Libyan plane shot down after Hague tells MPs no-fly zone established

Statement to MPs comes shortly before ABC News report that French fighter jet had shot down Libyan aircraftWilliam Hague faced mild embarrassment when he told MPs Libyan military aircraft were unable to take to the air as news emerged that French fight… Continue reading


France plays hawk, Germany demurs. Libya has exposed Europe’s fault lines | Timothy Garton Ash

With the west at sixes and sevens, Gaddafi may yet get away with murder. And this in the year of EU unitySo Europeans are from Mars and Americans are from Venus. Those “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” – the French – have led the military charge i… Continue reading


Libya no-fly zone leadership squabbles continue within Nato

Turkey calls for an alliance-led campaign to limit operations while France seeks a broader ‘coalition of the willing’A flotilla of warships has begun patrolling the Mediterranean under Nato command to block attempts by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to replen… Continue reading


What next for the Anglo-French forces in Libya?| Simon Tisdall

With America and Nato refusing to take lead, the military stand-off with Gaddafi might degenerate into a permanent stalemateBritish and French forces will have their work cut out protecting the rebel enclave of eastern Libya now that Nato has refused t… Continue reading


Nato to take control in Libya after US, UK and France reach agreement

• Nato to assume day-to-day military command in Libya• Obama and Cameron: Substantial progress madeBritain, France and the United States have agreed that Nato will take over the military command of the no-fly zone over Libya in a move which represe… Continue reading


Though the risks are very real, the case for intervention remains strong | Jonathan Freedland

Not to respond to Gaddafi’s chilling threats would leave us morally culpable, but action in Libya is fraught with dangerNewton’s law applies to geopolitics as much as it does to physics: every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. So the failur… Continue reading