President Barack Obama demanded Friday that Moammar Gadhafi halt all military attacks on civilians and said that if the Libyan leader did not stand down the United States would join other nations in launching military action against him.
Residents of Misurata and Adjabiya in Libya said pro-Gadhafi forces were continuing an assault on their cities, hours after the Libyan government had announced a cease-fire in response to a U.N. Security Council resolution.
The New York Times says it's holding out hope that four of its journalists who went missing while covering the Libyan conflict are alive and in the custody of the Libyan government.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Wednesday that the international community needs to act immediately to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, stressing that "time is running out" for Libyan freedom fighters.
I recently returned to my homeland in Libya for the first time in 41 years. I and other members of the royal family endured a long exile in Cairo and elsewhere, keeping our heads down during years when Moammar Ghadafi had hit squads deployed to assassinate opposition elements around the globe. Now is the time to return and reunite to overthrow the dictatorial regime in Tripoli. My fear, however, is that the democratic moment may pass if the free world dawdles in indecision.
The U.N. Security Council on Thursday approved a resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and take "all necessary measures" to protect civilians, even as Col. Moammar Gadhafi's warplanes bombed Benghazi, the eastern city at the heart of the rebellion.
If the world is in crisis, you wouldn't know it by watching President Obama's spring break. Between golf, basketball and the president's upcoming trip to Rio de Janeiro, the White House is projecting a disinterested aura of business as usual. For this administration, "tuned-out" is the new normal.
Col. Moammar Gadhafi's air force bombed the airport in the Libyan opposition's main stronghold on Thursday after the rebels used seized planes and helicopters to launch attacks on the government's advancing troops, witnesses and rebel officials said.
President Obama's less-than-penetrating observation last month that the protesters in Egypt wanted "change" is obviously correct. But despite the president's affection for the word, there is very little assurance of what "change" will bring and whether it will be congruent with American principles and interests.
