Moscow envoy in Tripoli, Gaddafi son wants elections

Russian envoy Mikhail Margelov was in Tripoli Thursday seeking to mediate in Libya's conflict, as Muammar Gaddafi's son said the strongman is ready to accept internationally supervised elections. Margelov, the Africa envoy of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, was meeting Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi, Russia's Interfax news agency said. Margelov's spokeswoman Varvara Paal told AFP in Moscow that the envoy during his one-day visit would meet the prime minister and the foreign minister but was not scheduled to meet Gaddafi. Last week, Margelov travelled to the Libyan rebel stronghold of Benghazi and afterwards to Cairo, where he held talks with Gaddafi's cousin Ahmed Gaddaf al-Dam and others within the strongman's circle. He has said that Moscow would be prepared to offer a preliminary "roadmap" for settling the conflict. But Gaddafi's eldest son Seif al-Islam told an Italian newspaper that elections were the only way to break the stalemate. "Elections, immediately and with international supervision. It's the only painless way to break out of the impasse in Libya," Seif told the daily Corriere della Sera correspondent in Tripoli. "We could hold them within three months. At most by the end of the year. And the guarantee of transparency could be the presence of international observers," the 68-year-old was quoted on Thursday by the paper as saying. The elections, he added, could be supervised by the European Union or African Union, the United Nations or even NATO as long as a "mechanism" was put in place to ensure there were "no suspicions of vote rigging." "Let's go to the polls, and may the best man win," Seif told the reporter at a hotel in Tripoli. At least five anti-Gaddafi rebels were killed and 30 wounded when they came under sniper attack in three villages they seized on Wednesday in western Libya, hospital sources said on Thursday. The attacks took place in the villages of Zawit Bagoul, Lawania and Ghanymma, the hospital sources told an AFP correspondent in the western town of Zintan. The rebels overran the three villages on Wednesday as they sought control of a key junction connecting the towns of Yafran and Zintan. Rebels were seen patrolling the streets of Zawit Bagoul, 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) from Zintan. Pro-Gaddafi positions on the outskirts of Zawit Bagoul were deserted and loyalists left behind clothes, shoes and ammunition. The correspondent said the rebels later also moved into Lawania, about seven kilometres away, and then Ghanymma, less than 10 kilometres from Yafran, as NATO aircraft were heard overhead. NATO, which has carried out 10 weeks of air strikes against Gaddafi's forces, can see out its mission without ground troops, its operations commander said in a briefing on an Italian aircraft carrier. Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard also said that the military situation in western Libya, where there has been an upsurge in fighting between regime loyalists and rebel forces, was developing "very positively." "I do believe we can complete the mission without bringing in ground troops," the Canadian general told reporters off Libyan shores on the Garibaldi. "We are receiving adequate assets to complete the mission and carry out our mandate." Senior military officials from Britain and France, key players in the NATO campaign, have expressed concerns about how to maintain the NATO operation, which has been extended for a second three-month period from June 27. Libyan state television said that a NATO strike on a bus in the town of Kikla, near Yafran, on Wednesday had killed 12 of its passengers. NATO on Thursday denied the claim. "NATO did not conduct any air strike in the city yesterday," a senior official in the alliance told AFP on condition of anonymity. In Washington, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers sought to throw a roadblock in front of President Barack Obama's Libya policy, filing a lawsuit that charges that US military operations are unconstitutional. Anti-war Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich and nine other members of the House signed the lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's circumvention of Congress in authorising use of military force in a protracted campaign. "With regard to the war in Libya, we believe that the law was violated. We have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies," Kucinich said. The White House later delivered a 30-page report to Congress that it said justifies its role in the Libya conflict and insists that Obama did not exceed his powers in ordering the action.