US Unveils 5-Point Plan to Assist Libya Rebels

The White House has announced a five-point, non-military plan aimed at removing Moammar Gadhafi from power in Libya. Officials are set to partially embrace the opposition movement and threatened to prosecute loyalists involved in atrocities, the New York Times reports. Meanwhile, the administration rejected the US intelligence chief’s comments that Gadhafi’s forces are likely to win in the end, suggesting it was “a static and one-dimensional assessment.”

“The president does not think that Gadhafi will prevail,” said a top official. At the moment, however, Gadhafi is on the offensive, launching air strikes on key oil towns. “There is no more chance for negotiations with rebels fighting the Libyan government,” Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam said yesterday. Rebels are said to be retreating from Ras Lanuf, having lost control of residential areas—but they’re holding on to the town’s important oil refineries, Al Jazeera reports. Click for more on the clashes in Libya. (More Libya stories.)