Gulf states back the Libyan rebels

GCC ministers urge official contact with Libyan rebels and call Qaddafi regime 'illegitimate'.

A Libyan man holds a box of cartridges as thousands gather for an anti-government protest in central Benghazi.

BRUSSELS // Muammar Qaddafi's regime is illegitimate and contacts should be initiated with the Libyan rebels, the GCC said last night.

The six-nation alliance urged Arab League foreign ministers, who are due to meet in Cairo tomorrow, "to shoulder their responsibilities in taking necessary measures to stop the bloodshed".

"The foreign ministers' council stresses that the existing Libyan regime is illegitimate and calls for the need to initiate contacts with the interim national council," the Gulf states' foreign ministers said after meeting in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

It was the third political boost of the day for the rebels fighting to overthrow Col Qaddafi, after France recognised them as the legitimate government of Libya and the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton announced plans to meet their political representatives next week.

But the rebels' diplomatic progress in unseating Col Qaddafi after nearly 42 years in power came as they were dealt a major setback on the battlefield.

Forces loyal to Col Qaddafi swept eastward across the country, rooting out insurgents from the key eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf. Packed into dozens of pick-up trucks mounted with machineguns, rebels fled the town under a continuous barrage of shelling, rocket and sniper fire. They had controlled it for a week.

Col Qaddafi's son Saif al Islam warned: "We're coming," and said his forces were advancing towards the rebel bastion of Benghazi in eastern Libya.

One rebel fighter dressed in military fatigues said: "We've been defeated. They are shelling and we are running away. That means that they're taking Ras Lanuf."

Although the overwhelming majority of rebels were fleeing east, small groups of men were believed to have stayed in Ras Lanuf, hunkered down in buildings and possibly preparing for a guerrilla battle.

Mahmoud Ibrahim, a retreating rebel in his late teens, wept and called on the US president Barack Obama and the British prime minister David Cameron to intervene. "Where's Obama? Where's Cameron? Tell Obama to help us," he sobbed.

But outside military intervention to aid the rebels seemed no closer to reality yesterday, as EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels remained hesitant about endorsing a no-fly zone above Libya to protect the insurgents from air attacks.

The EU has promised a thorough review of its policy towards undemocratic regimes that violate human rights. But while steadily expanding sanctions on Libya's government, the 27-nation bloc has also struggled to come up with a more forceful response.

For about 100 supporters of Libya's opposition, demonstrating in front of the EU's headquarters in Brussels yesterday, the bloc was not acting nearly quickly enough. "If anything like this happened in Europe, they would have done something within 24 hours," complained Ibrahim Abushima, a Libyan doctor who lives in Belgium.

After the meeting, the UK's foreign secretary, William Hague, set out several conditions for a no-fly zone. "It's very important that a no-fly zone has a demonstrable need that the world can see, that it has a clear legal base and that it has broad support within the region itself, namely North Africa and the Arab world."

His remarks reflected both Nato and the EU shifting the onus of the decision to intervene militarily to both the United Nations and to the region itself.

The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen ,said yesterday "further planning is required" to put a no-fly zone in place, though he noted that Nato was moving "naval assets" closer to the Libyan coast.

Darren Ennis, spokesman for the EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said: "In our vision any possible military action should be supported by the Arab League." The rebel reversals on the battlefield lent an added urgency to the debates in Brussels but may also complicate the international response. Confusion reigned over whether to recognise the opposition's Provisional National Council.

The move was not supported by the EU nor by most foreign ministers. "We recognise only states, not governments or opposition movements," Mr Ennis said.

The uncertain situation on the ground also seemed to stymie Nato. It was "unclear what future direction the country will take", Mr Rasmussen emphasised.

But he added he could not imagine Nato and the international community "to stand idly by as Col Qaddafi keeps attacking his people".

Nato started yesterday a 24-hour surveillance of Libya's air space to track the movement of Col Qaddafi's air force.

The EU also announced a tightening of its sanctions on several Libyan financial institutions.

EU leaders will consider further steps against Col Qaddafi at their summit today.

Despite the indecision of Europe's foreign ministers over acceding to a key rebel request, France's recognition of the rebel Provisional National Council represented a diplomatic success for Col Qaddafi's opponents.

The council is the only "legitimate representative of the Libyan people," the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the French leader held talks at Elysee Palace with two representatives of the council. French officials also said Paris would send an ambassador to the eastern city of Benghazi, the rebels' headquarters.

In spurning Col Qaddafi in favour of his opponents, Mr Sarkozy's government seemed keen to make amends for a series of recent foreign policy gaffes in North Africa.

It underestimated the events that led to the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and was embarrassed by vacations taken by French ministers at the expense of Mr Ben Ali and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

"From the start we've been absent from this extraordinarily positive movement in North Africa," said Dominique Paille, a member of Sarkozy's ruling UMP party. "We started very badly … and since then we have been a little afraid. We must take a certain leadership again," he said.

In Washington, Mrs Clinton said her meeting next week with rebel representatives would take place during a trip to Egypt and Tunisia.

"We are reaching to the opposition inside and outside of Libya. I will be meeting with some of those figures, both in the United States and when I travel next week, to discuss what more the United States and others can do," Mrs Clinton said.

She rejected outright the possibility of unilateral intervention by the US in Libya, saying it could have "unforeseeable consequences."

Injecting a note of caution into discussions about possible military intervention to aid the rebels, she also told a congressional committee that although Col Qaddafi had given up his nuclear weapons, he "still does have some remaining chemical weapons and some other nasty stuff we're concerned about."

In other congressional testimony, the head of the US intelligence community indicated that without outside military aid, the rebels would be defeated.

Col Qaddafi's forces have a logistical advantage over the rebels that means in a long fight the "regime will prevail," said James Clapper, the director of national intelligence.

He added that his appraisal was a personal assessment and not that of the US government.

* Caryle Murphy reported from Riyadh, Ferry Biedermann reported from Brussels. Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse