Pentagon says Libya no-fly zone to be extended soon - Los Angeles Times

Though U.S. commanders have described the military goal as establishing a no-fly zone since launching the effort Saturday, what they are attempting is more difficult, requiring finely nuanced judgment from fighter pilots about how to respond to multiple scenarios on the ground.

Commanders say their objective is to protect civilians from reprisals by the regime without intervening on the rebels' side, but they also acknowledge that they are attempting to halt government attacks on remaining rebel positions, which comes close to intervening on behalf of the opposition forces.

If the rebels respond to this intervention by resuming the offensive against Kadafi's forces, the coalition has no intention of providing air support to assist the opposition in driving the Libyan leader from power. But whereas that seems like a logical distinction now, it could become tougher to stick by if, in coming weeks, Kadafi's power begins to crumble and the rebels regain the momentum.

"These are situations that brief much better at a headquarters than they do in the cockpit of an aircraft," Ham acknowledged Monday.

The last time the U.S. undertook an air war largely for humanitarian purposes was in 1999, in Kosovo, a tiny province in Serbia where police and military forces loyal to Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic were carrying out a ruthless assault on ethnic Albanians.

Clinton administration officials expected Milosevic to fold quickly after NATO launched airstrikes, but it took a 78-day bombing campaign. As Obama has done with Libya, the Clinton White House vowed early on not to send U.S. ground troops into Kosovo, which seemed to only embolden Milosevic to resist.

Officials at the Pentagon on Monday said that the Libya operation was going as planned.

Having neutralized much of Libya's air defense system, the coalition will focus in coming days on extending the no-fly zone, Ham said, gradually bringing more and more cities along the Libyan coast under air protection. If all goes according to plan, U.S. military officers say, there will be several more weeks of air attacks, largely by British, French and other countries' fighters.

Photos: U.S., allies launch attacks in Libya

Simply keeping watch on those Libyan forces will become tougher as more of the country falls under the no-fly zone. "This is by no means over," a senior U.S. officer said Monday. "Kadafi still has ground forces and we still believe that he intends to use them."

david.cloud@latimes.com

Times staff writer Borzou Daragahi in Tripoli and Ken Dilanian of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.