NATO urged to broaden attacks
Source: Agencies |
May 16, 2011, Monday
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NATO must broaden its range of bombing targets in Libya or run the risk of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi clinging on to power, Britain's chief of defense staff was quoted as saying yesterday.
General David Richards suggested in an interview that NATO should attack Libyan infrastructure, which is not yet on its target list.
NATO is bombing Libya under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians and says it strikes only military targets.
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States say they will not halt the campaign until Gadhafi leaves power.
Richards said the military campaign to date had been a "significant success" for NATO, but it needed to do more.
"If we do not up the ante now there is a risk that the conflict could result in Gadhafi clinging to power," the Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted Richards as saying.
"At present, NATO is not attacking infrastructure targets in Libya. But if we want to increase the pressure on Gadhafi's regime then we need to give serious consideration to increasing the range of targets we can hit," he said.
Rebels have been fighting for three months against Gadhafi's rule and control of the city of Benghazi and the oil-producing east. The war has reached a virtual stalemate, with recent fighting centered on the port city of Misrata in the west and in the Western Mountains region.
Richards was quoted as saying NATO was not targeting Gadhafi directly, "but if it happened that he was in a command and control center that was hit by NATO and he was killed, then that is within the rules."
Britain's Defence Secretary Liam Fox, responding to Richards' comments, told BBC television yesterday: "I think the point he was making is that a number of NATO countries have been less happy about some of the targeting and about some of the assets being destroyed."
He said Britain's parameters were "probably slightly more widely drawn" than some of its allies, and it had increasingly been dealing with the regime's static command and control and intelligence networks rather than moving targets such as tanks.
UN aid chief Valerie Amos told BBC radio: "We need a political solution as quickly as we can."
(Reuters)
General David Richards suggested in an interview that NATO should attack Libyan infrastructure, which is not yet on its target list.
NATO is bombing Libya under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians and says it strikes only military targets.
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States say they will not halt the campaign until Gadhafi leaves power.
Richards said the military campaign to date had been a "significant success" for NATO, but it needed to do more.
"If we do not up the ante now there is a risk that the conflict could result in Gadhafi clinging to power," the Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted Richards as saying.
"At present, NATO is not attacking infrastructure targets in Libya. But if we want to increase the pressure on Gadhafi's regime then we need to give serious consideration to increasing the range of targets we can hit," he said.
Rebels have been fighting for three months against Gadhafi's rule and control of the city of Benghazi and the oil-producing east. The war has reached a virtual stalemate, with recent fighting centered on the port city of Misrata in the west and in the Western Mountains region.
Richards was quoted as saying NATO was not targeting Gadhafi directly, "but if it happened that he was in a command and control center that was hit by NATO and he was killed, then that is within the rules."
Britain's Defence Secretary Liam Fox, responding to Richards' comments, told BBC television yesterday: "I think the point he was making is that a number of NATO countries have been less happy about some of the targeting and about some of the assets being destroyed."
He said Britain's parameters were "probably slightly more widely drawn" than some of its allies, and it had increasingly been dealing with the regime's static command and control and intelligence networks rather than moving targets such as tanks.
UN aid chief Valerie Amos told BBC radio: "We need a political solution as quickly as we can."
(Reuters)
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