Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has accused Israel of masterminding the Darfur crisis, urging the ICC to drop charges against Sudan's president.Gaddafi called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to immediately halt proceedings against Omar al-Bashir over alleged war crimes in Darfur, adding that "foreign forces" including Israel were behind the region's crisis.
"Why do we have to hold President Bashir or the Sudanese government responsible when the Darfur problem was caused by outside parties, and Tel Aviv, for example, is behind the Darfur crisis," the current African Union president said on Tuesday.
He reasoned that Darfur's 'key rebel leaders' have opened offices in Tel Aviv and 'frequently' hold meetings with the Israeli army.
Libya believes that the international community must dispense with what it calls 'unbalanced pressures' with respect to the Darfur issue.
The ICC, however, is believed to be set to issue an arrest warrant for Bashir on March 4.
UN officials estimate that as many as 300,000 people have died and some 2.5 million have been displaced since violence broke out in Darfur in 2003 when mostly African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government. Khartoum, on the other hand, puts the death toll at only 10,000.
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