Jets strike Gaddafi home town bunker

British Tornado jets fired cruise missiles overnight at a headquarters in deposed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's home town of Sirte, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said yesterday.

"At around midnight, a formation of Tornado GR4s ... fired a salvo of Storm Shadow precision guided missiles against a large headquarters bunker in Sirte," it added in a statement.

The Tornadoes took off from RAF Marham in Norfolk, eastern England, it added.

British Defence Secretary Liam Fox however denied NATO was target ting Gaddafi.

"It's not a question of finding Gaddafi, it's ensuring the regime does not have the capability to continue waging war against its own people," he told the BBC.

"The attack that we launched on the bunker in Sirte last night was to make sure that there was no alternative command and control should the regime try to leave Tripoli." The Ministry of Defence said Tornados earlier destroyed one of Gaddafi's few remaining long-range surface to air missile systems, near Al Watiyah, close to the Tunisian border.

British jets also destroyed a command and control node that remained in former regime hands on the road south from Tripoli to the International Airport, it added. REUTERS