Secretary General of the League of Arab States Amr Moussa criticized on Sunday the coalition strikes against targets in western Libya. The attacks began after the UN imposed a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Moammar Gadhafi's forces from attacking civilians calling for the downfall of his regime. British, American and French military forces on Saturday fired missiles at Libyan air defenses to end the Gadaffi regime's bloody oppression of the month-long Libyan revolution. In a press statement on Sunday, Moussa said, "What happened in Libya is different from the intended aim of imposing the no-fly zone. We want to protect civilians, not the bombing of more civilians." "Protection of civilians may not need military interventions… From the beginning we requested the imposition of a no-fly zone to protect civilians and to avoid any further developments or actions,” he said. Moussa explained that the Security Council's decision included the prevention of any land invasion or occupation of territory and that the Arab League had said there was no need for any military operations. He went on to say that he had requested official reports concerning the air and naval strikes on Libya, which have led to the deaths and injury of many Libyan civilians, pointing out that he had asked for detailed reports to find out what had actually happened. Moussa did not add any further details. However, he pointed out that discussions were under way for the scheduling of a new emergency meeting of the Arab League Council to discuss the latest developments in the Arab region, with special attention to Libya. Arab foreign ministers had called on the UN Security Council last week to impose a no-fly zone to protect civilians as well as Arab and foreign nationals in Libya. Western countries and NATO had initially insisted they would not intervene militarily in Libya without approval of regional organizations. Translated from the Arabic Edition
