TRIPOLI, March 26 (AFP) - Huge explosions shook a military site in an eastern suburb of Libya's capital early Saturday as Western forces piled pressure on Colonel Moamer Gaddafi with a barrage of air strikes.
The blasts, on the eighth day of a Western bombing campaign to halt attacks by Gaddafi's forces on civilians, left a radar facility in flames in Tajura, home to several military bases, a witness told AFP.
“The district was shaken by three explosions in succession,” the resident said, adding that the explosions had shattered windows.
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| Libyan women perform Friday's noon prayer in the rebel-controlled town of Benghazi. AFP |
“The raid targeted a military radar site which is still on fire,” the resident, who lives close by, added.
US officials said the relentless pressure on Gaddafi and his allies was beginning to take its toll, and that the veteran Libyan leader was arming volunteers.
“We've received reports today that he has taken to arming what he calls volunteers to fight the opposition,” said US Vice Admiral William Gortney.
Until now, Gaddafi is believed to have relied on militias run by his sons as well as African mercenaries to fight poorly-armed but determined opposition forces.
Gaddafi “has virtually no air defence left to him and a diminishing ability to command and sustain his forces on the ground”, said Gortney following the UN-mandated air strikes launched on March 19 by the United States, Britain, and France.
“His air force cannot fly, his warships are staying in port, his ammunitions stores are being destroyed, communications towers are being toppled, his command bunkers rendered useless,” Gortney said.
Western forces also pounded several key cities and towns overnight, including Ajdabiya, where regime loyalists have dug in and been accused by residents of brutalising the population.
Plumes of smoke filled the sky over Ajdabiya on Friday as the air strikes escalated, forcing terrified residents to flee the strategic coastal city, 160 kilometres (100 miles) south of the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
“We entered the town,” Colonel Mohammed Ehsayer, who defected from the army to join the rebellion against Gaddafi, told AFP at a rebel outpost a few kilometres east of the city. “Soon the eastern and western gates (entry roads) will fall,” he said referring to positions still in loyalist hands, with the uprising now in its fifth week.
Gaddafi forces opened up with artillery on the rebel city of Misrata, 214 kilometres (132 miles) east of Tripoli, killing a mother and her four children late Friday, a witness told AFP. “The artillery shelling has been going on since Thursday night,” said the witness contacted by telephone. “They are firing on everything that moves.””There is no water, no electricity and supplies are running short,” in Misrata, Libya's third city, he said, adding residents were cowering indoors.
US warships and submarines had fired 16 new Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan targets in the 24 hours to 0500 GMT Friday, the Pentagon said, adding that coalition warplanes carried out 153 sorties over the same period.
The total number of Tomahawks launched at Libya rose to at least 170.
Libyan state television reported coalition warplanes also carried out raids late Friday on the coastal town of Zliten, 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of Tripoli.
Gaddafi also appeared to be showing signs of strain as his key allies put out feelers to mediators, possibly over an exit strategy. “It's clear that the regime is reaching out to several possible mediators, interlocutors to try to get a message across,” Gene Cretz, the recently withdrawn US ambassador to Libya, told reporters.
“I'm not exactly sure what the message is, but it clearly indicates, I think, at least some kind of desperation, I think, at this point,” Cretz said.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that the United States and its allies were considering supplying weapons to the Libyan opposition.
US President Barack Obama's administration believes UN Resolution 1973, which authorised international intervention in Libya, has the “flexibility” to allow such assistance, it reported, citing unnamed US and European officials.
Meanwhile, Libyan health ministry official Khaled Omar told reporters that 114 people have been killed and 445 wounded in four days of coalition strikes, from Sunday to Wednesday.
Rebels seize strategic oil town Ajdabiya
AJDABIYA, Libya, March 26 (AFP) - Libyan rebels backed by a barrage of Western strikes seized control of the strategic eastern oil town of Ajdabiya from Colonel Moamer Kadhafi's forces today, an AFP correspondent reported.Defensive positions previously held by pro-Kadhafi forces -- targetted by coalition warplanes -- stood deserted on Saturday morning as rebels rolled into the town tooting car horns and flashing the “V” for victory sign.
“God is great,” cheered some of the rebels, while others shot rounds of celebratory gunfire into the air.
Onlookers swarmed around the bodies of two dead pro-Kadhafi fighters.
The roads were clear of any armoured forces fighting for Kadhafi, but there were destroyed tanks and other military vehicles, a damaged mosque and at least one house was reduced to rubble. |
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