Gadhafi defiant despite airstrikes

Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya

Moammar Gadhafi rolled defiantly through the streets of Tripoli, pumping his fists as he poked through the sun roof of an SUV on Thursday — the same day that NATO airstrikes shook the city. The alliance’s foreign ministers, though united in their aim to pressure the Libyan leader to go, argued at a meeting over whether to step up military operations that have so far failed to rout him.

Gadhafi gave no sign that he’s willing to relent, despite two months of civil war and mounting international pressure for him to move aside. Instead, his loyalists pounded rebel positions in the besieged western city of Misrata with dozens of rockets for several hours, killing at least 13 people.

The main target of the assault was Misrata’s port, the only lifeline for rebels who have been trying to defend positions in the city, Libya’s third-largest, against Gadhafi’s forces.

Early Friday, Gadhafi’s daughter Aisha sent another defiant message from her father’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound in the capital of Tripoli, badly damaged exactly 25 years ago, in an April 15, 1986, bombing by U.S. warplanes. That attack came in response to a bombing that had killed two U.S. servicemen at a German disco.

“Leave our skies with your bombs,” Gadhafi’s daughter told a cheering crowd, addressing the international community. “We are a people that cannot be defeated.”

On Thursday, several large explosions were heard in Tripoli, and a column of black smoke rose from the southeastern part of the city, followed by the sound of anti-aircraft guns, a resident said.