Lybie: des alliés divisés?

Des fissures dans la coalition...

The attacks Monday followed a weekend of punishing air strikes aimed at preventing Moammar Gadhafi's forces from killing civilians seeking his ouster. The coalition strikes over the weekend have scattered troops loyal to Col. Gadhafi and stopped the offensive to crush rebel forces in the stronghold of Benghazi.

But the operation, and the extent of the involvement by the coalition has raised criticism from the Arab League, as well as China and Russia, who supported a request from Libya to hold a closed-door meeting of the United Nations Security Council Monday in New York.

"The Security Council resolution is flawed, it allows everything and is reminiscent of a medieval call for a crusade," said Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "In fact, it allows intervention in a sovereign state."

The duration of the military intervention in Libya, one of the pressing issues under discussion by the coalition and its allies, is likely to last "a while," a top French official told the Associated Press Monday.

That estimate echoes Col. Gadhafi's warning of a long war ahead as rebels, energized by the strikes on their opponents, said they were fighting to reclaim a city under siege from the Libyan leader's forces.

Burned-out tanks and personnel carriers littered the main desert road leading southwest from Benghazi, the rebel's capital in the east of the country, the remains of a pro-Gadhafi force that had been besieging the city until it was pounded by international strikes the past two nights.

Rebel fighters in Benghazi had now pushed down that highway to the outskirts of the city of Ajdabiya, which pro-Gadhafi forces have surrounded and been pounding with artillery and strikes since last week, the AP reported.

The rebels swept into the nearby oil port of Zwitina, just northeast of the city, which was also the scene of heavy fighting last week, according to the AP.

Col. Gadhafi is not a target of the campaign, a senior U.S. military official said, but he could not guarantee the Libyan leader's safety. A cruise missile attack blasted Gadhafi's residential compound late Sunday, hitting a military command and control center.

La suite sur le site du Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703858404576214032361780122.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories