France to intensify air strikes on Gaddafi forces

FRANCE promised Libyan rebels yesterday it would intensify air strikes on Muammar Gaddafi’s forces and send military liaison officers to help them as fighting raged in the besieged city of Misrata.

Rebels said they fought pro-government troops for control of a main thoroughfare in the port city that is the insurgents’ last stronghold in the west of the country. Eight people had been killed the previous day, mostly civilians.

In Paris, President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil.

“We are indeed going to intensify the attacks and respond to this request from the national transition council,” his office said, quoting Sarkozy as telling Abdel Jalil: “We will help you”.

He did not say how NATO-led forces planned to break a stalemate on the ground after the US and some European allies declined last week to join ground strikes.

Abdel Jalil told reporters he had invited Sarkozy to pay a visit to the rebel-held eastern city of Benghazi to demonstrate France’s support for ending Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.

“I think that would be extremely important for the morale of the revolution,” he said. France did not say if the president had accepted.

Abdel Jalil also said the opposition, little known until the uprising began in mid-February, was committed to building a democracy in Libya where the head of state would come to power “by the ballot box, not atop a tank”.

Hundreds of people are believed to have been killed in Misrata, where aid groups say the humanitarian situation is worsening with a lack of food and medical supplies.

The rebels say forces loyal to Gaddafi have been bombarding the city heavily over the last week, although the situation appeared calmer on Wednesday morning.

France’s decision to send up to 10 military advisers to work with the rebels came a day after Britain, the other main leader of the coalition, announced a similar move.

Government spokesman Francois Baroin stressed France had no intention of sending troops into Libya, where Western powers are struggling to break a deadlock in a two-month-old conflict. “A small number of liaison officers [will be placed] with the National Transition Council in order to organise the protection of the civilian population,” he told a news briefing.

The officers are expected to advise rebel leaders on how to organise their ragtag forces, struggling against Gaddafi’s better-armed and better-trained army. They will also liaise with NATO on the location of rebels and Gaddafi’s troops.

Asked whether the dispatch of liaison officers amounted to mission creep, French military analyst Jean-Dominique Merchet said it was only a small team and they would not be training fighters but advising their senior officers.

“It’s about putting a bit of organisation into the rebel forces. It’s the French and the British doing this, it’s clear that NATO is not very keen, nor the Americans.”

Independent defence analyst Paul Beaver said the decision to send military advisers was stretching the UN resolution.

“But I think without it the rebels are going to be so disorganised that we will have a stalemate in what is almost a civil war now.”

“I don’t believe it’s mission creep. People are quoting the Vietnam war but that’s quite different. These guys are not there to go and fight.”