Aerial assault aims to be selective in ending war of attrition

"INCREMENTAL attrition" is the buzz word among Nato's higher circles to describe the imminent deployment of Apache helicopters in the Libyan war.

Officials are keen to play down the notion that the arrival of these helicopters, along with French Tiger attack helicopters, will provide the sort of "shock and awe" fireworks seen in Iraq.

Instead, the Apaches will have the job of unlocking a frontline around the besieged rebel city of Misrata where Colonel Gaddafi's forces are dug into bunkers, with Grad rocket launchers hidden in farmhouses.

Using these machines to blitz the Libyan army front line may sound attractive, not least to rebels who have seen their loved-ones killed and maimed through 70 days of ferocious bombardment.

But any such blitz would also put at risk the civilians in Gaddafi-controlled areas, in particular Zlitan, the town to the west of Misrata which guards the road to Tripoli.

Rebel commanders in Misrata admit that concern for the fate of the civilians is why they do not use their own limited supply of mortars and rockets in counter-battery fire.

So the Apaches are more likely to be used to winkle out enemy positions one by one.

The helicopters, backed by unmanned Reaper drones, can do the one thing that Nato's fast jets cannot - and that is to linger over the battle zone.

Attack helicopters can use advanced optics to track enemy positions from five miles distant, out of both eyesight and earshot of their targets.

Nato planners hope that this attrition will bring with it a psychological element - that once Gaddafi's forces realise that death is only a matter of time and place, units will begin to desert en masse.