Nato will ask the RAF to contribute more warplanes to step up ground strikes against Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces after the Alliance on Tuesday said a third of the Libyan leader's forces had so far been destroyed.
The Ministry of Defence is also ready to send further Tornados and other aircraft 'if they are needed' a senior defence source said Photo: PA
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent, and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels 7:44PM BST 05 Apr 2011
Britain's overstretched air force will be asked to find even more fighter jets in the coming days, in spite of committing four extra Tornados for military operations over Libya on Monday.
The request comes as Nato demands extra aircraft to meet a shortfall created after America pulled out the fighter jets that had carried out over 50 per cent of the ground strikes against Col Gaddafi's forces.
"We will need more strike assets and that is being addressed," said a Nato official. "Britain has stepped up to the mark with four Tornados but will have to do more."
Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, spent much of the weekend during a Middle East trip calling up defence ministers from across Europe asking them to contribute more aircraft, Whitehall sources said.
"He was working the phones and making a lot of calls to counterparts to get them to provide more aircraft," a source said.
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The Ministry of Defence is also ready to send further Tornados and other aircraft "if they are needed" a senior defence source said. "We can send the whole lot if we need to, all 129 of them ... There will be an uplift from other nations, including the French, being asked to provide more to fill the gap."
The extra demands on the RAF, for operations that are expected to last at least six months, will raise new questions over whether the Armed Forces can meet military demands following defence cuts.
Britain has 12 Tornados flying over Libya. The RAF also has 10 Typhoons enforcing the no-fly zone. There are warnings from RAF officers that they are being "stretched if not overstretched" by the deployments in Libya and Afghanistan.
In other developments in Libya and the region on Tuesday:
– MI5 files disclosed that Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister who defected, was involved in organising the killing of Libyan dissidents in Britain.
– Col Gaddafi's senior envoy returned to Tunisia after travelling to three Nato nations but there was no sign of common ground on a ceasefire and peace deal. The Libyan leader's family put on a display of unity and vowed never to leave the country.
– Yemen's foreign minister warned that al-Qaeda was taking advantage of political unrest to plot new terror attacks, and that a major town had fallen to al-Qaeda-backed rebel forces.
Brigadier General Mark van Uhm, Nato's chief of allied operations, on Tuesday said that aerial attacks had destroyed 30 per cent of Col Gaddafi's military capability. But he admitted that the Alliance was struggling to hit targets because Libya was using "human shield" tactics by putting tanks in urban areas.
Over three-quarters of strike sorties on Monday had to return without dropping bombs or launching their missiles because tanks were in civilian areas.
Air Commodore Andrew Lambert, who flew missions over Bosnia and Iraq, said after two weeks he would have "expected a bit more" of the Libyan forces to be destroyed.
"They could have done more if they wanted but pilots have to make sure they have absolute clarity before dropping because we simply cannot afford a strategic mistake as the whole aim of the mission would be lost overnight," he said.
This June the Air Force will reduce from seven to five Tornado GR4 squadrons when 13 and 14 Squadrons are disbanded, although the Ministry of Defence insists there will be no reduction in the numbers of aircraft or pilots. RAF officers say it will be difficult to run "balanced" squadron-sized detachments in both Libya and Afghanistan.
The Opposition has formally called on the Government to reopen the defence spending review. Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, has warned that it had "not survived its first contact with world events" with draconian cuts to the Forces.
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