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Libya bombing called successful; endgame unclear
AP
Photo
A Libyan soldier surveys the damage to an administrative building hit by a missile late Sunday, March 20, 2011 in the heart of Moammar Gadhafi's Bab Al Azizia compound in Tripoli, Libya, as he is pictured during an organized trip by the Libyan authorities. No casualties were reported.
AP
Photo
Libyan men celebrates on a destroyed tank belonging to the forces of Moammar Gadhafi in the outskirts of Benghazi, eastern Libya, Sunday, March 20, 2011. The tanks were destroyed earlier by U.S. and allied airstrikes.
Associated Press
TRIPOLI, Libya
In an attack that carried as much symbolism as military effect, a cruise missile late Sunday blasted a building in Moammar Gadhafi’s residential compound, near his iconic tent. It was not known where Gadhafi was at the time, but it seemed to show that while the allies trade nuances over whether his fall is a goal of their campaign — he is not safe.
Earlier Sunday, Gadhafi vowed a “long war” as allied forces launched a second night of strikes on Libya, and jubilant rebels who only a day before were in danger of being crushed by his forces now boasted they would bring him down. The U.S. military said the international assault would hit any Gadhafi forces on the ground that are attacking the opposition.
An Associated Press photographer escorted to the scene by the Libyan government said half of the round, three-story administration building was knocked down, smoke was rising from it and pieces of the missile were scattered around the scene. About 300 Gadhafi supporters were in the compound at the time. It was not known if any were hurt.
The U.S. military said the bombardment so far — a rain of Tomahawk cruise missiles and precision bombs from American and European aircraft, including long-range stealth B-2 bombers — had succeeded in heavily degrading Gadhafi’s air defenses.
In addition to targeting anti-aircaft sites, U.S., British and French planes blasted a line of tanks that had been moving on the rebel capital Benghazi, in the opposition-held eastern half of the country. On Sunday, at least seven demolished tanks smoldered in a field 12 miles south of Benghazi, many of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside charred armored personnel carriers, jeeps and SUVs of the kind used by Gadhafi fighters.
“I feel like in two days max we will destroy Gadhafi,” said Ezzeldin Helwani, 35, a rebel standing next to the smoldering wreckage of an armored personnel carrier, the air thick with smoke and the pungent smell of burning rubber. In a grisly sort of battle trophy, celebrating fighters hung a severed goat’s head with a cigarette in its mouth from the turret of one of the gutted tanks.
The strikes that began early Sunday gave immediate, if temporary, relief to Benghazi, which the day before had been under a heavy attack that killed at least 120 people. The city’s calm on Sunday highlighted the dramatic turnaround that the allied strikes bring to Libya’s month-old upheaval: For the past 10 days, Gadhafi’s forces had been on a triumphant offensive against the rebel-held east, driving opposition fighters back with the overwhelming firepower of tanks, artillery, warplanes and warships.
Now Gadhafi’s forces are potential targets for U.S. and European strikes. The U.N. resolution authorizing international military action in Libya not only sets up a no-fly zone but allows “all necessary measures” to prevent attacks on civilians.
But the U.S. military, for the time being at the lead of the international campaign, is trying to walk a fine line over the end game of the assault. It is avoiding for now any appearance that it aims to take out Gadhafi or help the rebels oust him, instead limiting its stated goals to protecting civilians.
At the Pentagon, Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney underlined that strikes are not specifically targeting the Libyan leader or his residence in Tripoli. He said that any of Gadhafi’s ground forces advancing on the rebels were open targets.
“If they are moving on opposition forces ... yes, we will take them under attack,” he told reporters.