U.S. Drone Hits Libyan Target as Misrata Fighting Continues
April 24, 2011, 6:53 AM EDTBy Todd Shields and Glen Carey
(Adds fighting in Misrata in third paragraph, U.K. foreign secretary’s comments in fifth. See EXTRA and MET for more on Middle East unrest.)
April 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. carried out its first missile attack from a drone aircraft in Libya as fighting continued in the rebel-held city of Misrata.
The Predator drone fired its missile yesterday, the U.S. Defense Department said in an e-mailed statement, without elaborating. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said a Predator strike destroyed a multiple-rocket launcher that had been used against civilians in the rebel-held city of Misrata.
Rebels in Libya have been fighting to end Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year rule since mid-February. NATO war planes operating over the capital Tripoli struck near Qaddafi’s Bab al-Azizia compound, AP reported yesterday. Bursts of automatic weapons fire and rocket explosions could be heard in the city of Misrata, the BBC reported today, citing its correspondents.
Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed yesterday to accept a plan that allows him to cede power in exchange for immunity, a government official said. He would be the third leader forced from office since popular unrest spread through the Middle East, ousting the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia.
U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said he doesn’t anticipate a partition of Libya to create an area for current Qaddafi’s supporters and another for those opposed to him. “I don’t think a partition” is likely “because this is not an east-west split,” Hague told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in London today.
Looking Viable
Fighting has lasted more than six weeks in Misrata where 25 people died and 100 were hurt yesterday in shelling by troops loyal to Qaddafi, unidentified medical personnel told Al Jazeera television.
Libyan tribal leaders are trying to get rebels in Misrata to lay down their arms within 48 hours, the Associated Press said, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim. If negotiations fail, tribal chiefs may send armed supporters into the city of 300,000 to fight the rebels, AP reported Kaim as saying.
Rebel control of Misrata would leave Qaddafi in charge of one major city, Tripoli, W. Andrew Terrill, a research professor of national security affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, said in an interview.
‘Viable Force’
“If the rebels have Benghazi and Misrata, they’re looking like a viable force and a legitimate government” and it could make a stronger case for other nations to join France, Italy and Qatar in recognizing them, Terrill said.
NATO is leading what it calls a United Nations-sanctioned mission to police a no-fly zone, protect civilians and enforce an arms embargo against Qaddafi’s regime.
France, Italy and the U.K. have sent military advisers to the rebels. The U.S. has said it would provide $25 million in non-lethal aid, such as radios and body armor.
President Barack Obama approved the use of Predator drones, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said April 21. The drones are made by closely held General Atomics of San Diego and armed with air-to-ground Hellfire missiles made by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The price of oil has advanced 23 percent in New York this year as unrest spread in the Middle East and North Africa.
Libya’s production of crude oil fell to 390,000 barrels a day in March from an average of 1.6 million barrels a day last year, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The country has Africa’s biggest proved oil reserves.
McCain’s Visit
U.S. Senator John McCain visited Benghazi, the center of the Libyan uprising, on April 22. McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged the U.S. to recognize the rebel Transitional National Council as the country’s government and provide financial assistance and more military aid to the insurgents.
The Obama administration called on all parties in Yemen to implement a plan brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council that allows President Saleh to cede power in return for immunity. Saleh accepted the proposal yesterday, Tarik al-Shami, spokesman at the ruling General People’s Congress, said.
The council’s plan could “resolve the political crisis in a peaceful and orderly manner,” the administration said yesterday in an e-mailed statement from the White House.
Saleh, 68, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaeda, became leader of North Yemen in 1978 and has ruled the Republic of Yemen since the north and south merged in 1990.
--Editors: Paul Tighe, Anand Krishnamoorthy
To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
