How credible is Gaddafi’s threat?

While there is no cause for alarm, Malta would do well to keep its head down in the wake of Muammar Gaddafi’s threat to attack Europe should Nato not relent its bombing of Tripoli, local commentators have told The Sunday Times.

“We are where we are and our geography places us on the front line. So it would be prudent to continue to keep our heads down. There is very little we can do to actually resist an attack,” a military source said, arguing that Malta’s perceived neutrality in this conflict could be its best ticket to not being the target of such an attack.

He was reacting to a raging, pre-recorded speech of Col. Gaddafi aired to a crowd of tens of thousands gathered in Tripoli’s Green Square on Friday. The Libyan leader, who now faces an international arrest warrant for his violent response to the rebel uprising, threatened to attack European “homes, offices, families” unless Nato stopped bombing.

The Maltese military source, who preferred to remain unnamed, said Col. Gaddafi’s statement should be taken as a credible threat.

“Clearly his forces have been depleted by the Nato attacks but one can never tell what a man like this could do... He could really do untold harm with relatively few weapons, which he might very well still have,” he said, referring to missiles or aircraft which might have not been hit.

Nato, on the other hand, did not give any indication that it was taking the threat seriously.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, the alliance’s deputy spokesman Carmen Romero brushed off a question about the credibility of Col. Gaddafi’s threat.

“I will not go into it because it does not deserve elaboration. We will keep focusing on what we are doing,” Ms Romero said.

She said Nato would press on with its operation until the military objectives set out for the Libya operation were achieved.

Speaking in Spain on the last leg of a three-nation European tour, Ms Clinton said: “Instead of issuing threats, he should be putting the wellbeing and interests of his own people first. He should step down from power.”

Labour’s foreign affairs spokesman George Vella said he would not dismiss the threat, but one has to assess how possible it would be for the Libyan leader to deliver such an attack.

Dr Vella said the threat did not particularly put him on edge considering that the regime’s capacity to launch such a long range attack was likely to have been debilitated by the allied strikes.

“I am sure Nato and the various drones that have been scouring Libya would have taken care of this (missiles). Moreover, the missiles Libya was known to own at one time probably are old technology now.”

However, he insisted that Malta should still be on the alert.

“I expect the government to contact Nato to gather information about the possible threat we face and be brought up to speed with what is being done to prevent such an attack,” he said.

The government declined to comment. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said its position had not changed from the briefing given to Parliament’s EU and Foreign Affairs Committee about a month ago.

Magda Koukab, a 35-year-old Libyan lawyer who has been living in Malta for eight years, said there was little credibility in the warning.

“It’s all lies,” she said, arguing that if the Libyan dictator had the capability of doing something of the sort he would have done so already.

She said that after the speech was aired many Libyans called back home to find out that large numbers of people from the massive crowd that was seen in the square were coerced.

“Relatives of mine who were in the square were told that if they went to the square in a group of around 10, they would earn the release of my husband’s brother, who was jailed some time ago by the regime. Like them, there were hundreds of others,” she said.

She said the people would have mingled with a much smaller crowd of actual supporters, whom she acknowledged still existed. However, she stressed that Col. Gaddafi was on his last legs and speaking like someone with his back to the wall.

“Col. Gaddafi is still where he is because he is still using the tactic he has used to stay in power for all these years: fear.

“When I call my mother she tells me that she loves him and that she does not want him to leave when I know it is not true. She does this out of fear. But his time is up this time.”