Moammar Gadhafi, Libyan War | featured news

The downfall of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is likely to pave the way for increased Western attention to Syria and embolden protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

President Barack Obama said on Monday the United States would be a friend and partner to Libya, but urged rebels poised to depose Muammar Gaddafi to not seek justice through violent reprisals.

Several congressional Republicans are hailing the U.S. military involvement in Libya and are calling for the U.S. to increase its involvement in the country if Moammar Gaddafi’s regime falls.

With Libyan rebels on the brink of toppling Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year rule, leaders around the world -- with the exception of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez -- called on the longtime leader to step down.

Explosions and gunfire rocked Tripoli overnight, after days of battlefield defeats left Muammar Gaddafi's government and troops penned ever more tightly in the besieged capital by a rebel advance.

Libyan rebels said on Monday they had seized a second strategic town near Tripoli within 24 hours, completing the encirclement of the capital in the boldest advances of their six-month-old uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.

Muammar Gaddafi urged Libyans on Monday to free the country from "NATO and traitors," as rebels in the west began to strangle a major lifeline to his capital.

Convinced that their battlefield strategy will work, the rebel forces are refusing France's demands that they negotiate with the Libyan leader to peacefully end their uprising. As the Libyan war grinds on across three fronts and rebel forces find themselves pinned down on their own territory outside two strategic eastern oil cities, the rebels' most resolute European ally, France, is insisting that they negotiate with Moammar Kadafi to peacefully end their 5-month-old uprising.

Moammar Gadhafi vowed Thursday not to buckle to international demands that he cede the power he has held tightly for nearly 42 years as the leader of Libya, and instead said he would remain "until the last drop of my blood."

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is sending fresh signals through emissaries that he is ready to discuss stepping down, Western diplomats said Tuesday, as new intelligence assessments pointed to worsening conditions among his troops. The overtures by aides close to Gaddafi appeared to reflect a deepening pessimism inside a government that is under assault on two fronts and faces shortages of critical supplies, according to U.S. and European analysts and government officials.