US Won't Send Troops to Libya, Says Gaddafi Hasn't Fled

A US Navy handout made available on 28 March 2011 shows a Harrier jet aircraft assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26th MEU) returns to the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) for resupply during air strikes supporting Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn on 21 Ma

The United States will not send any troops on the ground to Libya after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, according to a senior Pentagon spokesperson.

"If there is going to be some kind of transitional mission that involves any kind of foreign troops, there wouldn't be US ground troops as part of that," Pentagon spokesman Col Dave Lapan said Monday, as cited by the BBC.

Lapan stressed, however, that US air surveillance operations over Libya would continue for the time being, as the rebels struggled to close in on Gaddafi's loyalists.

"We still have a pretty good operational picture of where the forces are arrayed on the battlefield," said Col Lapan.

He has thus answered concerns in the Arab world press that NATO might seek to deploy peace-keepers on the ground after the rebels' Transitional National Council takes over.

In his words, the US believes that Gaddafi is still in Libya. "We do not have information that he's left the country," he said.

The US has generally sought to keep its involvement in the Libyan civil war - through the NATO-led air strikes - as much as possible.

On March 19, 2011, NATO-led international forces started air and rocket strikes against the Gaddafi regime under a UN Security Council mandate.

Operation Odyssey Dawn was the US code name for the US part of the international military operation in Libya to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 during the initial period of 19–31 March 2011, which continued afterwards under NATO command as Operation Unified Protector.

The initial operation implemented a no-fly zone that was proposed during the 2011 Libyan civil war to prevent government forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on anti-Gaddafi forces.

The US initially had strategic command of the military intervention but passed complete military command of the operation to NATO and took up a support role on 31 March 2011. 

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