THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: U.S. and coalition forces launched military strikes against Libya, a calculated gamble that a rapid, and substantial attack could knock out loyalist support for strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi.
In an opening salvo, U.S. and U.K. forces on Saturday unleashed around 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Libyan targets. U.S. Vice. Adm. William Gortney told reporters that the missiles, which struck Libya around 3 p.m. EDT, were aimed at more than 20 Libyan air-defense sites.
In the early hours Sunday in Tripoli, heavy antiaircraft guns and small-arms fire were heard for about 15 minutes close to Col. Gadhafi's compound. It couldn't be determined if coalition aircraft were in the vicinity, however.
The coalition missile strikes represented a dramatic escalation in turmoil that has swept across the Mideast and North Africa. They came after Col. Gadhafi appeared determined to press his attack on Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that's become the last bastion of opposition resistance.
Despite a United Nations resolution authorizing force against the regime, the colonel's troops penetrated deep into the city Saturday and heavily shelled the rebel capital's residential neighborhoods, threatening to snuff out the month-old Libyan revolution.
In a brief audio address broadcast by state media shortly before midnight Libya time, Col. Gadhafi responded to the strikes by vowing to turn the Mediterranean basin and North Africa into "a battleground," and said he would arm all Libyan civilians to defend the country against "a second Crusader war."
Al-Jamahiriya television, the state's main channel, aired a photo of Col. Gadhafi's headquarters in Bab Aziziya in Tripoli, which was hit in U.S. airstrikes in 1986, and played Pan-Arab patriotic songs from the 1950s.
A Libyan military spokesman said 48 people had been killed and more than 150 injured in the coalition strikes against civilian and military targets in Benghazi, Misrata, Tripoli, Sirte and Zuwara. The spokesman, who appeared on state television reading from a prepared statement, didn't provide further details.
The casualty figures couldn't be independently verified and no coalition strikes could be heard in Tripoli.
A doctor in Misrata said allied strikes hit two locations for Col. Gadhafi's forces. The doctor said massive explosions lit up the sky.
State-media said strikes by U.S. and coalition forces hit a civilian hospital on the outskirts of Tripoli and a gas storage facility in Misrata. Neither statement could be independently verified. » | Nathan Hodge in Washington, D.C., Keith Johnson in Paris and Sam Dagher in Tripoli | Sunday, March 20, 2011
