Libya Rebels Win Financial Support

The New York Times reports:

The nations intervening in Libya pledged as much as $1 billion in support for the opposition there on Thursday as senior officials continued to predict that the collapse of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government could be imminent.

As the NATO military alliance intensified attacks in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, including a new round of daytime raids, senior officials meeting here acknowledged reports that Colonel Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi could be seeking a negotiated exit and said that repeated entreaties reflected the government’s isolation and weakness, despite public defiance.

“There have been obviously multiple feelers from the Qaddafi regime to various members of the international community coming every other day,” Australia’s foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, said after a meeting of more than 30 nations and international organizations.

Mr. Rudd said the consensus here was that “Qaddafi’s days are well and truly numbered,” giving urgency to the efforts to prepare the opposition for taking power and overseeing a transition. “This is no longer an academic proposition,” he said. “It is a real proposition and one we may be facing sooner than many of you in this room may think.”

Such predictions, echoed again by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, have proved premature more than once before since the United States and other NATO nations began a military campaign in March.