NTC to announce liberation in Libya, NATO to end mission soon

Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) said Friday it would announce the "liberation" of the country on Sunday, as NATO preliminarily decided to end its Libya mission on Oct. 31. "The announcement of the liberation will be made in Benghazi on Sunday, at the court of justice," an NTC senior official told media on condition of anonymity. According to the official, the announcement would mark the beginning of the process of building a democratic system in Libya. On the same day, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said NATO's seven-month Libya mission was "very close" to completion and would possibly end on Oct. 31. Rasmussen said a formal decision would be based on the perception of the security situation after the NTC declared the formal liberation of Libya. "We will take a formal decision next week. In the meantime, I will consult closely with the United Nations and the (Libyan) National Transitional Council," Rasmussen told a press conference in Brussels. "We agreed that NATO will wind down the operation ... that means until Oct. 31," he said. But he added that NATO would continue to monitor the situation in the North African country and retain the capability to respond to threats against Libyan civilians if needed, during the phasing-out period of its mission. NATO launched the Operation Unified Protector on March 31, carrying out air raids, enforcing a no-fly zone and imposing an arms embargo on Libya on March 31, saying it was acting under a mandate from the United Nations. So far, the alliance's warplanes have conducted more than 26,000 air sorties. After Rasmussen announced NATO's preliminary decision, the UN Security Council met late on Friday to discuss the latest developments in Libya. The discussions mainly focused on lifting the no-fly zone it imposed over Libya in March, and envoys said they expected it would do so after consulting the new Libyan authorities. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's permanent representative to the UN, said he had proposed a draft resolution on lifting the zone to the Security Council. Churkin said at the UN headquarters in New York that due to significant changes that have taken place in Libya, "it's time to wrap it up, including the no-fly zone." Meanwhile, doubts remain over Muammar Gaddafi's burial. The Libyan fallen leader's family, in a statement broadcast on television, asked for the bodies of Gaddafi, his fourth son Mutassim and others who were killed on Thursday. Despite of reports shortly after Gaddafi's death that he should be buried on Friday in accordance with Islamic traditions, his body is still kept in a commercial freezer in a shopping center in Misrata, located between Sirte and the capital Tripoli. Earlier on Friday, a source close to the NTC's information office told Xinhua that it is possible that the burial would be delayed for some time due to discussions among Libya's new rulers. More accurate investigations will take time, the source said. In the meantime, an official of Misrata's military council, who asked not to be named, told Xinhua Friday that discussions were still underway on the ritual, date and location for the burial of Gaddafi, with some people proposing Gaddafi be buried at sea.