Libya Mission Gets 90-Day Extension

NATO hopes the new deadline will force Gadhafi to quit or face a summer's worth of bombardment.

NATO's aerial and naval campaign in Libya will continue for at least another 90 days. With Moammar Gadhafi making it clear that he has no intention of stepping down, despite relentless airstrikes targeting his compounds in and around Tripoli, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the mission would carry on until September. That's well past the initial late-June deadline the alliance had originally set, and an indication that the mission has fallen short of its self-imposed goals. That extension also makes it all but certain that Parliament will give the OK for Canadian involvement to continue when the matter is debated in the House of Commons next week.