Let there be no doubt: it’s full-fledged war over Libya. U.S. planes are now attacking Moammar Gadhafi’s ground forces outside major Libyan cities.
Five days into Operation Odyssey Dawn and — as predicted (cough) — the U.S.-led coalition has moved from grounding Gahdafi’s planes to going after his tanks, trucks and artillery units. “We are putting pressure on Gadhafi’s ground forces that are attacking civilian populations in cities,” Vice Adm. Gerard P. Hueber, chief of staff of the task force conducting the war, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday afternoon.
Specifically, the ongoing attacks are occurring outside the besieged cities of Ajdabiya in the east and Misurata in the west, where units loyal to Gadhafi are using “tanks, artillery [and] rocket launchers” in heavily populated areas. Until Gadhafi’s forces pull back from those and “other” areas, Heuber said, “that pressure from Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn coalition partners will continue.” In other words, the U.S. is once again facing urban war — this time from the air — where it will be difficult to spare civilian lives during airstrikes predicated on protecting the Libyan people.
The escalation has gone hand-in-hand with an Americanization of the conflict. Over the past 24 hours, coalition aircraft have flown 175 sorties over Libya, with U.S. pilots flying 113 of those missions. By contrast, on Monday, Odyssey Dawn flew fewer than 80 sorties, with “well over half” of them coming from non-U.S. planes, according to Gen. Carter Ham. Lesson: when the fighting gets serious, U.S. pilots are the ones you call.
That’s a big deal: the Libya mission is supposed to transition to a new multinational command, with the U.S. combat role diminishing. Today’s attacks on Gadhafi’s ground forces raise the question of how rapidly that transition can occur if Gadhafi’s forces don’t give in.
And Gadhafi has evidently made taking Ajdabiya and Misurata a priority. Hueber confirmed that two elite Libyan brigades are involved.
Taking on those brigades will be tricky. Heuber said the planes faced an “extremely complex and difficult environment” as they try to avoid dropping bombs or opening fire on urban areas: the plan is to “interdict those forces before they enter the city… cut off their lines of communication and cut off their command and control.” So far, there are no reports of civilian casualties, Heuber said.
There are active information operations going on over Libya — thanks, Commando Solo — telling Gadhafi’s forces to stand down. They’re not working so far. Which also means that since the war began on Saturday, loyalist forces are putting up a fiercer fight, rather than backing down.
Heuber also may have given the first indication that the coalition is coordinating its efforts with the Libyan opposition — however inadvertently. The U.S. has “told the opposition how to maneuver” in order to avoid airstrikes, Heuber initially said. But when reporters asked him about the shift from Ham and Adm. Samuel Locklear’s insistance that there is “no official communication” with the rebels, Heueber walked it back, claiming to have “misstated that.”
Either way, the war can be said to have entered a new phase on its fifth day. Libyan aircraft aren’t flying, and the no-fly zone now extends “boundary to boundary” across the Libyan coast. With total mastery over Libyan airspace, the U.S.-led coalition now targets Gadhafi’s most hardcore ground units. That brings the U.S. to the brink of yet another complex urban war, this one waged from the skies.
Photo: U.S. Air Force
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