London Summit on Libya's Future

The New York Times reports:

BIN JAWWAD, Libya — A barrage of tank and artillery fire from forces guarding one of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s most crucial bastions of support halted the westward advance of rebels seeking to oust him, while, in London, diplomats prepared for an international conference on Tuesday to define their political vision of a post-Qaddafi era.

The gathering of some 40 governments and international organizations, including the United States, follows a statement by President Obama opposing regime change as “something we cannot to repeat in Libya” after America’s involvement in Iraq. But the meeting in London also comes after a blunt assessment by the American military, which is conducting the bulk of the air campaign against pro-Qaddafi forces, that insurgent advances would be reversed quickly without continued strikes by coalition warplanes.

“The regime still vastly overmatches opposition forces militarily,” Gen. Carter F. Ham, the ranking American in the coalition operation, warned in an e-mail on Monday. “The regime possesses the capability to roll them back very quickly. Coalition air power is the major reason that has not happened.”

Several loud bombs exploded near Tripoli on Monday night, followed by bursts of antiaircraft fire. In a news conference, government officials said the Sahara town of Sabha — another bastion of tribal support for Colonel Qaddafi, along with Surt — had also been hit hard by airstrikes in recent nights.

One aim of the London gathering is to set up a broad forum, including Arab states, to debate Libya’s political future and increase humanitarian aid after weeks of ground fighting and more than a week of missile and air- strikes. The see-sawing fighting has left settlements along the Mediterranean coastal highway battered as the momentum of the rival campaigns shifts and towns change hands.

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