TRIPOLI—(UPDATE) Explosions rocked Tripoli Sunday as allied forces tightened enforcement of a UN resolution aimed at halting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s attacks on civilians in suppressing a month-long uprising.
As warplanes took off from Italian bases and anti-aircraft guns roared in the Libyan capital, Gadhafi’s army announced a new ceasefire, saying it was heeding an African Union call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
“I sincerely hope and urge the Libyan authorities to keep their word,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a swift reaction during a visit to Libya’s eastern neighbor Egypt.
“They have been continuing to attack the civilian population. This (offer) has to be verified and tested,” he told a news conference in Cairo.
Gadhafi’s regime had declared a ceasefire on Friday after UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorized any necessary measures, including a no-fly zone, to stop his forces harming civilians in the fight against the rebels.
But his troops continued attacking the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, sparking action by US, British and French forces from Saturday in line with the resolution.
The first round of strikes by aircraft and cruise missiles prompted a defiant Gadhafi to warn of a long war in the Mediterranean “battlefield.”
Tripoli reported dozens of deaths, but Pentagon spokesman Vice Admiral Bill Gortney said: “There is no indication of any civilian casualties.”
Anti-aircraft guns opened fire in Tripoli late on Sunday near Gadhafi’s residence and tracers arced across the sky. Later a huge blast was heard in the same area of the capital and a plume of smoke rose skywards.
Journalists saw four Danish F-16 fighters leave Italy’s Sigonella air base and three Italian Tornados take off from Trapani base in western Sicily, as the peninsula began hosting Arab as well as Western warplanes joining the international campaign.
Meanwhile, the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle sailed from Toulon on the 48-hour voyage to Libyan waters.
The US military said the first stage of coalition raids had been “successful,” with Gadhafi’s offensive on Benghazi stopped in its tracks.
Gortney told reporters the strikes had succeeded in “significantly degrading” Libyan air defenses, and a no-fly zone was now effectively in place over the country.
Earlier, dissenting voices in the wake of the first raids in Operation Odyssey Dawn became apparent, including from the Arab League which had backed the no-fly zone.
“What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians,” League Secretary General Amr Mussa told reporters.
“From the start we requested only that a no-fly zone be set up to protect Libyan civilians and avert any other developments or additional measures.”
Mussa said preparations were now under way for an emergency meeting of the 22-member Arab League.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani earlier defended Doha’s declared participation in the strikes on a fellow Arab state, saying the sole aim was to “stop the bloodbath.”
A French defense ministry spokesman said Qatar had decided to deploy four aircraft in the operation, calling it a “crucial point.”
Russia, which abstained in Thursday’s Security Council vote instead of using its veto, called for an end to “indiscriminate use of force” by the coalition, citing the casualties reported by Tripoli of 48 dead and 150 wounded.
China, another abstainer, expressed regret at the air strikes, saying it opposed using force in international relations.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the raids had included attacks on non-military targets, and had damaged roads, bridges and a cardiology centre.
“We proceed from the inadmissibility of using the Resolution 1973 mandate… for ends that clearly overstep its framework, which stipulates only measures to protect the civilian population,” he said.
The French defense ministry spokesman said Paris was fully applying the UN resolution but not going beyond it.
US officials said the overnight targets were Libya’s air defenses to enable other coalition aircraft to enforce the no-fly zone, and Britain said it was taking “every precaution” to avoid civilian casualties.
In the West’s biggest intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, US warships and a British submarine fired more than 120 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libya late on Saturday, US military officials said.
Gortney said the cruise missiles “struck more than 20 integrated air defense systems and other air defense facilities ashore.”
They were followed by strikes by manned aircraft including B-2 Stealth bombers which dropped 40 bombs on a Libyan military airfield, US officials said.
Top US military commander Admiral Michael Mullen said the initial part of the campaign “has been successful,” and the aim now was to cut off logistical support for Gadhafi’s forces.
But analysts warned the next steps were far from easy in trying to stop attacks by Gadhafi’s infantry inside rebel-held cities by air power alone.
As Tripoli awaited new attacks, AFP journalists saw residents who had fled Benghazi returning to the rebel capital in eastern Libya.
Medics in Benghazi said 85 civilians and rebels were killed in fighting with Gadhafi’s forces on Friday and Saturday, while AFP correspondents counted nine bodies of Gadhafi loyalists in a hospital.
AFP correspondents and rebels said dozens of government military vehicles, including tanks, were destroyed on Sunday in air strikes west of the city.
The bodies of African fighters in khaki uniforms were seen amid a pile of smashed tanks and burned artillery pieces at a site 35 kilometers (20 miles) from Benghazi.
According to the rebels, French warplanes — which began the coalition operation with a strike at 1645 GMT on Saturday – strafed government forces for two hours as day broke on Sunday.
The French spokesman said Paris had deployed 15 aircraft with air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities.
A furious Gadhafi said on Sunday that all Libyans were armed and ready to fight until victory against what he branded “barbaric aggression.”
“We promise you a long, drawn-out war with no limits,” he said, speaking on state television for a second straight day without appearing on camera.
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States will “fall like Hitler… Mussolini,” warned the strongman of oil-rich Libya who has ruled for four decades but been confronted with an armed uprising since mid-February.
“America, France, or Britain, the Christians that are in a pact against us today, they will not enjoy our oil,” he said. “We do not have to retreat from the battlefield because we are defending our land and our dignity.”
He vowed retaliatory strikes on military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, which he said had been turned into a “real battlefield.”
But Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam told the US ABC television channel Sunday there would be no retaliation against commercial flights.
US President Barack Obama called Odyssey Dawn a “limited military action,” unlike the regime change aims of the war against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
He pledged no US troops would be deployed on the ground, while Mullen said the aim was “not about going after Gadhafi himself or attacking him at this particular point in time.”
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday it would be “unwise” to have coalition forces try to kill Gadhafi.
“I think that it’s important that we operate within the mandate of the UN Security Council resolution,” said Gates, who was speaking on a US military plane en route to Russia.