Sending British officers to Libya 'could lead to troops on ground'

Former military commanders today warned that the deployment of military advisers to help rebels in Libya could be a "thin end of the edge", leading to British troops on the ground.

While Libya's beleaguered rebel army welcomed the arrival of at least 10 senior officers in Benghazi to help organise them into a proper fighting force, there were fears at home that the action would escalate.

Lord West, the former security minister and First Sea Lord, said: "I'm worried that this could lead us into things that we do not want to get involved in.

"The next thing might be that we find our officers advising on a military operation. Then you find that an adviser is aiming a weapon. The next thing is that you have troops on the ground." Colonel Bob Stewart, the former Bosnia commander turned Tory MP, agreed that escalation was a danger. "This whole thing is a bit of a disaster and we've got to try and get it resolved as soon as possible to stop people dying," he said.

The Foreign Office dismissed comparisons with Vietnam, where American participation in the long war began with sending military advisers. "The situations are completely different," said an official. Libyan rebel leaders said they needed Western troops to fight beside them if they were to survive attacks by Colonel Gaddafi's army.

Nouri Abdulati, a judicial committee member in the besieged city of Misrata, said the offer of advisers to support the fighters' communications and command structure was not enough. "We need a force from Nato or the United Nations on the ground now," he said. "It's life and death. If they don't come, we will die."

A spokesman for the EU's foreign affairs head, Catherine Ashton, said an armed force could be deployed within days if requested by the UN.

The announcement brought a furious rebuke from Gaddafi's regime. "There will be fighting," deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim said. "We will not take this as a humanitarian mission but a military one."