20110318
reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - France, Britain and their allies will take a step into the unknown with any military intervention in Libya that could lead to an open-ended conflict.

Thursday's United Nations Security Council resolution authorised "all necessary measures" to protect civilians short of a foreign occupation force -- raising the prospect of air strikes potentially being launched within hours or days.

Libya said it would halt military operations and comply with the resolution -- but some reports suggested firing by government troops was continuing. The U.S, France and Britain said they would judge actions not words, making it clear that launching bombing raids remained firmly on the table.

The question then would be how Libya's always idiosyncratic leader Muammar Gaddafi, or Libya's own population, might react.

"It's very hard to predict what will happen next," said Henry Smith, Libya analyst at London-based consultancy Control Risks. "A lot depends on Gaddafi's mindset."

"The best case scenario would be that we would quickly get some kind of ceasefire and perhaps a de facto partition. But we have conflicting signals from Tripoli. Gaddafi has a history of using unconventional tactics."

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- both initially judged quick and relatively simple interventions that turned into long drawn-out campaigns with thousands of civilian and western military dead -- leave many worried.

Supporters of intervention point to massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda as warnings of the consequences of inaction.