West scrambles to end Libyan crisis

Citing a new wave of attacks on civilians in the city of Musurata, Western powers, desperate to end the civil war, have announced that they would now mount more pressure on Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi, to bring the fighting to an end. As Foreign Ministers of the NATO alliance prepared to meet in Berlin on Thursday for a brainstorming session, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he would “leave no stone unturned, militarily, diplomatically, politically, to enforce the U.N. resolution, to put real pressure on Mr. Qadhafi and to stop the appalling murder of civilians that he is still carrying out…in Misurata and elsewhere in Libya”. With western powers failing to speak in one voice, Libyan opposition spokesman Mahmud Shammam has said weapons can be procured even in the absence of a western consensus. The daily quoted Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem, as saying on Wednesday that U.N. resolutions permitted the supply of “defensive weapons” to opposition forces struggling to fight Libyan armour. Meanwhile, in Tripoli, Khaled Kaim, Libyan deputy Foreign Minister, desperate to link the opposition with “terrorists” has charged that elements of the Lebanese group Hizbollah, which U.S. has for long declared a terrorist organisation, were, fighting alongside the opposition in eastern Libya.