Leaders: Libya campaign will continue until Gaddafi goes
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States vow to continue the military campaign in Libya until Colonel Muammar Gaddafi “goes, and goes for good.”
In a strongly worded article published across the Atlantic, Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and US President Barack Obama said it would be “unthinkable” to leave Gaddafi in power in Libya.
The leaders wrote: “It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government. So long as Gaddafi is in power, NATO and its coalition partners must maintain their operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds.
Colonel Gaddafi must go, and go for good. UK, France and US leaders
“Then, a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive constitutional process can really begin, led by a new generation of leaders. For that transition to succeed, Colonel Gaddafi must go, and go for good.”
Gaddafi Reaction
In response to the pressure, the Libyan leader’s daughter told supporters that talk of Gaddafi stepping down was “an insult to all Libyans”.
Aisha Gaddafi told a rally in Tripoli: “Talk about Gaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Gaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans.”
Read more on Libya: 'we are in for the long haul'
The speech coincided with the 25th anniversary of US air strikes on a Gaddafi family compound in Libya, in 1986.
Stalemate
The article by the coalition partners comes as the action on the ground increasingly looks like a bloody stalemate, and as cracks begin to appear in the coalition itself about how best to protect Libyan civilians.
France and Britain called earlier this week for more firepower to take out Gaddafi’s armour and allow his opposition in the east to take him on.
The Libyan rebels in the east, meanwhile, begged for more air strikes and said they faced a massacre by Gaddafi in the besieged city of Misrata, the only rebel-held city in the west of Libya.
They said that missiles fired by Gaddafi killed 23 civilians, mostly women and children, on Thursday amid a wider humanitarian disaster.
“The destruction there was huge, I was there and saw for myself,” a rebel spokesman called Ghassan said.
The western leaders said Misrata was “enduring a medieval siege as Gaddafi tries to strangle its population into submission.”
