NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said last night that the alliance will enforce the no-fly zone over Libya.
Mr Rasmussen said the 28 member nations have agreed to act in order to protect Libyan civilians from attacks by Col Gadafy’s forces.
The decision came after six days of negotiations and a breakthrough when Turkey, Nato’s only Muslim member, agreed to back the plan.
Asked whether Nato would be able to strike at ground forces or take action against Gadafy, Rasmussen said: At this moment, there will still be a coalition operation and a Nato operation.
Talks over the prospect of Nato taking on a broader role will continue in Brussels, but US secretary of state Hillary Clinton made clear that this would have to involve the alliance accepting the “political guidance” of all involved in the coalition, including Arab states.
It is thought that diplomats envisage an arrangement under which decisions on strategic and political goals would be taken by a “steering group” representing all coalition nations, while day-to-day operations are left to Nato.
Speaking in Washington, Mrs Clinton said that, after five days of bombardment by British, American and French forces, “a massacre in Benghazi has been prevented, Gadafy’s air force and air defences have been rendered largely ineffective and the coalition is in control of the skies of Libya”.
This leaves the way clear for regular patrols of Libyan airspace to ensure that Gadafy does not use aerial firepower to assault opposition cities.
The United Arab Emirates last night announced that it was becoming the second Arab state, after Qatar, to send warplanes to enforce the no-fly zone mandated by last week’s UN Security Council resolution 1973. Nato officials said a decision was expected to be taken on Sunday whether to broaden the mandate to allow it to take command of all military operations and allow it to attack ground targets to protect civilian areas under threat from Gadafy’s forces.
Nato officials said alliance operations to enforce the no-fly zone were expected to get under way in 48-72 hours.
Last night’s announcement came after a day when Western warplanes hit military targets deep inside Libya yesterday but heavy fighting continued in the town of Misurata and differences remained over who should take command of the mission.
In the first attack on a Libyan aircraft caught breaching the no-fly zone, a French patrol spotted a Libyan jet and struck it with air-to-ground missiles after it had landed at Misurata air base.
Separately, France’s armed forces said French aircraft had struck a central Libyan air base in the early hours of the morning in a fifth night of bombardments against Col Gadafy’s regime. Some 15 French aircraft were deployed on Wednesday and a dozen overnight.
In Benghazi, rebel spokesman Col Ahmed Omar Bani said 22 out of 39 regime tanks that made an incursion into Misurata had been destroyed and that the town’s port was in the control of the rebels.
He said rebel forces had also made gains in the town of Zintan. Col Bani called on coalition forces to strike targets in Kufra, a town in southeast Libya, which he said was being used as a gathering point for regime mercenaries coming from Chad.
“This is really a priority,” he added.
Col Bani also said rebels near the eastern town of Ajdabiya were in negotiations with a unit of regime troops who had offered to abandon their position and withdraw further west.
The continuing violence has strained the international coalition with a growing list of countries wary of attacks on ground troops that could kill civilians. – (Additional reporting, Reuters)