On Sunday Britain said that it is to add bunker-busting bombs to the arsenal its warplanes are using over Libya, a weapon it believes would send a loud message to Muammer Qadhafi that it is time to quit. Britain and the other NATO powers are building up their military intervention in Libya to try and break a deadlock that has seen Qadhafi hold on to power despite weeks of air strikes and a rebel uprising. British Defense Secretary, Mr. Liam Fox, said in a statement that they are not trying to physically target individuals in Qadhafi’s inner circle on whom he relies but they are certainly sending them increasingly loud messages. He added that Qadhafi may not be capable of listening but those around him, but would be wise to do so.

His ministry said that the Enhanced Paveway III bombs, each weighing nearly a ton and capable of penetrating the roof or wall of a hardened building, have arrived at the Italian air base from where British warplanes fly missions over Libya. Warplanes of NATO have already been raising the pace of their air strikes on Tripoli, with Qadhafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound in the center of the city being hit repeatedly.

The military alliance says that it is acting under a mandate from the United Nations to protect civilians from attack by security forces trying to put down a rebellion against Qadhafi’s four-decade rule.

However, the more aggressive tactics risk causing divisions within the fragile alliance breaking the intervention, and could also lead to NATO being dragged closer towards putting troops on Libyan soil, something it is anxious to avoid. Al Jazeera television station broadcasted a video footage of what it said were foreign forces, possibly British, on the ground near the rebel-held city of Misrata.

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