NATO suggests a Ramadan cease-fire in Libya

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO suggested Tuesday that it would be willing to stop bombing Libya during Ramadan if Moammar Gadhafi’s forces also honored a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month.
“We need to wait and see whether Gadhafi’s forces continue to shell and inflict harm,” said a NATO spokesman, Wing Cmdr. Mike Bracken.
“If they do, and we believe there is risk to the lives of Libyan people, then I think it would be highly appropriate to continue to use the mandate that NATO has to protect those lives,” Bracken said during a teleconference from NATO’s operational command in Naples, Italy.
NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said, “It is hoped that Gadhafi’s forces will stop attacking and threatening to attack civilians, not just for Ramadan but immediately. As long as attacks and threats continue, NATO’s mission remains to protect civilians in Libya.”
U.S.-led forces have not honored Ramadan — which begins about Aug. 1 — by stopping their bombing campaigns against the armed groups they face in mostly Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan.
But Gadhafi has claimed that NATO’s air force attacks on cities such as Tripoli, Libya’s capital, are aimed at civilians. NATO also appears concerned that bombing the city during the Muslim nation during Ramadan — a monthlong period of prayer, reflection and sunrise-to-sunset fasting — could provoke a backlash in the Islamic world.
The Western alliance is operating under a U.N. mandate that allows the use of air force raids to protect Libya’s civilians. It could halt such attacks, but some analysts have warned that any letup in the bombing could quickly backfire.
Gadhafi’s forces have been weakened by the campaign of aerial bombardment that has lasted nearly four months, but they remain more than a match on the ground for the ragtag rebel forces.