Libya: Nato Assuming Command of No-Fly Zone

Stephen Kaufman

24 March 2011

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Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States is transferring command and control of the international community's enforcement of the no-fly zone in Libya to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Speaking in Washington March 24, Clinton said all 28 NATO member countries had also agreed to "authorize military authorities to develop an operations plan for NATO to take on the broader civilian protection mission" that was authorized by United Nations Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 in response to the Libyan government's attacks on its own people.

Clinton said that U.S. forces will continue to provide support for the operation, known as Odyssey Dawn, and she welcomed the decisions of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to contribute aircraft.

The secretary also announced that the U.S. Agency for International Development has sent 18 doctors and nurses to provide medical support to the Libyan people in Benghazi.

At the Pentagon, Joint Staff Director Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said March 24 that the handover of command and control will be "a complicated process" because of the need to try to keep the same type of architecture and information technology support that has been in place under U.S. command.

But Gortney noted that the pace of Operation Odyssey Dawn has been "pretty phenomenal" when considering that only one week has passed since the U.N. Security Council authorized the operation and military forces began taking action on March 19.

Gortney said approximately 75 percent of combat air patrol missions in support of the no-fly zone are now being executed by non-U.S. military personnel, and U.S. coalition partners are contributing 26 of the 38 ships that have been deployed in support of the operation.

COALITION SEEKS TO AVOID CAUSING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

Gortney said that when and where forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Qadhafi threaten the lives of their own people or violate the no-fly zone, "they will be attacked," and the coalition will also stop any of the regime's attempts to break the arms embargo that was imposed by the United Nations.

"Our message to the regime troops is simple: stop fighting, stop killing your own people, stop obeying the orders of Colonel Qadhafi. To the degree that you defy these demands, we will continue to hit you and make it more difficult for you to keep going," he said.

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Although regime forces have withdrawn from Benghazi, they are still attacking civilians in Misurata and Zintan, he said. The coalition's rules of engagement permit them to attack Qadhafi's forces inside populated areas, but Gortney said they are not doing so, out of concern that such an operation would cause civilian casualties.

"Unless we can find -- a mechanism to achieve the effect without harming the very people that we're trying to protect is the challenge there," he said. "That's a very, very hard task to do, and we're trying to do it to the best of our ability."

Despite claims to the contrary by Qadhafi's regime, there are currently no reports that Operation Odyssey Dawn has caused any Libyan civilian casualties. Gortney said coalition forces are trying to put pressure on Qadhafi's forces outside the cities.

"If you can work on their supply lines, their logistics capability, cut them off, they're not going to be able to sustain their efforts inside the city," he said.

Source: allafrica.com