Nato air raids targeted the military intelligence headquarters of Muammar Gaddafi’s battered regime yesterday, ahead of a visit to Libya by an envoy from Russia which has raised concerns about the scope of the military campaign.
Royal Air Force Tornado and Typhoon warplanes hit the military intelligence HQ in Tripoli early yesterday, Major General Nick Pope, spokesman for the Chief of Defence Staff, said in London.
“The strike complemented other allied air missions conducted against other key regime targets in Tripoli during the course of last night,” he said in a statement.
The Western military alliance said that its aircraft “delivered precision-guided weapons as part of a campaign which continues to degrade Gaddafi’s ability to commit crimes on his own people”.
A Libyan Information Ministry official said that Nato-led warplanes also hit offices of the state broadcaster but the alliance denied the charge.
“We did not target or hit the Libyan broadcast facilities,” Wing Commander Mike Bracken, the Nato mission spokesman, said. “What we did target was the military intelligence headquarters in downtown Tripoli.”
Nato-led warplanes were in the air over the Libyan capital again on Monday evening. An AFP correspondent heard two loud explosions in the city centre at around 6.50 p.m.
State television said that a telecommunications centre was hit, cutting telephone lines in several areas.
An explosion also hit the town of Tajoura, east of Tripoli, residents said.
Tripoli will not be on the itinerary of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s envoy Mikhail Margelov, who will instead meet rebel leaders in their Benghazi stronghold today, an official said in Moscow.
Russia has voiced concerns that the Nato operation is sliding towards a land campaign.
Mr Margelov, Mr Medvedev’s Africa envoy, told Russia’s Ria Novosti news agency he would meet rebel leaders including Mustafa Abdul Jalil, head of the National Transitional Council that controls eastern Libya.
Mr Medvedev announced at the G8 summit last month he would be sending the envoy to Libya, as Moscow seeks to present itself as a potential mediator and expresses growing alarm over the continued conflict.
But the fact that Mr Margelov will not visit Tripoli will limit Moscow’s scope in attempts to bring about a truce between the two sides.
“A drawing out of the armed conflict will worsen the humanitarian situation not only in Libya but also in neighbouring states that are taking on Libyan refugees,” Mr Margelov told RIA.
“This all threatens a dangerous destabilisation of the situation in the region.”
Moscow has expressed alarm as Nato’s air campaign to enforce a UN-mandated no-fly zone to protect civilians entered a new phase with the deployment of British and French attack helicopters over the weekend.
“(Nato is) using attack helicopters on land targets, which is in my view the last but one step before the land operation,” Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.