Cairo: The Arab League asked the United Nations Security Council on Saturday to impose a no-flight zone over Libya in hopes of halting Col. Moammar el-Gaddafi's attacks on his own people, providing the rebels a tincture of hope even as they were driven back from a long stretch of road it had captured in the three-week war.
The extraordinary move by the 22-nation bloc -- an extremely rare invitation for Western military forces on Arab territory -- increases the pressure on the Obama administration, which has been reluctant to intervene in a war that could turn out to be prolonged and complex.
However, by inviting the West to take such action, it also clears the way for the United States and Europe to press for a strong Security Council resolution and to counter the objections of China and Russia, which traditionally oppose foreign intervention in a country's internal disputes.
But it was far from clear that, even if action were forthcoming, it would be enough to stall the march of Colonel Gaddafi's troops eastward to the rebel capital of Benghazi. As the rebels withdrew from the strategic oil town of Ras Lanuf 100 miles east to Brega, and by nightfall on to Ajdabiya, superior government forces pressed their advantage on an insurgency that began as a disparate protest movement and even as it tried to construct a government and an army remained chaotic, splintered and largely leaderless.
The government sweep intensified pleas from the rebels for Western military support. Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, the vice chairman of the rebels' shadow government, the Libyan National Council, said a no-flight zone would give the rebels a fighting chance against Colonel Gaddafi's superior armaments.
"We feel we have the right to ask for help," he said in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Libya. "If the international community chooses to play the role of bystander, we will have to defend ourselves."
The Arab League vote drew loud cheers when it was announced in Benghazi, but the prospects that a no-flight zone would become reality were far from assured.
Even if the Security Council authorized the measure, American officials have said it would be warranted only if it appeared that Colonel Gaddafi's forces were acting effectively from the air. A no-flight zone, they have said, would have little effect against helicopters or artillery, both of which the Libyan government has used extensively.
In a statement on Saturday, the White House said it welcomed the Arab League decision, "which strengthens the international pressure on Gaddafi and support for the Libyan people."
However, the statement said nothing about a no-flight zone, which Defence Secretary Robert M. Gates has largely dismissed as ineffective and ill-advised. Other administration officials have said privately that the level of violence in Libya would have to approach the scale of that in Rwanda or Bosnia in the 1990s before the United States would engage militarily.
While the Arab League resolution did not specifically mention the United States or any other country, an effective no-flight zone would require a leading Western role. No one else, with the possible exception of Russia, has the level of military sophistication, firepower and surveillance ability it would take to first disable Libyan air defences, and then enforce the zone.
American officials have also said that the Arab League would have to do more than endorse action -- it would have to participate in it, too. "That doesn't mean they have to fly airplanes," one official said, "but there is much they can do, from providing airfields to gas and maintenance."
At the Security Council, a diplomat from one member nation said the Arab League decision was "helpful, but there are quite a lot of reservations around the Council table still."
The objections, mainly from Russia and China, have centred on questions about whether the need for a no-flight zone has been demonstrated, and whether it has a strong legal basis and clear regional support.
The Arab League action checked one condition off the list, the diplomat said, but the others remain unsettled.
The Europeans have also been divided on the issue and have said that Arab League backing was critical to their ultimate decision. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, was expected in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the no-flight decision with the Arab League.
Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, said that a no-flight zone would protect ordinary people. "Our one goal is to protect the civilian population in Libya after what has been reported of attacks and casualties in a very bloody situation," he said at a news conference after the vote.
Mr Moussa said that he and other Arab League delegates were shocked by recent statements in Tripoli about the group. He was referring to a derogatory statement about the league made last week by Colonel Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi.
But the measure did not pass without tense debate. Syria and Algeria, in particular, argued that foreign intervention would destabilize the region.
Syria's ambassador, Youssef Ahmed, said Arab states should oppose any step that "violates the sovereignty, independence and unity of Libyan territory."
Those objections appeared to account for wording in the resolution that the Arab League rejected "foreign intervention," and Mr Moussa's caveat that the action end as soon as the crisis is over.
The League has suspended Libya's membership and opened contact with the rebels through the Libyan National Council, but it stopped short of recognizing the shadow government as the country's legitimate authority.
In Libya, the government proudly took journalists on tours of the recently recaptured cities of Bin Jawwad and Ras Lanuf.
In Bin Jawwad, a small, green government flag decorated a blown-out house amid a sea of burned-out cars. In Ras Lanuf, officials said a ransacked hospital and a still-burning oil refinery were the work of drug-addled rebels.
The satellite television channel Al Jazeera reported that one of its cameramen, Ali Hassan al-Jaber, was killed after gunmen fired on a car that he and his colleagues were traveling in. The journalists were attacked on the outskirts of Benghazi, the channel reported.
In Brega, the mood was grim as fighters formed a line to carry ammunition out of a makeshift depot along the road, loading boxes onto a flatbed truck headed to Ajdabiya. By nightfall, rebel checkpoints along the road to Ajdabiya were manned by far fewer fighters than in recent days.
In Benghazi, Omar al-Hariri, the rebel defence minister, insisted the rebels would be able to defend the city "with weapons and also with our bodies." A former army captain who was jailed by Colonel Gaddafi, Mr Hariri said that the opposition was taking steps to better organize their youthful volunteers into "a military force."
"We will fight, and we are powerful," he said. "We know how to win, with God's will.
