Thread: Putin: Who gave NATO right to kill Gaddafi?

Putin: Who gave NATO right to kill Gaddafi?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw5Ij_RF ... ure=relmfu

Apr 26, 2011

Who gave coalition forces in Libya the right to eliminate Gaddafi? That's the question Vladimir Putin's been asking, during an official visit to Denmark. The Russian Premier also said NATO's effectively joined one of the warring sides in the conflict. And more responsible action should be taken instead.

Libya: US rejects Putin's claim that coalition wants to assassinate Gaddafi

US defence secretary Robert Gates says coalition not targeting Libyan leader after claims UK and US went beyond mandate

Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 April 2011 23.36 BST
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Liam Fox and Robert Gates after a Pentagon meeting about Libya. Fox said Gaddafi was showing signs of desperation. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

US defence secretary Robert Gates has rejected a Russian claim that Nato is trying to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Gates was speaking after a meeting at the Pentagon with British defence secretary Liam Fox, who also distanced himself from the accusation. Fox has in recent days has been edging towards declaring Gaddafi a legitimate target.

Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, made the claim after Nato forces bombed Gaddafi's residence in Tripoli on Monday. Putin, on a visit to Denmark, said: "They said they didn't want to kill Gaddafi. Now some officials say: 'Yes, we are trying to kill Gaddafi'. Who permitted this, was there any trial? Who took on the right to execute this man, no matter who he is?"

The Russian leader said the actions were now going beyond the United Nations security council mandate passed last month in which Russia and China abstained. Libya asked Russia to call for a new security council meeting to discuss what it claims is illegitimate action by Nato.

China has also expressed concern about Britain sending military "advisers" to help the Libyan rebels, claiming this went beyond the UN mandate. But Gates, at the end of his meeting with Fox, insisted: "We are not targeting him [Gaddafi] specifically." However command and control centres were legitimate targets, the US defence secretary clarified. Fox also denied Nato was trying to kill Gaddafi. "We do not target individuals" he said.

Before leaving for Washington, Fox told the Daily Mail: "If the regime continues to wage war on its people, those who are involved in those command and control assets need to recognise that we regard them as legitimate targets. Those who are ... controlling the regime's activities against its own people, would have to recognise the risks they would have if they were there during Nato strikes."

Fox appealed to Gates for more help to end the Libyan conflict and to topple Gaddafi. But Gates, who has resisted US involvement in Libya from the outset, rebuffed the plea. Fox denied he had gone to Gates with a specific shopping list that included the A10 tankbuster plane.

Obama agreed last week to deploy US drones in Libya but Fox and General Sir David Richards, the chief of defence staff, planned to ask the US to bring back low-flying A10 tankbusters, according to British government officials.

As residents in Misrata reported continued shelling of civilian areas by pro-Gaddafi forces, there is dismay in London and Washington over the lack of progress in the push to remove Gaddafi.

Gates and Obama have tried to minimise their involvement in Libya, given the country is already engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fox, speaking on the steps of the Pentagon after meeting Gates, said: "We have seen significant progress made in the last 72 hours with Gaddafi's forces losing their grip on Misrata and we have received reports of under-age soldiers and foreign mercenaries being captured – this underlines the regimes inability to rely on its own security forces. These are the tactics of an increasingly desperate and weak regime."

Foreign secretary William Hague warned his cabinet colleagues that Britain must be prepared for the long haul, according to a Downing Street spokeswoman. She said: "The general tone was that there were grounds for optimism, good progress was being made, the alliance was holding up very well, but clearly we need to turn up the pressure. The mission is going in the right direction but we need to prepare for the long haul."

Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, accused Fox of causing confusion and concern. "These inflammatory comments need clarification," he said. "We support action in Libya within the UN mandate, but we need clarity on the scope and ultimate aim of UK military action."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ap ... intcmp=239

Nato strikes Gaddafi power base

Tuesday April 26 2011 Nato has stepped up pressure on the increasingly embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi with an air strike that reduced parts of his compound to a smouldering ruin.

A Libyan government spokesman condemned Monday's bombing as a failed assassination attempt, insisting the 69-year-old leader was healthy, "in high spirits" and carrying on business as usual.

A separate air strike elsewhere in Tripoli targeted Libyan TV and temporarily knocked it off the air, a government spokesman said.

Since an armed uprising erupted in mid-February, Gaddafi has been clinging to control in the western half of Libya, while opposition forces run most of the east. A Nato campaign of air strikes has sought to break a battlefield stalemate, and the US last week added armed US Predator drones to the mission.

Italy said on Monday its military would join in strategic bombing raids in Libya.

Nato said its latest air strike sought to destroy a communications headquarters used to co-ordinate attacks on civilians. A spokesman for the alliance said it was increasingly targeting facilities linked to Gaddafi's regime.

"We have moved on to those command and control facilities that are used to co-ordinate such attacks by regime forces," the spokesman said of the strike on Bab al-Aziziya, which was hit last month, early in the Nato air campaign.

Also on Monday, Gaddafi's forces unleashed new shelling on Misrata that killed at least 10 people, following a weekend pounding that belied government claims its troops were holding their fire as they withdrew from the western city that has been besieged for nearly two months.

Among the dead from a shattered residential neighbourhood was an entire family, according to a doctor in Misrata. Mourners later carried six crudely-constructed coffins of family members, plus one child who had been visiting, to a funeral near a mosque.

Gaddafi's son Saif later claimed his father had "millions of Libyans with him" and said Nato's mission was doomed to fail. "In history, no country has achieved victory with spies and traitors and collaborators. ... Nato, you are the losers," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency JANA.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/9613791

Putin suggests NATO has tried to kill Gadhafi (updated)

2 days ago at 22:13 | Associated Press COPENHAGEN, Denmark

(AP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday slammed the NATO-led airstrikes in Libya, saying attacks on Moammar Gadhafi's palaces indicate the aim is to kill the Libyan leader.

On Monday, NATO bombs hit a building in Gadhafi's official residence in Tripoli, in what the Libyan government maintained was an assassination attempt.

NATO has denied it is trying to kill the Libyan leader.

"There was talk about a no-fly zone. OK. But where's the no-fly zone if every night they're bombing palaces where Gadhafi lives?" Putin said during a visit to Denmark.

"They say, 'No, we don't want to destroy him.' Then why bomb the palaces? Is that how they drive out the mice?"

The commander of NATO's operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, said Tuesday the attack on the presidential complex in Tripoli was aimed at an army command center and denied it was an attempt to kill Gadhafi.

Bouchard said the complex is "a military compound in which there are various houses and residences ... and various military command and control nodes throughout."

Putin accused the nations taking part in the NATO-led operation of straying from the U.N. mandate to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians.

"Now several officials are saying, 'Yes, we're trying to destroy Gadhafi.' But who allowed you to do this? What, there was a trial? Who gave themselves the right to sentence someone to death, regardless what kind of person he is?" Putin said.

He didn't specify which officials or countries he was referring to.

Russia abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote last month authorizing the military operation in Libya. At the time Putin compared the U.N. resolution to "a call for a crusade."

When Putin was asked by a Danish reporter Tuesday what he meant by that remark, he spent three-minutes questioning the goals of the intervention and urging participating nations to read the U.N. resolution again.

"Is there a summons there for everyone to come and do whatever they want in Libya?" he said. "When the so-called civilized world community directs all its powers against a small country, destroying infrastructure created over generations, I don't know whether it's good or not. But I don't like it."

The Russian prime minister said that Libya has the largest oil reserves in Africa.

"It begs the question: is this the real source of interest of those who are brandishing their weapons now?" Putin said.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, whose country is part of the operation.

Denmark's Air Force on Tuesday said its F-16 fighter jets so far have dropped 285 bombs on 127 missions over Libya.

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/102955/