into new. breaking news of this. french warplanes destroyed tanks as they begin patrolling the skies of libya to enforce the un sanctioned no fly zone. over libya but bush is still seeking naval blockade join me in this here in a few moments based on the. necessary military means to stop any aggression from colonel gadhafi gauges the international reaction to. strong words from world leaders who say gadhafi must be stopped from international civilians all the details from europe coming up.

and the white house is wary of being seen as the driving force behind the military actions i'm going to check and i'll be back with more in just a few moments. from our studios here in central moscow this is r.t. with twenty four hours a day just past ten pm now in the russian capital and in libya where the first shots have been five there in the country as foreign forces begin to enforce a no fly zone by the u.n. french fighter jets have attacked a libyan military vehicle and destroyed several tanks in another strike we're just learning it's the first actions since the french president ordered planes to patrol the skies over the city of benghazi to prevent attacks against civilians government troops have reportedly been carrying out attacks on the rebel stronghold for the

day and russia said it would gretz the decision to take military action in libya. developments there in the country and that's not of course to fall asleep she's in the capital tripoli paula we're learning that french planes have carried out the first attacks over libya what do you hearing there in the capital. what we're hearing is that as many as twenty french sighted jets could possibly be over libya at this stage the reports are receiving suggested as many as thought the locals on the ground has been hit and destroyed we understand that they possibly tanks and armored personnel vehicles at the same time the operation at this stage is limited to the area of bin garcia the town in the northeastern part of the country it seems as if the operation is happening on the perimeter that might be to prevent any kind of civilian casualties if the operation had to move further inland we are also hearing though that british ships that start enforcing a mabel blockade and reese will certainly see more heavy international response

coming together in the coming hours there are concerns going on the ground zero in terms of civilian casualties it's very difficult to discern from the skies whether or not a pickup truck on the ground for example is carrying civilians and whether it's carrying his men we're also hearing a lot of alarm here in terms of the command the control and the coordination of this operation and how in fact it will evolve in the future now thousands of people have been theme from the town of benghazi there are long queues at destinations outside the town many of the making me wait brooke there has been fighting also reported in the city of misrata this is the third largest city in the country as of yet no international intervention there at least not receiving any reports of it it is nightfall here in libya it is highly likely in the coming hours and often forces will be retreating we don't expect that they will be a lot of firing in questions at least not from them under the cover of darkness this is not been a strategy in the past they prefer to conduct most of the operations in the day but

certainly those fighter jets can remain up in the sties throughout the night here in tripoli there are growing crowds been used as human shields have been crowds gathering at the airport at gadhafi stronghold and a number of other locations and they are calling on others to come forward as a way of text protecting these kind of science from any kind of hits from fighter jets from inside. national community but at this stage it's still unclear whether or not the intention is tripoli and whether or not we will see any bombs falling here what about the people there in libya what about their reaction to this international intervention now what are you hearing well certainly this is something that the rebels have been calling for weeks now ever since the violence started more than a month ago they have urged the international community to come to the assistance but that aside the rebels themselves also admit that this cannot be the first step in a large scale military operation a lot of concern being expressed just how far this operation will go and certainly the gadhafi regime is against any kind of interference we've heard it after himself

saying that this is illegal that it is illegal for the international community to attack and interfere with the domestic affairs of a sovereign state it is worth noting though that a no fly zone was implemented in iraq for twelve years and during that time saddam hussein stayed in power so apparently has been made in terms of the no fly zone achieve a no fly zone implemented in bosnia and after that no fly zone we have been massacred straighten it so people are asking the question if and no fly zone has not been successful in the past why would it if in fact it's not successful now what will be the next day all the international community now be able to justify for soldiers on the ground and in large population because they'll say essentially that the no fly zone did not go far enough to protect the lives of civilians which is what it is supposed to achieve paula thanks very much indeed for that more from you throughout the day that. reporting there from tripoli a world powers decided to enforce the no fly zone at

a meeting in paris earlier as they met to work out a course of action in libya we can now go to our europe correspondent daniel bushell who's been following what happened there so daniel. tell us what came out of this summit. well the latest reports here is that some twenty warplanes have been deployed above libya and the french side is deploying rafael jets mere old fighter jets as well as a work surveillance aircraft the paris summit that you talk of said that the main concern was to employ a no fly zone above libya which would stop which would effectively ground colonel gadhafi claims that helicopters and the french foreign ministry says that the main concern is to stop the bombing of civilians in and around the rebel stronghold of being ghazi so the initial military operation it was decided at this summit would focus on the haunted by one hundred fifty kilometer area around the area of

fingal's the in the east of tripoli now that paris summit was attended by the heads of the arab league the united nations we also saw the leader of cats also arab countries also coming through several foreign ministers from morocco the united arab emirates and we've had western powers coming through here in the e.u. italy says that it will offer seven obvious bases which are already used by nato regional schools italy not far from libya across the mediterranean sea for bombing to stop be a bombing by colonel gadhafi and potentially for military intervention in that area we've also seen kind of this saying it's fine it's just already in the region and ready to be deployed within two days they just need to sit there and several countries like a tall building and then not miss loans and norway said they will also take part now we've heard response from e.u. leaders david cameron has said that sort of the time for action is that they get

out he has promised to cease by he broke that cease fire and the slaughter he said the slaughter of civilians must be stopped and i get the merkel the chancellor of germany says that there abstention from the u.n. votes in forcing a no fly zone does not mean they don't support that. military intervention but they do support that they just won't be sending forces themselves germany won't be sending forces but intel supports this and she has said the international community is united in its resolve and the war carried out by gaddafi on his own people must stop now we've also heard a response from close the socket the air france let's listen to exactly what he had to say. we agreed to use all necessary means to meet in quincy military means to force the u.n. security council decision that's why an agreement with our partners our schools will oppose any aggression from colonel gadhafi against the population and. as of now our aircraft are preventing that mainly from attacking the town as of now other

french aircraft already to intervene against tanks all armored vehicles should be threatening unarmed civilians those. other leaders of world defense at the paris summit included the u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton but there is growing concern here in the about what's being seen as double standards the west is going into all rich states in particular like libya where it has great commercial interests but it's ignoring turning a blind eye to escalating violence which is spreading across other parts of the region periods like yemen in areas like bakri and also the ivory coast which of course you're seeing horrific violence a moment daniel thanks very much indeed that's our correspondent daniel bushell reporting live from our studios there in brussels. well no doubt more from daniel a little later here on r.t. in the meantime speaking from brazil u.s. president barack obama says it was clear that allied forces had to protect

civilians in libya let's get more now from artie's got a kick out she's in washington d.c. take us through washington's reaction to this. well the a full scale military invasion invention is underway the leaders who got together in paris were very resolute about it as they were talking french warplanes were already in the air over leave and then we got some first reports of attacks on could alfie's ground forces we know that british fighter jets are on standby in cyprus ready to take off and u.s. warships are in the mediterranean missile strikes from those ships very possible with hillary clinton it reiterated after this meeting in paris is that there will be no u.s. troops on the ground but fears are that this operation could grow into something more than just an effort to protect civilians. working the wording of the resolution that was passed on thursday is basically all inclusive short of occupation it says all the measures allowed in order to protect civilians when the resolution was approved russia and china did not use their power to veto it

providing that there will be no operation meaning no boots on the ground the priority is of course protecting civilians who are going to basically promised the massacre in benghazi or national unity and has no choice in those countries that are very much against any military intervention like russia abstained from voting against the resolution but there are still strong majorities as to the implementation of it there are fears that certain actions taken by international forces that are taking part in the operation could destabilize the situation even more shooting down fighter bombers is one thing and. of course that would be part of the no fly zone matters a lot of play of the resolution but arming the rebels is something very different and reports are coming in egypt's military began shipping arms over the border to levy and rebels with knowledge from washington of course because the it is militants very much influenced by washington those are small arms such as assault rifles and ammunition experts say that there are radical elements among those rebels as well and they are unlikely to from merciful their opponents and if your

is that those arms supplies are going to inflame the situation in the region even even further it's going to throw events in libya many would say the u.s. is really sitting on the fence in some ways as you know other countries france britain. is not a fair comment. well drew from what obama was saying on friday and what hillary clinton was saying this saturday you could tell that the white house is wary of being seen as the driving force behind the military actions so most of the work is done behind the scenes the u.k. and france seem to be on the forefront of this international effort also western powers again and again remind if they have the support of the arab league old old at the moment it's not quite clear what their employees will actually be in this action but it is clear that they want to get arab countries assistance so that it doesn't appear as if this is just the west cracking down on yet another arab nation there's one more thing that's worth talking about it's almost never mentioned in

the media coverage of the developments in libya could that be is universally but a den which was previously ago talked about it touched upon it a little bit put out these universally denounced for his actions against levy and people last week for the international community is absolutely the united in condemning can for a good reason but when you think about other leaders who got away with attacks on civilians you see a great amount of hypocrisy in the way those leaders are treated let's take israel for example it has been bombing the civilian population of the gaza for three weeks in a row in two thousand and eight western powers who are now sold off in arms protracting to civilians who needed did nothing literally nothing to stop the massacre of palestinians in gaza or we can take take a look at the recent developments in the leadership there is cracking down on protesters in a terrible way scores are dead and there is no time to believe or national effort to stop it yemen same story yemen to treat protesters there and nothing more pakistan just this friday u.s. drone killed thirty eight civilians there will anyone be responsible for that and

only safe as things are now it looks like the international community is very selective when it comes to protecting civilians in libya they protect them in dozens of other places where it's going i'm going to thanks very much indeed for that from washington d.c. i want to check on their. so french fighter jets have carried out a series of strikes against targets around the libyan city of benghazi latest reports tell us that several armored vehicles and tanks have been destroyed in those attacks these are the first rate since the u.n. security council adopted a resolution allowing the use of all the means necessary to protect the civilian population of the media well earlier troops loyal to colonel gadhafi reportedly carried out attacks on benghazi which is the rebel stronghold valentin a cease fire. that cease fire of course was promised by colonel gadhafi yesterday now the british opposition m.p. jeremy corbin says his country is being very selective when deciding where military

intervention is necessary. i think it's hard to guess he was to call a ceasefire in order to hope for one hope to bring about a peaceful resolution of this conflict but it was beginning to look as though he was just trying to buy time for himself i must say i absolutely regret the lack of the ceasefire and regret what is happening at the moment a lot of innocent people have already died and a lot more look as though they're going to die in the next few hours if they strike against. military targets of the regime then they might be effective at doing that but i suspect the real problem is they're going to have to strike against targets in the cities and that results in large numbers of million casualties this is a terrible situation an awful lot of innocent people are going to die because of the situation in libya i think there's a lot of double standards going on here because what is happening in libya is obviously terrible and obviously gadhafi should have heeded the views of ordinary people and come to some kind of accommodation with them all removed himself from

office but. there's been no condemnation worthy of anything against our aim saudi arabia yemen or a martin who've also been killing large numbers of civilians totally over the last few weeks and i think that the west has been very selective about this was the u.n. has put in place a resolution calling for a no fly zone and that is obviously they have not used the words regime change clearly what's intended and if they go ahead with this and it doesn't work then the next thing is going to be what do you do next keep putting ground forces in if you put in ground forces where do they come from because i can't imagine that any arab league country is going to want to put troops into libya for very obvious reasons that the same thing could happen because then remember the arab league is led by a lot of people that are all under threat themselves and now there's a worry that we're getting ourselves involved in yet another war and yet another conflict which is essentially an internal civil war in libya and at the same time

only six weeks ago. britain was selling arms to libya buying oil from the british companies were investing in libya and the libya was investing heavily in this country and so it's in a very short space of time that libya has gone from most favored nation to zero and one sort of wonder the speed of all this and many of those that are now calling for problems with libya were only a few weeks ago in libya doing business deals. jeremy corbin there in london where we can now get more from marco and he's a professor in international relations he joins us now from the turkish capital ankara thanks very much indeed for joining us here on r.t. can i just quickly get your reaction on the latest news we've heard and that is that french jets have been bombing military targets on the ground where i'm going on the understanding that a no fly zone has been imposed in that no fly zone supposed to be stopping any of the daffy's jets operating above the libyan rebels and bombing them from from the

sky and yet we're seeing a slight change in military intervention that we were seeing they say forces actually bombing targets on the ground what do you make of that intervention. and what president sarkozy said from president obama yesterday the intention are we countries are taking military action under the u.n. resolution. and they wish. the rebels against him on the ground and so we talk about you know right and was i think rather exaggerated because colonel gadhafi as far as i can see has had a most of it doesn't airplanes the rebels have been going to put up this money promptly crashed. in fact the whole issue of a lot of parents is so great and really the basic problem has been there are going to be people to car that are the rebels have turned out it's not really very effective as a military force or more around all the rebel army colonel gadhafi is already has

largely melted away he has perhaps ten to fifteen thousand soldiers fired from his side and he seems to have more people ready to fight him than are organized to fight on either side and that's where i. needed to try and turn the heart why is it taken so long though for the international community to impose this no fly zone and indeed to carry out this military intervention which we've just seen now and some may say it's too little too late. i think it's let's face it this issue is in being only for three weeks or so so that in some ways it's a very first action even but it's going to be few people have been killed and i think we are talking in terms of a few hundred people which are the standards of civil wars and by those going on for instance i suppose africa is still very small so in some ways the major countries of course the resolution quickly but also they face the problem that they're trying to do two things to satisfy other countries in the world of detention and

a lot of the same not to locals are asleep on this crisis because that sarkozy takes a british promise of a cameron now president obama the united states and all their personal credibility on the line khaled are she's not going to survive this crisis you're not in a bad case do you think that is the case that gadhafi will not escape this now that his days are numbered. if the nato countries use the military power you can get out of it as american. whether they can only create peace and stability let alone a reversal of nuclear as they didn't really do very well in iraq and i think that's the bigger question colonel gadhafi. is just the right light and it will appear and in the scenario where he. was not really. though retaliation against those countries that have been involved in this at a later stage even if that the guards go could we see some retaliation terrorism

for example. terrorism was that it was likely consequence we've already seen from in israel people will say my life was killed by leaving a point you were. initially are now in libya coming to italy from enterprise and so one of the governments must try to grant us a glimpse into being to stop the flow going to. practice people who are often decide to miss traditions in kosovo and not in latin are basically even sussman to mention metals are so much better or they come to western europe so i think we can see a domestic crisis. facing a card away who refused to north africa at all colonel gadhafi when he was doing our friend six months ago was recently stuck in refugees from africa coming from libya to your he's already threatened she's going to open the floodgates are. not calm and very interesting to hear what you have to say thanks so much for joining us here live on r.t.

one common professor in international relations joining us there in turkey where russia's foreign ministry says it regrets the international intervention in libya it's called on all sides to do all they can to stop the suffering of peaceful citizens and to put in place an immediate cease fire let's get some more reaction now from we cannot get off is chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the russian federation council thanks very much indeed for joining us well. thinks the u.n. resolution backing the no fly zone was agreed hastily and is full of loopholes what's your view on this. well actually the resolution number one thousand nine hundred seventy three its main goal was to defend the civilian population but not to punish the adelphi regime or overthrow it and so in that respect with think that one thousand nine hundred seventy three resolution is mostly a humanitarian resolution to listen to speak from humanitarian resolution than a full military resolution my personal concern is that any military operation

which is conducted by the west in the arab world can lead to a very predictable scenario like hold the parties involved in the conflict and they get together and start fighting against foreign invaders there were several examples of such scenarios in the history of the greater middle east so i think that we all have to be very cautious now and we all have to think first of all of that the political solution should go before a military solution he say the concerns about intervention from the west but the fact that this intervention has been supported by other arab countries the arab league does that not make any difference at all to the situation. well actually that's correct about the first strike was done by the in their native country by france and we know how public opinion in arab countries reacts

many commentators will be saying that they gan western colonialists are trying to invade in africa trying to invade in the greater middle east that's why i think russia was so cautious when we were. discussing the text of the rest of the resolution one thousand seventy three. when we were promoting our own draft of the resolution and we still think that. well one should play political chess. in the arab world instead of playing american football all right what about russia's future relations with libya i mean let's say for some say that gadhafi could actually stay in power so what will russia's position be with regards to diplomatic situation to come back to times and indeed military contracts there in the country. well i think we did very

clearly when we supported the first resolution the united nations imposing sanctions against gadhafi regime and russian president dmitri medvedev was crystal clear signing his decree and saying that the leader of the country which is from being a civilian population during the demonstrations does not have the right to be called a leader of that country russia is not playing any games. are not an evil of the quality of the gadhafi regime we think that regime has already lost its internal and international credibility but we think also that there are people really i should sell songs their problems themselves in what way they will mostly be involved with the outcome of their nobody really knows who the opposition is but clearly there's going to be some form of government in what way will make

efforts to make contact with that government and and build a relationship. well actually we are building bridges we are creating docking mechanisms we are not blind we are not me you've we have a dialogue with the different political forces in libya we have a dialogue with them before so we were surprised like anybody else with such a fast development with and here in government and right here in the studio with you guys we. are in kind of. contacts with all the political forces in libya and i think that all of those who has contacts on both sides should try to do to facilitate political dialogue i'm absolutely sure that even if. you will in his inner circle. a wise people understand that there. will exist

i'll take a doubt and with gadhafi and all the. people should get together and leave you know . my thanks very much indeed for joining us we cannot get off the foreign affairs committee of russia's federation council joining me there in the square. where french fighter jets are for the first shots at kind of get off his troops destroying several tanks and vehicles at a summit in paris earlier today france the u.k. and twenty others agreed to do everything necessary to make the daffy respect a u.n. security council resolution demanding a cease fire in libya forces launch of the libyan leader have carried out a series of attacks throughout the day on the city of benghazi the main rebel base russia says it regrets the decision to take military action as we had already also called for the end of bloodshed and sides in libya to start talking well just remind you you can follow all the latest developments in libya on our twitter and facebook pages we've got links to videos and regular updates that.

it's easy. to. see. this is all to come in your life from the russian capital with you twenty four hours a day and we'll continue our coverage of the situation in libya stay with us live here on i'll be back with a summary of the main developments. please

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