Hi-Tech Kit To Track Down Gaddafi - Sky News

11:52pm UK, Friday August 26, 2011

Simon Newton, Sky News reporter

As Colonel Muammar Gaddafi tries to evade capture Nato is using the latest technology to track down the elusive Libyan leader.

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In the air over Libya the US Air Force's RC 135 'Rivet Joint' surveillance planes are believed to be eavesdropping on telephone calls and communications.

First used in Vietnam and co-manned by USAF and RAF crews, Rivet Joint planes were deployed in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and carry voice-recognition software to identify radio and telephone traffic.

Lord West, Britain's former chief of defence intelligence, says Nato will be using air power and satellite imagery to scour Libya for any sign of Gaddafi.

"As the tipping point has come and we've moved into Tripoli, I'm sure a larger and larger share of (Nato's) capability will have been turned to finding Gaddafi because he is a centre of gravity for all of this," he said.

Nato is using the most sophisticated equipment at its disposal

But Lord West doubts whether technology alone will deliver the man who has ruled Libya for the past 42 years.

"If I was Gaddafi I wouldn't be using any of the things they are looking for," he said.

"If he gave a squeak on any sort of communications we would have him instantly - we would have him located, have him sewn up. But he knows that and therefore I think it's very unlikely that he'll do it."

Gaddafi has a labyrinth of tunnels and bunkers in which he can hide including a German-built complex beneath his home town of Sirte, 250 miles east of Tripoli.

Rebels search a tunnel at Col Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli

Former CIA agent Michael Scheuer said that if the Libyan dictator makes it there it will be very difficult to find him.

"Bin Laden was stationary for a long time so if Gaddafi is in Sirte surrounded by his loyalists and he's not moving there's not a lot to go on," he said.

Mr Scheuer said he also doubted that both the £1m bounty on Gaddafi's head, or technology, would be enough to find him.

Col Gaddafi has so far managed to elude his would-be captors

"We had $200m out in Afghanistan for bin Laden and Mullah Omar and their lieutenants and nobody picked up a cent of it yet as far as I know," he said.

"I think too often we have a James Bond or Hollywood version of what our intelligence people can do.

"Unless you know what you're looking for - a number or a particular Sim card - you're really trawling through an enormous amount of traffic.

"Technology is an important tool but it's not a silver bullet."