Portable radios of the United States and the United Kingdom trainers can fill a gap in threatening communications who had the Libya and their foreign allies rebels relying on cell phones, Skype and a U.S. military attaché were evacuated to the Germany.
The failure of the patchwork approach has become fatally clear within days of the Treaty Organization North Atlantic took command of the air war carried out by the United States. On 8 April, the coalition confirmed that its air strikes the previous day had struck wrong tanks requisitioned by the rebels, who, until then, had used only of pickup trucks. The Associated Press said at least five dead and 20 injured.
The incident "friendly fire" raised the issue of communications with the rebels at the top of a packed agenda for a coalition trying to protect Libyan civilians without too involved with disparate groups, seeking to oust leader Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced yesterday of $ 25 million for Transitional Council acting National opposition, including the radio not secure. Improving communications is the first priority for aid, according to an official informed on the plan who spoke the condition of anonymity.
Clinton had warned the alliance better when she spoke to fellow Foreign Ministers at a NATO meeting in Berlin last week.
"NATO should communicate and cooperate with the opposition as necessary to advance our goals" by resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations authorizing operations, Clinton said.
The rare and sometimes entirely absent communications illustrate the Libyan ad hoc nature of the rebel forces, composed of local tribes most often defend their own community work as a unified whole. It may also reflect the scepticism of the military commanders of coalition lead a mission politically driven that they have resisted the departure.
"There is certainly a tension within the administration,", said Marina Ottaway, Director of program Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington policy group. The division is between organizations as "between a moral imperative to do something on a horrible, as situation evidenced of the statements coming out of the State Department and the reality of an escalation of our participation."
The coalition this week entered its second month of the air campaign, originally commissioned by the United States and handed over to NATO, effective April 1. Qathafi rebel military push has forced the rebels to retreat from some areas and has them fighting to maintain the besieged port of Misrata city.
NATO forces have encountered more difficulty to defend civilians from the air as Qathafi troops began using the same kind of civilian vehicles that rebels and infiltrating cities such as Misrata with snipers.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and senior military officials warned political leaders before the start of the operation that enforce a no-fly zone on the Libya and try to protect civilians would be more complicated that many seem to believe. Gates called "loose talk on some of these military options."
After the start of the air campaign, the commanders of the United States and NATO had only rudimentary communications with the rebel leaders as a first step, then even Clinton met twice principal member of the rebel Council, Mahmood Jibril and sent a Special Envoy at the base of the rebels in the eastern city of Benghazi.
"I am not aware of any communication between the military and the rebel,"Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for the Department of Defense of the United States, said to reporters at the Pentagon April 5. ".
The rebels were dispersed and were mostly defend or support for their own cities, without any unified command, two American military authorities said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. To the United States and then leadership of NATO do not know who was in charge and even cellular telephones were rare, one of the officials said.
In a typical scenario, the rebels would deploy across a desert landscape in pickup trucks loaded with machine guns to face the forces of Qathafi, relying on a single leader with a cell phone, the official said. When a call advising on the location of the enemy has prompted the leader to turn away, the rest will follow.
Military attaché who was evacuated from the Embassy of the United States in Tripoli has tried to use its contacts in Libya to reach the rebels, the official said.
The coalition also relied on French and British officials who had links more historically, make contact with the rebels via Internet, regular mail and Skype Technologies SA PC to PC phone service, the military leader said.
Communications sparse enough so that it became more difficult for the NATO aircraft to distinguish Qathafi forces rebels and civilians. Again, criticism dismissed commanders coalition that they were not trying hard enough to establish reliable contact with the rebels, even after the strike April 7.
"For us, it is not seeking to protect civilians in what persuasion, to improve communications with the rebel forces," Rear Admiral Russell Harding, of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, the Deputy Commander of the NATO mission, told reporters on 8 April at the headquarters of the operation to NaplesItalie.
In recent weeks, the rebels have become better equipped, the military official U.S. said. They have set up a headquarters and NATO can connect to the location by phone.
The coalition members were hand-carried in cellular phones and technology satellite communications, and special forces provided by countries other than the United States contributed to exchange information, the official said.
The Ministry of defence in the United Kingdom, this week said about 20 members of the British army who served in Iraq and in Afghanistan are deployed to provide advice to the rebels, including communications.
The opposition based in Benghazi needs more support because it was not an established organization, Clinton said yesterday at the State Department.
"These are mainly of students, business people, lawyers, doctors, professors, who have moved very bravely to defend their communities and to call to put an end to the regime in Libya," she said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net. Nicole Gaouette in Washington to ngaouette@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in msilva34@bloomberg.net
Hussien, a rebel fighter, prepares a belt of ammunition for his heavy 
A laser guided bomb is installed on a Rafale combat aircraft before a mission on the 