THE ARRIVAL of British and French attack helicopters in the war in Libya is confirmation that Nato intends to inflict a decisive defeat on Col Muammar Gadafy, and that keeping within the UN safe fly zone mandate may come a distant second.
British prime minister David Cameron confirmed yesterday that four Royal Air Force Apache helicopters will join 12 French machines already embarked in the Mediterranean on the assault ship Tonnerre.
Together they will provide the alliance with the one weapon it has so far lacked – killing power surgical enough to kill Libyan soldiers while leaving nearby civilians alive. It is this imperative that has halted rebel troops pushing out the frontline from the besieged city of Misurata, despite the use of fixed-wing jets to pound Libyan armour and artillery.
Nato’s bombers were in action yesterday hammering army positions west of the Misurata pocket, with more than 100 detonations reverberating through the city. And rebel commanders say their troops in the pocket have been given a “red line” not to advance past – giving Nato free rein to destroy anything beyond it.
But for all the destruction rained down, Nato has until now lacked the precision to winkle out the positions that Col Gadafy’s forces have established among the homes of the town’s inhabitants.
The Apache, in theory, changes the equation. The American designed helicopter is equipped with Hellfire missiles that can be fired from 8km (five miles) away, well out of the range of ground fire, with the precision of a video game.
It is this ability to stand hovering in the sky waiting for a target to show themselves, or even a light to come on in a window, that makes the attack helicopter the tool that may prise Col Gadafy’s forces from the nearby town of Zlitan without harming civilians trapped in the town.
Nato planners will hope the Apaches provide the final piece of an elaborate jigsaw which will allow them to destroy the will of Col Gadafy’s brigades.
Other alliance tools include the conventional bombers which have been steadily eroding the tanks and artillery both around the town and 965km (600 miles) away on the eastern front near the rebel capital Benghazi.
Just as deadly are unmanned Reaper drones, which one diplomatic source told The Irish Times have been withdrawn by the US from Afghanistan.
The drones are able to stay aloft for many hours, worked by operators using remote control and stationed in a base in Missouri. They linger in the sky day and night, firing hellfire missiles at anything that moves.
This weapon is believed to have ensured that the single coastal highway along which Col Gaddafy must supply troops both at Misurata and the eastern front is permanently closed because any vehicle moving along it is destroyed.
Starved of ammunition and reinforcements, Col Gadafy’s forces are, at least in theory, growing weaker just as the rebels are growing stronger. Yet the gap remains wide: Rebel units around Misurata compose mostly militia – highly motivated men who cleared Col Gadafy’s forces from the city itself by taking it back block by block. But they lack training and heavy weapons.
Ranged against them is the cream of the Libyan army, the nine brigades of the Hamiz Jaffa, a corps named and controlled by Hamiz Gadafy, one of the dictator’s sons.
These troops are better equipped, better paid and more motivated than the rest of the Libyan army spread out further to the east.
Although they were beaten back from Misurata itself, they continue to hold an iron line, having constructed strongpoints amid the villages, woods and rolling hills west of the town.
Apaches have their own limitations; while they can fire at targets at a range too far for their targets to fire back, they are vulnerable to ground fire from enemy troops below them, which severely limits their ability to roam the battlefield.
The US army got a rude lesson in this vulnerability in March 2003 when, during the invasion of Iraq, it sent swarms of Apaches to attack a mechanised brigade only to see one helicopter shot down and 31 damaged by troops deployed a few miles in front of the tanks.
Tactically, Nato knows that given enough time it can ensure victory, by simply destroying Col Gadafy’s forces tank by tank.
But it also knows that the longer the war drags on, the more criticism will come from China, Russia and other nations about straying beyond the original UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians.
The alliance had a boost on the diplomatic front yesterday when Russia joined western nations in calling for Col Gadafy to step down. “Col Gadafy has deprived himself of legitimacy with his actions, we should help him leave,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said at the G8 meeting Deauville.
That will give Nato the political punch it needs for the coming offensive. It will hope that long before it has to destroy every tank, gun and man in the Libyan army, that army will break and run, perhaps triggering a coup to remove Col Gadafy.
But the colonel has defied predictions of his removal before, and if he continues to cling on to power, Nato may come under new political pressure as the weeks pass.