U.N.-Mandated No-Fly Zone over Libya Successfully Established

23 March 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says international coalition forces have successfully established the no-fly zone over Libya that was called for under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, and a U.S. military official reports that the majority of air sorties over Libya now are being carried out by non-U.S. aircraft.

Addressing reporters after meeting with Moroccan Foreign Minister Taieb Fassi-Fihri in Washington March 23, Clinton said that in less than a week since coalition military operations began, “significant progress” has been made toward enforcement of the U.N. measure, which was designed to protect Libyan civilians from the forces of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.

“Qadhafi’s troops were poised to enter Benghazi over the weekend, putting hundreds of thousands of civilians in that city of 700,000 at great risk,” Clinton said. “Today, those troops have been pushed back, and those civilians are safer as a result,” she added. The coalition also has “downgraded Qadhafi’s air defense capabilities and set the conditions for an effective no-fly zone.”

The secretary said that because the international community took action, “many, many Libyans are safer today.”

The Obama administration is working to transfer command and control of the military action, known as Operation Odyssey Dawn, to its partners in NATO, and to diminish its role into one of support for the European and Arab members of the coalition as they enforce the no-fly zone.

U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Gerard Hueber spoke by telephone to reporters March 23 from the USS Mount Whitney in the Mediterranean Sea, and said coalition air forces “are now flying 55 percent” of the air sorties. The number is a dramatic increase from March 20, when non-U.S. aircraft were accounting for 15 percent of the flights, he said.

The no-fly zone has now been established over the Libyan coastal areas from Libya’s eastern boundary with Egypt to its western border with Tunisia, Hueber said. “We have no confirmed flight activity by regime air forces over the past 24 hours,” he said.

He said that since military operations began on March 19, much of Qadhafi’s air forces has been either “destroyed or rendered inoperable,” his surface-to-air missile systems have been degraded down to “a negligible threat,” and his air defense system elements are believed to be “severely degraded or destroyed.”

In addition, Hueber said there have been “no reports” that the coalition’s activities have inflicted civilian casualties. “Our mission here is to protect the civilian populace. And we choose our targets and plan our actions with that as a top priority,” he said.

Although coalition action has forced Qadhafi’s forces to leave Benghazi, troops loyal to Qadhafi continue to attack and threaten Libyan civilians in other areas, which he said places them “in clear violation” of U.N. Resolution 1973, which calls on them to observe a cease-fire, completely end their attacks on civilians and allow humanitarian assistance to reach the Libyan people.

“There is widespread reporting indicating Libyan ground forces are engaged in fighting in a number of cities, including Ajdabiya and Misurata, and they are threatening a number of others, putting innocent civilians in grave danger,” Hueber said. In Misurata and Ajdabiya, Qadhafi’s forces “are targeting population centers specifically” with tanks, artillery and rocket launchers, he added.

Coalition aircraft are targeting Qadhafi’s mechanized forces, artillery and mobile surface-to-air missile sites in an effort to “interdict those forces before they enter the city, cut off their lines of communication and cut off their command and control,” he said.

He said the coalition is “not targeting Qadhafi” himself, but is focused on the mission to uphold the U.N. resolution, “which includes protecting Libyan civilians and enforcing of the no-fly zone.”