Military action against Gaddafi to intensify

Military action against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime will be intensifed while a U.N. envoy presses for negotiations to end the war in Libya, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said today.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) and British Foreign Minister William Hague chat during the fourth meeting of the International Contact Group for Libya, in Istanbul, Turkey on 15 July 2011. Hague has called to intensify air strikes on Gaddafi targets.

Hague said the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy to Libya,  Abdul Elah Al-Khatib, would be authorised to present terms for Gaddafi to leave power.
“He (special envoy) has taken a central role in this contact group meeting and we see him as the channel for negotiations and for political settlement, while the military pressure on the regime will continue to intensify,” Hague said in an interview with Reuters during an international Libya contact group meeting in Istanbul.
Together with France, Britain has taken a lead role in the NATO mission to protect Libyan civilians from attack by Gaddafi’s forces and enforce a no-fly zone.
“The people of Benghazi are there and the city was not stormed because of the NATO action. The same applies to Misrata, equally many people in the Western mountains have benefited from that,” Hague said.
“Of course, we all want to follow it through to the real success of the political settlement in Libya that requires Colonel Gaddafi to go,” Hague said. “Military action will intensify.”
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called yesterday for members of the alliance to provide more aircraft to bomb Gaddafi’s forces.