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Africa and the Middle East

We have other plans to get further assistance into Misrata, although of course, I cannot be specific about them in advance—we do not want to give notice of our plans to the Gaddafi regime. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that a good deal of our military effort has been designed to protect the people of Misrata. Many of the strikes against battle tanks and mobile artillery units of the Libyan armed forces have been made in the vicinity of Misrata. That is difficult because some of those forces are in built-up areas, and our concern to avoid civilian casualties overrides our desire to attack individual units in such areas. However, a great deal of the NATO effort is now going into trying to relieve the pressure on the most unfortunate citizens of Misrata.