BENGHAZI, Libya — Tank-backed troops loyal to Moammar Khadafy tightened a blockade of Libya’s fourth-largest city Tuesday after their latest assault was beaten back. Rebels defending Zawiya pleaded for international help, saying about two weeks of food and medical supplies remained for the estimated 100,000 residents.
“If they (foreign leaders) have some way to help us, don’t wait. Time is running out. Our children are suffering now,” said Hesham, a fighter reached by telephone, as he and about 2,000 others watched news reports on a large television in the main square. “We haven’t the power to stand more.”
The United States, however, made it clear that it’s very reluctant to become involved militarily in the crisis, saying that two U.S. Navy assault vessels deploying in the Mediterranean with helicopters and hundreds of Marines would be limited to humanitarian aid and evacuation operations for now.
“All of the options beyond the humanitarian assistance and . . . evacuation are complex,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who noted that a U.N. resolution slapping sanctions on the Khadafy regime “provides no authorization for the use of force. There is no unanimity within NATO for the use of armed force.”
“We also have to think about, frankly, the use of the U.S. military in another country in the Middle East,” Gates told a Pentagon news conference.
The Obama administration’s caution reflected concern that another foreign military entanglement would further stress U.S. forces strained by nearly 10 years of war in Afghanistan and eight years in Iraq, and it underscored the administration’s efforts to avoid fueling anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.
In Zawiya, 35 miles west of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, the hodgepodge defense force of civilians and police and army defectors held off a six-hour overnight assault by troops and tanks thought to be commanded by Khadafy’s son Khamis, residents said by telephone.
“They attacked from both sides, from the east and the west. We tried to defend ourselves, and we stopped them moving to the city, said Hesham, who said that the rebels suffered five or six wounded. “They were using the military cars and small tanks.”
Hesham, who asked that his last name be withheld for his safety, said that about 70 people were missing, thought to be kidnapped by the attackers and taken to Tripoli.
The city hasn’t received food or medical supplies since the uprising erupted there Feb. 17, he said.
“We still have the materials we had before” but they’re likely to run out in about two weeks, he said, “especially the children’s milk and stuff like that. The hospitals are working, but they don’t have the full supplies, so they try to do what they can.”
“They’re trying to starve us to death,” said Tarek Zawi, a rebel fighter who said that Khadafy helicopters had been hovering over the city all day and that he’d been told to expect more attacks throughout the night.
“This will be a very bad night, a very bad night,” he predicted.
Aid groups warned that a humanitarian crisis was building in Libya and on its borders, where thousands of foreign workers have been trying to flee to Tunisia and Egypt, the groups said. TV footage from the Libyan-Tunisian border showed hundreds of weakened refugees clamoring for high-energy biscuits handed out by the U.N.’s World Food Program.
Medical supplies were running low, a situation aggravated by the absence of 700 skilled nurses who are among the more than 140,000 people who’ve fled Libya since the turmoil began.
Mohamed Sultan, the Cairo-based spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said volunteers from the Libyan Red Crescent had been rallied to fill in at the country’s struggling medical centers, but that they weren’t enough to care for the hundreds of people being treated for gunshot wounds.
In Washington, Gates said the USS Kearsarge and the USS Ponce, huge amphibious assault vessels equipped with helicopters, Harrier jump jets and landing craft, would be sent to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal as part of a deployment of U.S. sea and air forces to Libya.
But those forces alone wouldn’t be enough to impose a no-fly zone, which some countries have called for to prevent Khadafy from using air power in his military moves.
Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned against cutting the State Department’s budget at a time that the Middle East is in such flux.
“A strong and strategic American response will be essential,” she said.
She also cautioned that the outcome in Libya is anything but clear.
“In the years ahead, Libya could become a peaceful democracy or it could face protracted civil war or it could descend into chaos. The stakes are high,” she said.
The U.S. Senate also approved a resolution condemning the “gross and systematic violations of human rights in Libya” and demanding that Khadafy leave office.
The resolution applauded the Libyan people for standing up “against the brutal dictatorship” of Khadafy and for demanding democratic reforms.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
