Posted on 05/18/2011 2:16:31 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
British military advisers have helped Libyan rebels set up a "joint operations centre" in Benghazi feeding information to Nato for the targeting of air strikes against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's military forces and bunkers.
Eleven British trainers have joined "significant numbers" of military advisers from France and Italy to help the Libya's rebel Transitional National Council set up an operational command structure capable of taking on the Gaddafi regime.
A senior European diplomat, active in building ties with the Benghazi based rebels, said that the creation of a "joint operations centre" with the help of Western trainers had increased "military capacity".
"The main job is to coordinate and make more effective the processing of military and tactical information back to Nato so air operations are based on the best information available," he said.
The admission will fuel concerns that Britain could be drawn into mission creep in Libya and appears to contradict William Hague's assurance that military advisers would not be involved in training rebel fighting forces.
"Nor will they be involved in the planning or execution of military operations or in the provision of any other form of operational military advice," the Foreign Secretary said when announcing the deployment last month.
Libya's National Transitional Council has been open about the role of its "joint operations centre" in coordinating rebel troop movements and Nato military strikes against Gaddafi's troops.
But Alliance officials have denied that it is working with rebels on operations to target Gaddafi amid splits within Nato over the use of military force to force regime change in Libya.
"We have no direct contact," said a Nato spokesman.
"We do get information from allied sources on the ground. That information is designed to deconflict our operations with rebels, who are not posing a threat to civilians."
At the end
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I’ll just bet that the SAS is doing most of the actual fighting, based on the recent string of sudden rebel successes.
Yes, sure pull out and see what happens.
French foreign legion in civvies.
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