TRIPOLI, Libya — With the battle for Libya fought with words and threats in world capitals as well as on the sandy battlefields Thursday, Col. Moamar Khadafy warned the West it had started something it could not control while a White House spokesman said Khadafy’s inner circle had realized “the days of this regime are numbered.”
In London, British Foreign Minister William Hague said former Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa, whose defection Wednesday was a major blow to Khadafy, had not been offered immunity from British or international justice. Scottish prosecutors Thursday requested an interview to question Kusa about the 1988 plane bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people.
In a related development, The New York Times reported a second top Libyan official, Ali Abdussalam el-Treki, defected Thursday to Egypt. Treki had served as both foreign minister and United Nations representative during his longtime service to the Libyan government.
At the same time, London’s Guardian newspaper reported Khadafy’s government had sent one of its most trusted envoys to London for confidential talks, a potential sign his regime might be looking for an exit strategy.
At the White House, presidential press secretary Jay Carney said Musa’s defection was a sign Khadafy’s inner circle was crumbling.
“One of Moamar Khadafy’s most trusted aides jumped ship and I think that is the most significant development of the past 24 hours in terms of an indicator of where this is headed,” Carney said. “The point is the pressure on Khadafy is extreme, the people around him are realizing that the days of this regime are numbered.”
On the ground in Libya, Khadafy’s forces were reportedly fighting opposition rebels outside the eastern oil town of Brega. The loyalist forces regained some momentum in the past 48 hours after stemming a rebel advance on Sirte, Khadafy’s hometown.
Sky News reported a resident of the port city of Misrata in western Libya said by satellite phone there had been a dozen loud explosions there and rockets were being fired in and around the city by pro-Khadafy forces. He said the fighting had been raging throughout Thursday and Misrata was cut off from all telephone and internet communication.
In the air, NATO assumed command of all air operations in Libya from the US-led international coalition early Thursday. But the head of the 28-nation alliance, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told reporters NATO was opposed to arming the Libyan rebels, despite Washington and London refusing to rule out such a move.
Meanwhile, in Washington, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, testifying on Capitol Hill, said there would be no US troops on the ground in Libya “as long as I am in this job.” He also said he thought Khadafy’s removal would be achieved “over time through political and economic measures and by his own people.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, also testifying Thursday, said some of Khadafy’s military gains in recent days were due to bad weather, which prevented coalition air strikes.
For his part, Khadafy warned the West, which launched air strikes to protect Libyan civilians almost two weeks ago, had “started something dangerous – something they cannot control,” the state news agency JANA reported. “It will be out of their control no matter what methods of destruction they have at their disposal,” he said.
Khadafy also charged the now NATO-led operation as “a second Crusader war between Christians and Muslims” and said the Western leaders had been “stricken with madness” and should resign immediately.
In Libya, AFP reporters said running battles raged Thursday on the edge of Brega, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Tripoli, with pro-government forces shelling the insurgents, who returned fire with Grad rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.
Artillery shells thumped across the desert, sending up black clouds of smoke, as rebels responded with a barrage of rockets that flared through the sky before disappearing in the distance.
Clashes also erupted around an oil terminal, but it was unclear who was in control of the town, which the rebels had seized back at the weekend, only to lose it again Wednesday.
According to AFP, experts said the opposition lacked anti-tank weapons, radios and other basics, but above all the disjointed, chaotic force needed some rudimentary training.
But Rasmussen said NATO was firmly against distributing weapons to the rebel fighters.
“We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm people,” Rasmussen told reporters in Stockholm.
In London, Hague said Kusa’s defection was a sign that the Khadafy regime was crumbling, and he renewed his call for other government figures to follow him.
“Khadafy must be asking himself who will be the next to abandon him,” Hague said.
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Thursday added to the call to mine Kusa for information, FOX News reported. The senator’s office said he viewed the ex-minister as a potential source of information about the bombing.
Menendez and other senators representing New Jersey and New York, where the bulk of the victims were from, have long spoken out about the bombing — particularly after convicted bomber Abdel Basset al Megrahi was released to Libya by Scottish officials in 2009. At the time, the cancer-stricken Megrahi was thought to have just six months to live, but he remains alive to this day.
New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer said in a letter Thursday that the Obama administration should hold off on formally recognizing the rebel movement until they commit to turning Megrahi over to the United States, “so that he may be tried and convicted in an American criminal court.”