Page 9 - Zero-01

towards Tripoli— nothing yet was clear to whom would go the victory: to the green fag of the Jammahiriah or the red-black-green fag of the Benghazi-based provisional government and its cohorts of ragtagged civilians in arms. The struggle was on. In their westward-advance rebels had at that time seized the town of Nawfaliyah, west of Bin Jawad, extending their advance towards Sirte, but without securing their Toyota SUV spearhead columns of light vehicles toting salvaged Russian machine guns of all types. Reports of end March said rebels on the road to the city came under fre from government troops, forcing them back to Bin Jawad and ultimately back to Brega and Ras Lanuf.

At about the same time, France said its jets had struck a Kadhaf command centre just south of Tripoli’s suburbs

on Sunday night, while the UK said it had destroyed ammunition bunkers in the southern desert region of Sabha on Monday without encountering any serious ennemy air threat.

In the face of modest Libyan air force aerial operations, most of the aircraft destroyed by French military aircraft so far have been pinned on the ground with bombs. Not any bomb: the 250-kg Armement Air-Sol Modulaire (AASM), a new and very ingenuous stand-of precision guided munition (PGM), actually a “rocket-bomb” imagined twenty years ago by a French Air Force ofcer in the aftermath of “Operation Desert Storm”.

On 29 March, the tally already totalled six Soko G-2 Galeb jets and two

’ 31 March 2011, a French Air Force Dassault Rafale C from squadron EC 1/7 “Provence” is seen retracting its landing gear after launching from Solenzara air base in Corsica. The aircraft —a recent F3 model fitted with the US Rover system for CAS missions in Afghanistan— is armed with four Sagem 250 kg AASM rocket-bombs and four MBDA Mica air-to-air combat missiles. 31 de Março de 2011, um Dassault Rafale da Força Aérea Francesa recolhe o trem de pouso após decolar da base aérea de Solenzara na Corsica. A aeronave — um modelo F3 recente, equipado com o sistema US Rover para missões CAS no Afeganistão — está armada com quatro bombas Sagem AASM de 250 kg e quatro mísseis ar-ar MBDA Mica. Um olhar mais detalhado sob o cockpit deixa claro que este Rafale já participou de várias missões de bombadeio. A equipe de solo do Armée de l’Air grava apenas o número de bombas que foram realmente lançadas durante as missões. © Author