Gates presses five NATO allies

The Obama administration challenged five key military allies to take on a greater share of the NATO-led air campaign against Moammar Gadhafi's forces, illustrating the strains of a 3-month-old intervention in Libya that has no time frame for an exit.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered the pointed message in a goodbye in Brussels to his counterparts from NATO ahead of his retirement next month, senior U.S. and British officials said. But none of the nations that were challenged pledged to do more.

The pressure on Germany, Poland, Spain, Turkey and Netherlands comes as the alliance continues with intensified airstrikes on Libya's capital and only a day after President Obama played down any suggestions of a rift with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over her nation's lack of contribution to the war effort.

"Secretary Gates was very blunt," said Liam Fox, the defense secretary of Britain, which along with France has led the mission to protect Libyan civilians.

Gates said Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands should enhance their limited participation in noncombat operations by joining in strike missions against ground targets, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal NATO deliberations. They said Gates pressed Germany and Poland, the two countries not participating at all militarily, to help in some form.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton likely will restate Gates' argument on Thursday when NATO nations and Arab governments participating in the air campaign meet in the United Arab Emirates.

Gadhafi, increasingly cornered under a stunning upturn in NATO airstrikes, lashed back on Wednesday with renewed shelling of the western city of Misrata, killing 10 rebels.

The interim Tunisian government postponed the first election since the ouster in January of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, citing technical problems.

The decision, in the nation whose unexpected uprising ignited the revolts sweeping the Arab world, pushes the scheduled vote for a constituent assembly to Oct. 23 from July 24. The deferral is likely to bolster the fortunes of the dozens of new political parties still scrambling to organize, perhaps at the expense of their better established rivals, both liberal and Islamist.

For just that reason, the postponement is also reverberating in Cairo, where many liberals want to push back the first election since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak -- now scheduled for September -- because they fear that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has a decisive organizing edge.

In Tunisia, the leading liberal faction, the Progressive Democratic Party, and the main Islamist party, Al Nahda, initially opposed the postponement. They argued that Tunisia needed to move as fast as possible to a more legitimate authority, ending the continuing outbreaks of strikes and demonstrations by workers and young people eager to protect their revolution.

But both groups ultimately assented to the findings of an independent electoral commission that it was impossible to adequately register voters and organize polls in time for July 24. NEWS SERVICES