Decision likely before foreign ministers from countries involved in anti-Gaddafi campaign gather for crucial conference in London
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Ian Traynor in Brussels and James Meikle
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 March 2011 13.37 GMT Article history
Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu speaks to a Brussels audience about the situation in Libya. Photograph: Julien Warnand/EPA
Nato's 28 countries are to decide within days whether to assume overall control of the military campaign against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, thus allowing the US to step back.
France and Turkey, at loggerheads over whether authority for the campaign should be vested in Nato, agreed on Friday that the alliance should take control in what was a climbdown by Paris. The US and UK also agreed.
Arguments over who should supplant a reluctant America in charge of the air campaign against Gaddafi have raged since the operations were launched last weekend, opening up major transatlantic divisions and splits among the Europeans.
Any deal has to be rubberstamped by all 28 countries. Late on Thursday, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary-general, announced that the alliance would assume control of the UN-mandated no-fly zone but that the campaign of air strikes on ground targets would remain outside Nato authority and be run by the "coalition of the willing" taking part.
The United Arab Emirates has said the Gulf federation would send 12 aircraft – six F16s and six Mirages – to help patrol the no-fly zone, joining Qatar as the only members of the 22-member Arab League to publicly commit forces to the military operation.
Overnight air strikes were launched on Gaddafi forces in and around Ajdabiya according to France's chief of defence staff, Admiral Edouard Guillaud.
A plane destroyed an artillery battery and French forces also destroyed a military base, a munitions depot and maintenance facilities in Libya's interior.
Defence secretary Liam Fox said British Tornado GR4 aircraft had launched several guided missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles: "The Tornado aircraft launched a number of guided Brimstone missiles at Libyan armoured vehicles which were threatening the civilian population of Ajdabiya."
He added: "Brimstone is a high precision, low collateral damage weapon optimised against demanding and mobile targets."
The African Union, in a rare apparent criticism of Gaddafi, has also called for a transition period for Libya during which democratic elections could be held.
"The AU action is moving forward in a resolute political process aiming at facilitating dialogue between the Libyan parties on reforms to be launched to eliminate the root causes of the conflict … that should end with the election of democratic institutions," the union's commission chairman, Jean Ping, said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Oana Lungescu, the Nato spokeswoman, said on Friday morning that the 28 ambassadors in Nato's policymaking North Atlantic council had decided "to actively consider" assuming authority for the air-strike operations, the most contentious and divisive aspect of the campaign.
Turkey and Germany, key Nato members, oppose air strikes on ground targets. Ankara wants Nato to take command and control of the air strikes campaign, meaning that the Turks would have greater influence and even a veto over the air strikes, since Nato operates by consensus.
All the signs were that a Nato decision would be made by Tuesday 29 March when the foreign ministers from all those involved in the anti-Gaddafi campaign gather for a crucial conference in London.
There are three main elements to the military offensive against Gaddafi stemming from UN security council resolutions – a no-fly zone, an arms embargo and the air strikes on ground targets based on the "right to protect", safeguarding civilians in Libya from massacre.
Nato is now in charge of the no-fly zone and the arms embargo, policed from a flotilla in the Mediterranean. The big bone of contention is the air strikes.
A Nato officer suggested the problem may fade because of developments on the ground.
"The majority of those missions have been successful and may be close to completion," he said.
Nato officers said on Friday that the timing of the handover from US to alliance control of the no-fly zone was unclear, but it would probably take 48 hours.
The Nato operations are to be steered from Nato's joint force command in Naples, while the nerve centre for the no-fly-zone air sorties will be a combat air operations centre in Izmir, Turkey.
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