African Leaders Call on U.N. for Intervention in Libya

Leaders in the sub-Saharan Sahel region of Africa called Friday on the United Nations to organize an international force "to neutralize the armed groups" sowing chaos in Libya.

The call came at the end of a regional summit on the "Nouakchott Process," named for an initiative launched in Mauritania's capital in March 2013 to boost security cooperation among 11 participating states.

In a statement, the leaders of Chad, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso called on the United Nations Security Council to "set up an international force to neutralize armed groups, assist with national reconciliation and put in place stable democratic institutions," in Libya. The plan would be carried out in consultation with the African Union, they said.

Host President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz told reporters: "The elected bodies, notably the Libyan Parliament, need force to put in place their programs."

Libya has been overwhelmed by chaos since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, with the country led by two parliaments and governments -- one Islamist and the other recognized by the international community -- fighting for power. 

The summit, whose theme was "a space made for secure for global development," was the first since Algeria, Burkian Faso, Chad, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal signed up to the process.

Abdel Aziz, who also currently chairs the African Union, told his peers along with the other delegates, of a shared determination to carry out "a merciless fight against terrorism and organized crime."

Across the broad Sahel region, threats range from Boko Haram jihadists in northern Nigeria, said by local officials to have kidnapped at least 185 villagers in a latest large-scale raid on Sunday, to the Islamists driven out of Mali's key northern towns by the French army last year and now holed up in the desert.