'Boots on ground' move could solve stalemate

ANALYSIS:Libya's rebels could respond to Gadafy's tactics if Nato provided "close air support"

AS FIGHTING in Libya moves towards stalemate, the residents of the port city of Misurata are in the grip of a Sarajevo-type siege.

Pro-Gadafy forces are pounding it with salvoes of rockets and artillery. After six weeks of fighting, up to 1,000 people are believed to have died there.

Local sources indicate that up to 80 per cent of those killed and injured are civilians. Some, including children, have been victims of deliberate sniper fire – high-velocity gunshot wounds to the head and neck area – fired from high ground or buildings occupied by Gadafy’s troops.

Greater numbers have fallen victim to indiscriminate shelling and the use of cluster munitions in the urban environment.

Cluster munitions were originally designed for the conventional battlefield against military targets. In simple terms, they are large “cargo” bombs that detonate or “air-burst” approximately 150 metres above ground. On detonation they scatter hundreds of sub-munitions over a wide area.

Some of these “bomblets” are anti-personnel devices, designed to inflict catastrophic soft-tissue injuries by way of shrapnel and blast effect. Others consist of more powerful anti-armour devices, fitted with shaped charges designed to destroy armoured vehicles. All such bomblets are fitted with extremely sensitive fuses. When deployed, they create an instant minefield.

When fired into urban areas, their pattern of dispersal makes it almost impossible to decontaminate or demine affected areas. Children are particularly vulnerable to cluster munitions as their natural curiosity tends to draw them to the brightly coloured casings and tailfin sections of such devices.

For these reasons, more than 100 nations have signed up to a ban on their use. The International Convention on Cluster Munitions was brokered by the Irish government in Croke Park in May of 2008.

The cluster munitions being used by Muammar Gadafy’s forces in Misurata are a particularly low- tech and indiscriminate variant. They are Spanish-manufactured MAT 120 cargo bombs fired by 120mm mortars. Each mortar bomb carries about 40 cluster munitions. Such mortars have a range of about 6km and are fired on a rough bearing and trajectory into an urban space.

These weapons can be transported by car and would be virtually impossible to detect from the air by Nato aircraft enforcing a no-fly zone.

Similarly, other medium and heavy weapons systems being operated by pro-Gadafy forces, including anti-aircraft guns and missiles, can be concealed in pick-up trucks, vans and smaller vehicles.

These are the very weapons systems – low tech and difficult to detect – that are providing Gadafy’s troops with a vital tactical edge over the rebels.

Their modus operandi of assembling heavy weaponry, firing furiously and indiscriminately and then running or driving for cover makes it difficult for patrolling Nato aircraft to intervene in a timely, preventative fashion.

From a military point of view, then, the logical response to the threat posed by Gadafy’s superior fire-power, strategy and tactics would be to provide on-demand “close air support” to the rebels.

Such a paradigm shift in Nato’s air war against Gadafy would consist of coalition personnel – most likely special forces troops – acting as forward air controllers on the ground in Libya.

In such a hypothetical situation, small teams of troops, operating in twos and threes, would be assigned to the rebel front line to assist in the identification and destruction of Gadafy’s heavier weapons systems in real-time close air support operations.

Whilst such a development might break the current stalemate in the fighting, it would represent an explicit “boots on the ground” commitment of Nato personnel to Libya.

Such a scenario would likely require a fresh UN Security Council resolution.

Tom Clonan is The Irish TimesSecurity Analyst