BENGHAZI/BRUSSELS – Libyan ground troops are being targeted by air strikes, coalition officials said on Wednesday, as a top British officer declared Moammer Gaddafi’s air force effectively destroyed.
As bitter fighting raged in key rebel strongholds, NATO nations failed to agree on giving the Western alliance command of military operations in Libya, a NATO diplomat told AFP. “There was no agreement and the discussions continue,” the diplomat said after a new round of talks among ambassadors of the 28-nation alliance.
The debate would resume on Thursday, the diplomat said. As bitter fighting raged in key rebel strongholds, six NATO warships backed up by aircraft began patrolling international waters off Libya’s coast to enforce a UN arms embargo against Gaddafi’s regime, the alliance said.
Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell of Britain said that Libya’s air force has been almost totally destroyed by the air strikes and “no longer exists as a fighting force”. Bagwell told British media at an airbase in southern Italy, from which RAF warplanes are operating, that Libyan ground forces were also being attacked when they threaten civilians.
The US military also said Gaddafi’s ground troops who are threatening rebel-held cities are now being targeted by coalition air strikes. “We are putting pressure on Gaddafi’s ground forces that are threatening cities,” Rear Admiral Gerard Hueber, US chief of staff for the Libya mission, told journalists. Asked if that meant air strikes, he replied: “Yes.”
Meanwhile, snipers from Gaddafi’s forces killed 16 people in the Libyan town of Misrata on Wednesday, Hafiz Ghoga, the official spokesman for the rebel national council said. A defiant Gaddafi said Libya was “ready for battle”.
“We will win this battle,” footage showed Gaddafi telling supporters at his Bab Al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli that was the target of a coalition missile strike.
