Leader: If Gaddafi was the target, we're on dangerous ground

STRIKE at the nerve centre of Colonel Gaddafi's military command? Or a bungled assassination attempt? There is little doubt that a Nato air strike reported to have killed one of Gaddafi's sons has ratcheted up not only the conflict but also the political tensions and pressures within the Allied coalition.

Angry crowds in Tripoli have targeted foreign missions and the Libyan ambassador to Britain has been expelled. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, declared that the Vienna Convention requires the Libyan regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. Gaddafi's supporters will see matters in a different light. Assassination of a head of state is illegal under international law and forbidden by various US presidential orders. Whether this strike was intended for military purposes only, it is widely seen in Tripoli and beyond as an assassination attempt.

Given the highly personalised nature of the Libyan regime, the question of what is a legal target and what is an assassination attempt is ambiguous. Power and control in Libya flows from Gaddafi, so a strike aimed at the heart of the command and control network cannot but resolve itself into an attack on the person of the leadership. Final judgment must await more details of the attack. Yet for all the military justification that may be advanced for this strike, care needs to be taken to avoid the perception, both in Libya and the outside world, that the coalition is now extending the war to the physical removal of the country's leader. This could backfire badly.