CAIRO, Egypt - The Arab League asked the UN Security Council Saturday to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians from air attack by forces of Moammar Gadhafi's embattled government, giving crucial backing to a key demand of the rebel forces battling to oust the Libyan leader.Foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab bloc, meeting in Cairo, also left the Libyan leader of more than 40 years increasingly isolated, declaring his government had "lost its sovereignty."
League Secretary General Amr Moussa stressed in remarks afterward that a no-fly zone was intended as a humanitarian measure to protect Libyan civilians and foreigners in the country and not as a military intervention- They also appeared to confer legitimacy on the rebel's interim government, the National Libyan Council, saying they would establish contacts with it and calling on nations to provide it with "urgent help."
- "The Arab League asks the United Nations to shoulder its responsibility … to impose a no-fly zone over the movement of Libyan military planes and to create safe zones in the places vulnerable to airstrikes," said a League statement released after the emergency session.
The unusually rapid and bold action for a bloc of nations known for lengthy and acrimonious deliberations appeared to reflect the shifting currents of a Middle East in tumult.- Many other Arab governments are facing street protests and rumblings of dissent stirred by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, and their leaders may have felt compelled to act in favour of Libya's rebellion.
The Arab League cannot impose a no-fly zone itself. But the approval of the key regional Arab body gives the U.S. and other Western powers crucial regional backing they say they need before doing so. Many were wary that Western powers would be seen as intervening in the affairs of an Arab country if they began a no-fly zone without Arab approval.- Still, the Obama administration has said a no-fly zone may have limited impact, and the international community is divided over the issue.
The league statement came the same day that an Al-Jazeera cameraman was killed in an ambush near the eastern city of Benghazi, the first journalist slain in the nearly month-long conflict, the satellite station said.Ali Hassan al-Jaber, a Qatari national, was killed and a correspondent was wounded and hospitalized in what the station described as an ambush on the crew as it returned from an assignment south of the rebel stronghold, which is deep inside opposition-held territory.
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