UN to meet on further options against Libya

VIDEO - The UN Security Council will meet Friday to consider actions against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime that could include sanctions aimed at deterring his violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

France's UN Mission said late Thursday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will attend the meeting at 3 pm EST (2000 GMT) Friday.

Diplomats said possible sanctions likely to be put on the table include travel bans and asset freezes against Gaddafi and top officials in his government, an arms embargo against the government, and imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.

The Obama administration threw its weight behind a European effort to expel Libya from the United Nations' top human rights body and said it was readying a larger sanctions package against Gaddafi's regime that it will take up with allies in the coming days.

President Barack Obama was consulting with the leaders of Britain and France on Thursday, while officials said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would help coordinate the larger international strategy to stop the violence in Libya at a meeting of foreign policy chiefs next week in Switzerland.

On Thursday, the White House said it was not ruling anything out in its response to the Libyan government's crackdown against a popular revolt.

"I'm not ruling out bilateral options," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when asked whether the United States was considering military options. "I'm not ruling anything out."

Mass graves in Libya 

Uprising advances closer to Tripoli

Foreign mercenaries and Libyan militiamen loyal to Gaddafi tried to roll back the uprising against his rule that has advanced closer to his stronghold in Tripoli, attacking two nearby cities in battles that killed at least 17 people. But rebels made new gains, seizing a military air base, as Gaddafi blamed Osama bin Laden for the upheaval.

The worst bloodshed was in Zawiya, 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of the capital Tripoli. An army unit loyal to Gaddafi opened fire with automatic weapons on a mosque where residents - some armed with hunting rifles for protection - have been holding a sit-in to support protesters in the capital, a witness said.

The troops blasted the mosque's minaret with an anti-aircraft gun. A doctor at a field clinic set up at the mosque said he saw the bodies of 10 dead, shot in the head and chest, as well as around 150 wounded. A Libyan news website, Qureyna, put the death toll at 23 and said many of the wounded could not reach hospitals because of shooting by "security forces and mercenaries."

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