A representative of the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC) met with officials at the White House Friday as the US and NATO moved to escalate their intervention in Libya. On the same day...Libyan state television reported that a NATO air raid on the eastern coastal city of Brega
killed at least 16 civilians and wounded another 40... The day before, a NATO air strike hit the compound of Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Libyan state news agencies reported that
six people were killed in the attack and 10 wounded. The bombing came just hours after Gaddafi had appeared on Libyan television for the first time since an April 30 NATO raid struck a house where he was staying,
killing his son and three of his young grandchildren.Mahmoud Jibril, who is referred to as both the “prime minister” and the “foreign minister” of the NTC, made the trip to Washington as part of a campaign by the so-called rebels to secure increased funding, support and arms....
Jibril, a free market economist who was trained at the University of Pittsburgh, had since 2007 served on Libya’s National Economic Development Board, promoting privatization, economic “liberalization” and foreign investment. His trip to Washington came just one day after the designated head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil--who until February served as justice minister in the Gaddafi government --met with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague in London, also to solicit money and weapons.
The importance of winning US recognition was plainly spelled out by Jibril. Under sanctions imposed against the Gaddafi regime,
the US has seized $34 billion in Libyan assets deposited in US financial institutions. The TNC wants to lay hold of this money and knows that it cannot legally be transferred to them without diplomatic recognition. Speaking in Rome last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that the US could dip into the Gaddafi regime’s frozen assets to “help the Libyan people.”http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/may2011/liby-m14.shtml