Denmark is to send six F-16 fighters and a military transport aircraft to enforce the UN Security Council’s no-fly zone and to protect civilians in Libya, according to Defence Minister Gitte Lillelund Bech.

The aircraft are expected to be based at an as yet undisclosed location in southern Europe.

“We can expect operations like the one we had in Kosovo,” Lillelund Bech says, adding she expects an international action to be able to begin at the weekend.

“From six o’clock tomorrow morning we should be able to have our aircraft in the air,” the minister says.

Denmark’s inclusion in the coalition of the willing comes following Thursday’s decision by the United Nations Security Council to introduce and enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and to take all necessary measures to protect civilians – but short of occupation.

The French government spokesman said this morning that strikes would take place ‘rapidly’ but declined to say when an attack would take place, or where.