NATO is keeping up with its sorties against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi as the Libyan rebels are still struggling to crush the dictator's forces.

NATO information reveals that the Alliance's aircraft flew 133 sorties on Thursday, including 46 "strike" sorties, which identify and engage targets.

NATo's "key hits" for Thursday include 29 armed vehicles and a "command and control node" in the vicinity of Sirte, and a surface-to-air missile transloader and missile launcher in the vicinity of Tripoli, the Alliance says.

NATO's sorties included the raids of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) on a bunker in Colonel Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, on the dictator's last remaining strongholds.

British Tornado jets fired precision-guided missiles against a large bunker in Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said, as cited by the BBC.

The Tornadoes took off from RAF Marham in Norfolk on a long-range strike mission on Thursday night.

In its statement, the MoD said "a formation of Tornado GR4s... fired a salvo of Storm Shadow precision-guided missiles against a large headquarters bunker" in Sirte.

The bunker housed a command and control center. There is no indication that Col Gaddafi was in Sirte or in the bunker itself at the time of the attack.

"The Nato mission remains the protection of the civilian population," British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said, adding, "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. 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."

On Thursday, the Libyan rebels moved to advance on the region of Sirte, Gaddafi's bastion and birthplace. Sirte, 450 km east of Tripoli, and Sabha, 600 km to the south, are Gaddafi's two last major strongholds.

Having taken most of Tripoli – even though the capital has not been fully secured with pockets of resistance still surviving in some districts - the Libyan rebel forces started to push towards Sirte.

The dictator's loyalists, however, managed to halt their advance, ambushing a large column of rebel vehicles near the town of Bin Jawad, according to international reports, killing dozens of rebels, with the rest of the rebel troops withdrawing hastily to the east towards the town of Ras Lanuf.

On March 19, 2011, NATO-led international forces started air and rocket strikes against the Gaddafi regime under a UN Security Council mandate.

Operation Odyssey Dawn was the US code name for the US part of the international military operation in Libya to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 during the initial period of 19–31 March 2011, which continued afterwards under NATO command as Operation Unified Protector.

The initial operation implemented a no-fly zone that was proposed during the 2011 Libyan civil war to prevent government forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on anti-Gaddafi forces.

The US initially had strategic command of the military intervention but passed complete military command of the operation to NATO and took up a support role on 31 March 2011. 

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