In recent days NATO agreed to take over the enforcement of the No Fly Zone and UN mandated naval blockade under ‘Operation Unified Protector’, enforcing an arms embargo on Libya, an effort aiming to prevent arms being delivered to Libya from the Mediterranean. Canadian air force Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard was assigned lead the operation. The NATO alliance is expected to take control of the operation by March 30.
Under ‘Unified protector’, NATO maritime forces will conduct operations to monitor, report and, if needed, interdict vessels suspected of carrying illegal arms or mercenaries. This will be done in close co-ordination with commercial shipping and regional organizations. The blockade could potentially assist in reducing the flow of illegal immigrants reaching accross the Mediterranean from Libya to Southern Italy. The flow of immigrants is expected to increase after the fall of the former regime. Since Thursday, coalition raids appear to have intensified and became more effective.
Rebel sources claim that after Libyan Army officers who joined the rebellion established contact with the coalition, improving coordination of support operations. Backed by the coalition support, Libyan rebels continued their rapid advance west, have captured today (March 27) the oil terminals of Ras Lanuf, about 210 km west of the city of Ajdabiya, which fell to the ebels a day earlier. The next objective on the rebels advance is Sirte, Gaddafi’s home-town stronghold. Coalition air forces has conducted extensive raids on the coastal road between Ajdabiya and Sirte.
Rebels are not the only element celebrating on the chaos in Libya. Islamist elements affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) seized Libyan Army weapons stockpiles abandoned near Benghazi and other areas taken by Libyan rebels to obtain weapons they did not have access to in the past.
According to a report in Jeune Afrique, quoting Chad’s President Idriss Deby Itno. The magazine quotes the president as “100 per cent sure” of his assertion. He said the weapons, including man-portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) were smuggled into AQIM sanctuaries in Tenere, a desert region of the Sahara that stretches from northeast Niger to western Chad. The extremist Islamic movement operates mainly in Algeria, Mauritania, Mali and Niger, where it has attacked military targets and taken civilian hostages, particularly Europeans, some of whom it has killed. Col. Gaddafi accused AQIM to be the driving force behind the rebelion.
On March 19, 2011, following UN Security Council resolution 1973 the U.S. led coalition started out small, but quickly established the no-fly zone, obtained maritime superiority, put the embargo in place, interdicted ground forces, suppressed enemy air defenses and put humanitarian operations in place. In the recent days, the operation evolved a series of strike campaign against the Libyan ground forces. “This is a multi-phased operation. Our coalition partners are assuming more and more responsibility.” Navy Rear Adm. Gerard P. Hueber said.
Libyan forces have not used surface-to-air missiles in four days, he added. The airstrikes have rendered Libya’s air defense ‘severely degraded or destroyed’ the admiral said. In the planning, Libyan air force and air defenses were not taken easy. U.S. Navy Chief of Operations, Adm. Gary Roughead said he was particularly concerned about Moammar Gaddafi’s integrated air and missile defense system. Though the system was old, he said, “I don’t take any of that for granted. If someone is going to put a missile in the air, you don’t say, ‘Oh, it’s an old one, I’ll worry about it later.’”
Source: defense-update.com