"They want to seize Libya's oil," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Qadhafi's main ally in Latin America, said on state television.

Chavez said the military action was "irresponsible" and nothing but "interference in the internal affairs" of a country.

"And behind this is the hand of the United States and its European allies," he said.

Chavez, who has compared Qadhafi to Latin American liberation hero Simon Bolivar, lamented that the international community did not accept his proposal to create a multinational mission to find a peaceful resolution in Libya, where Qadhafi has been fending off the strongest challenge yet to his four-decade rule.

Rebels battling Qadhafi's forces had rejected Chavez's proposal.

Aging Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro questioned the usefulness of the United Nations Security Council, which authorized the strikes against Libya in a Friday resolution.

The group, which he derided as the "guardian angel of our species," has given us a "colossal invention: certificates of good behavior," Castro, 84, wrote in a newspaper article.

"Who is Obama, NATO and (UN Secretary General) Ban Ki-moon going to fool with those certificates of good behavior?" he asked.

Castro said the Security Council ignores problems in countries that are friendly to the United States.

In La Paz, Bolivian President Evo Morales echoed Chavez. "Ultimately they are interested in controlling Libyan oil," he said, speaking at a meeting of leftist Latin American ministers.

"That's how the powers are," he said, citing alleged western interference in Iran, and now "they invent problems with Moamer Qadhafi."

Morales strongly rejected foreign intervention in Libya, but also said he was against human rights violations in the country.

Bolivia established diplomatic ties with Tripoli in 2008, and Morales has met several times with Qadhafi, first as a former union leader and later as president.

Leftist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega expressed support for "brother" Qadhafi in late February, saying the uprising the Arab leader faces is part of a plot to take control of Libya's oil.

Rumors had swirled in recent weeks that Qadhafi would seek asylum in either Nicaragua or Venezuela.

Ortega's ties to Qadhafi go back to the 1980s, when the Nicaraguan leader was a Sandinista revolutionary and he received support from Libya.

In 2009 Ortega was awarded the Al-Qadhafi International Prize for Human Rights, a prize given by Qadhafi himself.