Fog of war . . .
We just heard from the ABC news team who finally cleared up the confusion surrounding how the Libyan Galeb actually ceased to be. Unlike our earlier assumption based on the first reports that mentioned a "shoot down" it turns out that the Galeb was not hit by an air-to-air weapon launched from a French Rafale but rather it was destroyed when an air-to-ground missile exploded over one of Misrata's runways.
According to a French military statement the flight of Rafales were alerted by an AWACS surveillance plane that the Libyan jet was airborne over Misrata. The Galeb that was violating the no-fly rule apparently quickly landed soon thereafter. "The French patrol carried out an air-to-ground strike using a A2SM missile while the fighter jet of Colonel Gadhafi's forces had just landed at the military base in Misrata," the French statement said.
Not what the weapon's designers intended . . . but a kill's a kill, as we say in the fighter (and bomber, I guess) business.
-- Ward
