BRUSSELS, March 10 (UPI) -- The European Union Thursday extended sanctions against the Libyan regime as NATO members discussed military action to help stop the fighting in the North African country.
The EU extended financial sanctions against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, who hasn't stopped launching deadly air raids and artillery attacks against rebel positions. Five financial institutions, among them the country's sovereign wealth fund and central bank, will be included in the sanctions, the BBC reports.
This comes after several Western states, including Germany, France and non-EU member Switzerland, froze personal assets of Gadhafi and his family. In another strong sign of support for the rebels, France Thursday formally recognized the Libyan National Council and said it would send a diplomat to the group's stronghold Benghazi, in the country's east.
NATO's 28 defense ministers met Thursday in Brussels amid calls by some members, including Britain and France, to establish a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gadhafi from using his fighter jets to attack the rebels.
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Washington has been cautious when it comes to calling for a military engagement, and Germany, Europe's largest economy, has said that the United Nations and the Arab League, which meets this Saturday, would have to back such a step.
Turkey, NATO's third-largest member, is against military involvement; so are China and Russia, two U.N. Security Council members who could veto military strikes in Libya.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that a no-fly zone would be difficult to enforce, adding it would involve destroying Libya's air defense systems.
His British counterpart, Liam Fox, Thursday told the BBC that a no-fly zone wouldn't have to mean that Western planes bomb ground targets in Libya.
"In Iraq that was not the way that we carried out the no-fly zone," Fox told the BBC. "Rather than taking out air defenses, you can say that if your air defense radar locks on to any of our aircraft we regard that as a hostile act and we take subsequent action."
Several Western countries have moved military vessels toward North Africa. British defense officials said some 600 British troops had been put on 24-hour notice to be deployed to Libya, The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported last week.
The West is worried by reports that thousands of people have been killed by the ongoing violence in Libya. Observers say they fear the crisis could turn the country into a destabilizing factor in the region, increase migrant flows to Europe and undermine the global economic recovery by increasing the oil price.
Gadhafi's forces have attacked several oil industry sites, including the country's largest oil terminal at the port of Sidra, television network al-Jazeera reported.
