TRIPOLI, Libya—US and European forces unleashed warplanes and missiles against Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi on Saturday, and followed up their broad campaign of air strikes on Sunday in a military intervention on a scale not seen in the Arab world since the Iraq war.
OPERATION ODYSSEY DAWN. One of the 110 Tomahawk missiles fired from US and British ships and submarines that targeted about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya’s Mediterranean coast came from this Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52). AFP PHOTO / US NAVY VISUAL NEWS SERVICE
American warships and a British submarine fired at least 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libya on Saturday, according to Vice Adm. William Gortney who also told reporters at the Pentagon that the cruise missiles “struck more than 20 integrated air defense systems and other air defense facilities ashore.”
The barrage came two days after a UN Security Council passed a resolution with Arab backing, which authorized military action to prevent Gadhafi’s forces from attacking civilians amid an uprising against his 41-year autocratic rule.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent said bombs were dropped early Sunday near Bab al-Aziziyah, Gadhafi’s Tripoli headquarters, prompting barrages of antiaircraft fire from Libyan forces that lasted about 40 minutes.
State television showed footage of hundreds of Gadhafi supporters who it said had gathered earlier to serve as human shields at Bab al-Aziziyah and at the international airport in Tripoli.
Early on Sunday, the sound of antiaircraft fire and screaming fighter jets echoed across Tripoli, punctuated by heavy explosions. CBS News reported that three American B-2 stealth bombers flying nonstop from the United States dropped 40 bombs on a major airfield to try to destroy much of the Libyan Air Force.
French warplanes, firing the first shots at 1645 GMT on Saturday, destroyed tanks and armored vehicles near the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya.
Burned-out military vehicles lined the main road into Benghazi on Sunday as the rebels advanced back toward the strategic town of Ajdabiyah they had lost last week.
One tank had its turret blown off. A tank transporter, a tank and an armored personnel carrier were still smoldering. Fourteen bodies lay in the desert next to the vehicles.
“This is all France … Today we came through and saw the road open,” rebel fighter Tahir Sassi said, surveying the scene.
“Operation Odyssey Dawn,” the code-name of the international effort to impose a UN-sanctioned no-fly zone and keep Gadhafi from using air power against beleaguered rebel forces, was portrayed by Pentagon and NATO officials as under French and British leadership.
But the Pentagon said US forces were mounting an initial campaign to knock out Libya’s air defense systems, firing volley after volley of Tomahawk missiles from nearby ships against missile, radar and communications centers around the capital Tripoli and the western cities of Misurata and Surt.
‘Crusader aggression’
Speaking on Libyan state television on Sunday, Gadhafi said the international action against his forces was unjustified, calling it “simply a colonial crusader aggression that may ignite another large-scale crusader war.”
Delivering a fresh and defiant tirade, the Libyan dictator vowed retaliation and said his forces would wage a long war and triumph in the end.
“We will not leave our land and we will liberate it,” he said. “Oil will not be left to the United States, France and Britain.”
Muhammad Zweid, secretary of the Libyan parliament, said the Western intervention had “caused some real harm against civilians and buildings.” But he declined to go into specifics.
In a report whose accuracy could not be verified, Libyan state TV on Sunday morning quoted the Libyan Army command as saying 48 people had been killed and 150 injured in the air strikes.
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US President Barack Obama, speaking during a visit to Brazil, reiterated promises that no American ground forces would be used.
“I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it,” he said. “I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice, and it’s not a choice that I make lightly. But we can’t stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy.”
The campaign began with French warplanes, which launched attacks even before the end of an emergency meeting among allied leaders in Paris on Saturday.
The officials, reacting to news that Gadhafi’s forces were attacking Benghazi despite international demands for a ceasefire, said they had no choice but to defend Libyan civilians and opposition forces.
Benghazi residents interviewed by telephone reported a relentless artillery barrage before government tanks entered the city from the west on Saturday morning.
There was heavy fighting in the city center, and pro-Gadhafi snipers could be seen on the building that the rebel council used as a foreign ministry, not far from the courthouse that is the council’s headquarters.
“Our assessment is that the aggressive actions by Gadhafi forces continue in many places around the country,” US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said after the Paris meeting.
“We saw it over the last 24 hours, and we’ve seen no real effort on the part of the Gadhafi forces to abide by a ceasefire, despite the rhetoric,” she added.
‘Multiphase operation’
The missile strikes were the start of what Gortney called a “multiphase operation” to create a no-fly zone that would allow coalition aircraft to fly over Libya without the risk of being shot down.
The United States has at least 11 warships stationed near Tripoli, including three submarines—the Scranton, the Florida and the Providence—and the destroyers, the Stout and the Barry. All five fired cruise missiles on Saturday, the US Navy said.
Other coalition ships in the Mediterranean included 11 from Italy and one each from Britain, Canada and France.
The Danish defense ministry on Sunday said that it had deployed six F-16 warplanes to bases in Sicily and there were reports of aircraft from Canada and Spain moving to Mediterranean bases as a buildup of air power continued.
Benghazi fighting
In Benghazi, residents said the fighting was heavy as Gadhafi forces reached the city center along the main road, which is named for the anticolonial Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser.
And a Soviet-era MIG-23 fighter jet that rebels said they had captured in the early days of the uprising and that they had sent on a mission against government forces went down in flames in the city. The pilot ejected, but was reported to have died from his injuries.
In the nearby rebel-held city of Bayda on Saturday, crowds cheered the news that French planes were attacking Gadhafi forces in the east while allied missiles were falling in the west.
“Sarkozy is bombing them!” one rebel fighter told drivers passing his checkpoint on the way to Bayda. “They’re bombing Bab al-Aziziyah!” other fighters yelled, referring to Gadhafi’s fortified compound in Tripoli.
Young men cheered and chanted, as if victory were at hand. “One, two, three,” a group chanted in English. “Thanks, Sarkozy!” Reports from New York Times News Service, Agen
ce France-Presse and Reuters