US mulls action against Libya

WASHINGTON - The US is expecting to take action in the coming days against Libya to pressurise the north African state to respect the rights and actions of its people, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.

“We expect to take action in the coming days, but it takes time to fully access and also make sure that in whatever actions that we take we believe they’re most likely to be successful in putting pressure on the Libyan government to respect, you know, the rights and actions of their people,” Xinhua quoted Crowley as telling the media Thursday.

“We are consulting broadly about steps that we can take. I’m not going to prejudge decisions that have yet to be made, but there’s a lot of action going on across the government,” he said at a regular press briefing. “We have a wide range of tools, you know - financial sanctions, multilateral actions - and we’re considering all of them.”

He refused to rule in military option, saying only that the military is “fully involved” in the discussions and doing its own thinking about options that can be presented to President Barack Obama.