Nato allies are weighing when to call an end to the allied air campaign in Libya with Muammar Gaddafi’s forces surrounded and largely out of reach of Western warplanes, officials said yesterday.

The number of air strikes has dramatically declined in recent weeks, with only one bombing raid reported on Tuesday compared with about 15-20 air strikes a day earlier in the conflict, Nato officials said.

Forces loyal to the deposed dictator are encircled in Sirte and Bani Walid and hiding among the local population, rendering Nato fighter jets less effective and raising the risk of civilian casualties, officials said.

“The effect of air power is not necessarily the right tool with these kind of threats,” a Western official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

“You can’t hit something that’s not there,” the official said. “A sniper on a rooftop – that’s not really something we would go after (with air power).”

Nato defence ministers met in Brussels yesterday and discussed how and when to call time on the six-month campaign, which has been credited with turning the tide in the Libyan conflict with Col Gaddafi, who is now a fugitive, having lost control of the country. Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis was due to offer ministers his assessment of the air war yesterday after Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussensaid he was “encouraged by progress” in the campaign.“We will continue our operation as long as necessary but we are determined to bring it to an end as soon as possible,” General Rasmussen added. Senior military officers overseeing the operation in Naples, Italy, were increasingly eager to call an end to the Libyan effort given conditions on the ground, officials said.

But alliance members were still waiting for a clear ­conclusion to fighting in the Sirte and Bani Walid territories,where the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters areattempting to finishoff Col Gaddafi’s loyalists.