Libya NTC Leader Wants NATO Warplanes Through December

Urges NATO to Add 'Military Advisers' on the Ground

In an interview today with al-Jazeera, Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil urged NATO to continue its bombing campaign over the nation through at least the end of December and to add “military advisers” on the ground.

“We look forward to NATO continuing its operations,” Jalil insisted, saying he would welcome the forces on the ground to supplement the “hundreds” of Qatari ground troops who have already arrived to help the Benghazi-based NTC occupy the western half of the nation.

NATO was supposed to hold a vote earlier this week which would have ended the bombing campaign at the end of this month, but has now revealed that it is postponing the vote at least until Friday, and it seems their military involvement is going to continue.

Though Jalil is couching this is terms of resisting “loyalists” to the former regime, the real military threat to the NTC comes from within the council itself, as the group is increasingly splintered and most are predicting a new civil war between the Gadhafi defectors and the Islamist rebels within the NTC.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.