Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi poses after an interview with TRT Turkish television reporter Mehmet Akif Ersoy at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli in this March 8, 2011 file photo.
With Russia warning that Moammar Gadhafi has a suicide plan to blow up Tripoli, NATO's commander in Libya says he has heard no inkling of such a scorched-earth strategy.
Mikhail Margelov, the Russian envoy to Africa, said senior regime figures told him that if rebels seize the Libyan capital, the Gadhafi regime will "cover it with missiles and blow it up." The Russian envoy indicated he believes it.
But Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, the Canadian in charge of NATO's mission in Libya, said that while he knows that Col. Gadhafi issues orders to his retreating forces to blow up things like oil refineries, he's heard nothing of a Tripoli suicide plan.
"I do not know of any plan of the magnitude that you've discussed," he told reporters in a conference call from his headquarters in Italy.
"I can report that the Gadhafi regime has given direction to its forces to destroy certain facilities as they withdraw back, such as fuel refineries and other aspects. This is a leader that will not hesitate to kill his population to achieve his personal goal."
Defence Minister Peter MacKay, visiting Canadian and NATO operations in Italy, where Lt.-Gen. Bouchard is based, said he was not aware of reports of such a suicide plan.
Lt.-Gen. Bouchard, who described Libya's east as near-normal but said Tripoli remains under the control of repressive security forces, suggested that Colonel Gadhafi might not have the power to issue such an order anymore.
"Let's be clear. Just because Gadhafi has given a direction, that does not mean that that direction is being undertaken by his troops," the Canadian officer said.
"We are seeing a fair bit of his troops, of his generals surrendering, of his troops abandoning their posts, and therefore one has to put all of these aspects into consideration when looking at the situation on the ground."
It's also not clear if the question will ever be tested. Most analysts believe that rebels do not have the capability to take Tripoli in an offensive, and NATO countries have said they won't send ground forces. Hopes of ousting Col. Gadhafi still rest chiefly on his surrender, a coup from within his ranks or an uprising in Tripoli.
The question of whether NATO will continue the operation indefinitely, with squabbles over burden-sharing and the length of the bombing campaign, remains hotly debated - and Mr. Mackay warned that the mission is "a test for NATO."
"It's a conflict that is going to require a very persistent, determined, unified approach," the Defence Minister said.
Campbell Clark