Leader comment: Sending advisers to Libya is a perilous step into unknown

After earnest and repeated assurances from the coalition government that there would be "no British boots on the ground" in Libya, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced yesterday the deployment of British military officers to advise the anti-Gaddafi forces.

This does not, he insists, contradict earlier promises: they will not be in uniform and will thus, presumably, be wearing civilian shoes. For all the insistent statements that this is not a direct engagement involving troops as most would understand it, there is little doubt that this stretches the UN "no-fly zone" resolution to the limit and is bound to give rise to concern over "mission creep".

The problem here is that the UK, together with other countries, sought to intervene on compelling humanitarian grounds to prevent Colonel Gaddafi from bombing innocent civilians caught up in the insurgency against his regime. The threat to civilian life was real and present. But, as the regime continued to shell rebel-held areas with resulting heavy casualties to non-combatants, the leaders of the insurgency increasingly demanded more direct support and intervention by allied forces. Now the conflict has developed into what looks like a protracted civil war, the humanitarian mission has become difficult to pursue, let alone complete, without direct military assistance to the forces leading the resistance to Col Gaddafi.While the vast majority of MPs supported the UK's participation in the initial mission, they did so against a background of misgivings about the danger of the UK being drawn, step by step, into another internal conflict in a Muslim state and with the memory of the Iraq imbroglio all too painfully fresh.

Sir Menzies Campbell, in expressing his misgivings over the latest development, has cited the example of US involvement in Vietnam. That analogy may be rather more disturbing on examination than he intended. At least the Americans had some idea of the regime they were seeking to defend. In the Libyan conflict we do not know as much as we should about the nature of the opposition to Col Gaddafi, the forces that comprise it, what its political programme might be and what assurance it has given, if any, to the establishment of an open democratic state were it to gain power.

Given the continuing threat to civilians in Libya, there should be no doubt over Britain's commitment to provide the maximum humanitarian assistance, medical aid and to supply, as the French are doing, offshore logistical support. However, UN resolution 1973 authorised countries to take all necessary measures to protect civilians under threat of attack, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form. The deployment of military advisers, albeit with assurances that their role will be strictly humanitarian, stretches this to the limit. It should not pave the way to an involvement over and above that allowable under the UN resolution and the sanction that parliament has given.