20110515
reuters

NATO must broaden the range of targets it is bombing in Libya or risk failing to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power, Britain's most senior military officer was quoted as saying.

NATO warplanes, acting under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians, have stopped government troops advancing on rebel strongholds but the collapse of Gaddafi's rule, which many Western governments seek, has not materialised.

After a series of air strikes on his Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli, Gaddafi taunted the Western military alliance, saying in an audio recording aired on Friday that he was in a place where NATO could not reach him.

General David Richards, Britain's chief of defence staff, said the military campaign to date had been a "significant success" for NATO, but it needed to do more.

"If we do not up the ante now there is a risk that the conflict could result in Gaddafi clinging to power," he was quoted in Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper as saying.

"At present, NATO is not attacking infrastructure targets in Libya. But if we want to increase the pressure on Gaddafi's regime then we need to give serious consideration to increasing the range of targets we can hit," he said.

A spokesman for the Libyan government responded by saying that NATO had already gone beyond its mandate from the United Nations to protect civilians.

"They've already been targeting infrastructure," Khaled Kaim, who is also deputy foreign minister, told a news briefing.