By Joseph Logan, Matt Spetalnick

Reuters
 
This Sept. 2009 file photo shows Gadhafi gesturing with a green cane as he takes his seat behind bulletproof glass for a military parade in Green Square, Tripoli, Libya.

TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON: U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday it was inevitable that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi would have to leave power and only then could a democratic transition in the North African state proceed.
“Time is working against Gadhafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council,” Obama said in Washington.
“When Gadhafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed,” he said, defending his decision to take military action against the Libyan leader’s government.

His comments echoed those of NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen who said Thursday that military and political pressure were weakening Gadhafi and would eventually topple him.
Acting under a U.N. mandate, NATO allies including France, Britain and the United States are conducting air strikes that aim to stop Gadhafi using military force against civilians.

In some of the latest strikes, NATO hit Gadhafi’s forces around 15 kilometers east of the rebel-held town of Zintan in the Western Mountains region. The town and the port city of Misrata have seen some of the heaviest fighting in recent weeks.
A Reuters reporter in Zintan said NATO strikes on a government arms depot outside the city sent plumes of smoke into the sky. Government shelling of rebel divisions near the town killed at least one rebel and wounded three, a medical official in the town said.

Rebels control eastern Libya and pockets in the west but the conflict has reached a military stalemate as rebel attempts to advance on Gadhafi’s stronghold of Tripoli have stalled.

Western governments, under pressure from skeptical voters, are counting on Gadhafi’s administration to collapse.
“We have significantly degraded Gadhafi’s war machine. And now we see results, the opposition has gained ground,” Rasmussen told a news conference in the Slovak capital Bratislava.
“I am confident that a combination of strong military pressure and increased political pressure and support for the opposition will eventually lead to the collapse of the regime.”

The last few days have seen a flurry of diplomatic activity focusing on a possible cease-fire deal. Pro-Gadhafi officials traveled to Moscow for talks and U.N. envoys are trying to broker a short-term pause to allow aid to flow.
But Western powers are likely to stress their determination to keep the pressure on Gadhafi when heads of state from the Group of Eight industrialized nations meet on May 27-28 in the French seaside resort of Deauville.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the summit host, has been among the most interventionist Western leaders.
And in a bid to raise pressure on Tripoli, the EU is considering tightening sanctions by blacklisting some Libyan ports to prevent exports of oil and imports of fuel, a Western diplomatic source told Reuters.
EU experts have reached an agreement over putting the Libyan ports of Tripoli, Zuara, Zawiyah, Al-Khoms, Ras Lanuf and Brega on the sanctions list and proposals could be submitted to the EU sanctions committee next week, the source said.

Gadhafi’s government is seeking to raise fuel imports by using a loophole in international sanctions.
Civil war has crippled the refining industry and Gadhafi urgently needs fuel imports to keep his military operating and civilian vehicles running in the areas he controls.
“West Libya’s supply of refined products is still sufficient. Western powers want a lot more control over supplies to Libya,” the source said.

Even so, the conflict could last months or longer if Gadhafi hangs on despite war, NATO strikes, sanctions and an indictment by the International Criminal Court, one analyst said.
Diplomats are watching reports that Gadhafi’s wife, daughter and the country’s top oil official have left Libya, in part because they raise questions about the leader’s ability to hold his entourage together.

A Tunisian security source and a Libyan opposition source with links to the ruling circle said this week that Gadhafi’s wife Safia and daughter Aisha were staying on the Tunisian island of Djerba, near the border with Libya.
And Libyan rebel officials, as well as official sources in Tunisia, told Reuters that Shokri Ghanem, a former prime minister who runs Libya’s oil industry, had left Libya via Tunisia, though it was unclear where he had gone.