoned British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy and all agreed that the NATO alliance would play an important role, the White House said.

But the allies have stopped short of explicitly endorsing NATO political leadership of the mission, which they fear could be a hard sell for NATO member Turkey and undercut shaky Arab support for the effort to bolster anti-Gaddafi rebels.

"What we are saying right now is that NATO will have a key role to play here," Ben Rhodes, a senior White House national security aide, told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Obama's personal diplomacy underscored that NATO's command-and-control capability will make it central to the unfolding campaign against Gaddafi's forces, which began with air strikes on Saturday aimed at protecting civilians.

Seeking to shore up international backing for the operation, Obama has called leaders in Europe and the Middle East and has stressed that NATO must take over a coordinating role as he seeks to avoid getting U.S. forces bogged down in another Muslim country after Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Brussels, NATO diplomats agreed on Tuesday to enforce an arms embargo on Libya but again saw heated debate over whether the alliance should run the military campaign over Libya.

Admiral Samuel Locklear, head of U.S. forces enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya, said he was working closely with British and French officials and that military forces from 13 nations were moving to take part in the mission.

“Transfer within a few days”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters in Moscow that he still saw a quick hand-over.

"I don't want to get out in front of the diplomacy that's been going on but I still think that a transfer within a few days is likely," Gates told reporters on a visit to Russia. "This command-and-control business is complicated. We haven't done something like this. We were kind of on-the-fly before."

One U.S. official said Washington believed NATO would effectively have to take operational, if not political, control due to its superior command structure.

That prospect, which has been strongly resisted by both France and Turkey, threatens to alienate Arab nations over perceptions of Western aggression against a Muslim country.

Obama, who is traveling in Latin America, telephoned the Turkish and Qatari leaders on Monday evening before his discussions with the French and the British.

Turkey has said it is unable to agree to NATO taking over the Libya no-fly zone if the scope of the operation goes beyond what the United Nations sanctioned.

Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed that the Libya mission should be an international effort that includes Arab states and is "enabled by NATO's unique multinational command and control capabilities to ensure maximum effectiveness," the
White House said in a statement.

Western diplomats said Obama's call to Erdogan appeared to have won backing for at least some NATO role in enforcing the U.N. resolution, which could help speed the transition.

A spokesman for the British prime minister said London was talking to Arab nations in a bid to "develop" the coalition.

Russia and the United States clashed over Western bombing raids, with the U.S. defense chief saying Moscow had accepted Muammar Gaddafi’s "lies" about civilian casualties.

In talks with Gates, Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev voiced dismay over what he called the "indiscriminate use of force."

Fighting continues

Fighting continued to rage between forces loyal to Libyan leader Gaddafi and insurgents in several towns on despite the no-fly zone aimed at stopping the violence.

Meanwhile, as a senior U.S. officer said Gaddafi forces were still attacking civilians, doubts persisted over the best way to continue the campaign to stop Gaddafi, and where it was leading.

Libyan anti-aircraft fire opened up over the capital after nightfall on Tuesday, amid the sound of far-off explosions, AFP journalists reported.

Residents of Yafran, 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Tripoli, said at least nine people had been killed in clashes between the two sides.

Rebels also said they were under intense attack in their enclave of Misrata, east of Tripoli, which has been besieged by Kadhafi's forces for weeks, with four children killed Tuesday.

But rebels said they had managed to repulse loyalists and retake the outskirts of the western town of Zintan.

After a third night of strikes on Gaddafi’s strongholds and defense structure, Gates said "significant military fighting that has been going on should recede in the next few days."

In Misrata, a rebel spokesman reached by telephone said insurgents remained in control despite an onslaught by Gaddafi loyalists who had opened fire with tanks and set snipers on roofs to gun down people in the streets.

A standoff persisted in eastern Libya, where Gaddafi forces in and around Ajdabiya, south of the insurgents' capital of Benghazi, easily repulsed attempts by the disorganized and ill-armed rebels to advance.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said future actions of the coalition, which began air strikes on Saturday on Gaddafi military installations, depend in part of the embattled Libyan leader.

"The military operations could stop at any moment. All it would take is for the Tripoli regime to adhere precisely and completely with U.N. Security Council resolutions, and to accept a genuine ceasefire," he said.

He called on Gaddafi to withdraw troops engaged in military advances and send them "back to their barracks."

The military operations could stop at any moment. All it would take is for the Tripoli regime to adhere precisely and completely with U.N. Security Council resolutions, and to accept a genuine ceasefire

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe