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WASHINGTON -- There is no plan to dislodge the Libyan government or directly help opposition forces, a senior U.S. military official told reporters this afternoon, even as coalition forces move to expand a no-fly zone over Libya.
"We protect civilians," Gen. Carter Ham, the head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters at the Pentagon via satellite from the command's headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. "We do not have a mission to support the opposition."
The U.N.-approved no-fly zone was launched to protect rebel-held Benghazi from Libyan government forces. A number of world leaders have said they feared a massacre if Moammar Gadhafi's troops took back the city.
Ham acknowledged that the line is sometimes fuzzy between helping opposition forces and protecting civilians. Some opposition forces might be "basically civilians trying to protect their civilian lives, business and families," he said.
As the no-fly zone is expanded to the west, however, Ham said it's possible that coalition aircraft will come up against the Libyan military's air defense systems. "Where we encounter them, we will attack them," he said.
But Ham reiterated that the current mission is limited in scope. "There is no intent to completely destroy Libyan military forces," he said.
US General: Libya Operations Limited to Protecting Civilians
Mar 21, 2011 – 1:13 PM
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