Allies intensify air assault as Libyan rebels regroup in east

03/20/2011
By David D. Kirkpatrick and Elisabeth Bumiller
New York Times

TRIPOLI, Libya -- U.S. and European forces intensified their barrage of Moammar Gadhafi's forces by air and sea Sunday, a day after an initial U.S. cruise missile barrage badly damaged Libyan air defenses, military officials said.

In a first assessment from Washington, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first day of "operations yesterday went very well." Speaking to NBC's "Meet the Press," he said a no-fly zone over Libya to ground Gadhafi's warplanes -- a prime goal of the attacks -- was "effectively" in place and that a loyalist advance on the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi had been halted.

U.S. warplanes became more involved Sunday, with B-2 stealth bombers, F-16 and F-15 fighter jets and Harrier attack jets flown by the Marine Corps striking at Libyan ground forces, air defenses and airfields, while Navy electronic warplanes, EA-18G Growlers, jammed Libyan radar and communications. British planes flew frequent bombing missions, and French forces remained heavily involved in patrol and airstrike missions near Benghazi, officials said.

Inside Gadhafi's huge Tripoli compound, an administration building was hit and badly damaged late Sunday. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said half of the round, three-story building was knocked down, smoke was rising from it and pieces of a cruise missile were scattered around.

Rebel forces, battered and routed by loyalist fighters just the day before, began to regroup in the east as allied warplanes destroyed dozens of government armored vehicles near the rebel capital, Benghazi, leaving a field of burned wreckage along the coastal road to the city. By nightfall, the rebels had pressed almost 40 miles back west toward the strategic crossroads city of Ajdabiya, witnesses and rebel forces said. They seemed to consolidate control of Benghazi despite heavy fighting there against loyalist forces Saturday.

A day after a summit meeting in Paris set the military operation in motion, some Arab participants in the agreement expressed unhappiness with the way the strikes were unfolding. The former chairman of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, told Egyptian state media that he was calling for an emergency Arab League meeting.

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," he said, referring to Libyan government claims that allied bombardment had killed dozens of civilians.

In assessing the results for the military mission so far, Mullen said the allies had made great progress toward their short-term military roles. "We hit a lot of targets, focused on his command and control, focused on his air defense, and actually attacked some of his forces on the ground in the vicinity of Benghazi," Mullen told Fox News.

But it remained unclear just how those short-term military objectives -- establishing a no-fly zone and protecting Libyan civilians, as mandated by U.N. Security Council -- aligned with the political objectives of the Obama administration. Both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have said in recent days that Gadhafi must go.

Mullen said the military was focused only on the mission given to it by Obama and the United Nations, protecting Libyan civilians from attack and opening up humanitarian relief, by whatever means necessary. He did not mention ousting Gadhafi or arming the Libyan rebels as an objective.

That left Christiane Amanpour of ABC's "This Week" to ask if it was possible that Gadhafi could end up remaining in office, with the allies operating a no-flight zone over Libya for 12 years, as happened with Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

"I think circumstances will drive where this goes in the future," Mullen said. "I wouldn't speculate in terms of length at this particular point in time."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. expects to turn control of the mission over to a coalition -- probably headed either by the French and British or by NATO -- "in a matter of days."

Late Sunday, however, NATO's top decision-making body failed to agree on a plan to enforce the no-fly zone over Libya, although it did approve a military plan to implement a U.N. arms embargo.

In Libya, Gadhafi delivered a fresh and defiant tirade against the allied military action Sunday, pledging retaliation and saying his forces would fight a long war to victory. He was speaking in a telephone call to state TV. The Libyan leader has not been seen in public since the United States and European countries began their strikes.

"We will fight you if you continue your attacks on us," Gadhafi said. "Those who are on the land will win the battle," he declared, warning without explanation that "oil will not be left to the United States, France and Britain."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.