No consensus yet on NATO role

Air strikes blunt Gaddafi offensive

News Desk

 

Western warplanes silenced Muammar Gaddafi’s artillery and tanks besieging rebel-held Misrata in western Libya on Wednesday after a U.S. admiral warned his armor was the next target.

Breathing defiance, Gaddafi earlier said Western powers who carried out a fourth night of air strikes on Libya to protect civilians under a U.N. mandate were “a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history.”

Gaddafi’s tanks had kept up the shelling of Misrata, killing dozens of people this week, and residents said a “massacre” was taking place with doctors forced to treat the wounded in hospital corridors. Snipers fired at people from rooftops.

“The allied planes bombed twice so far. At 12:45 (6:45 p.m. ET Tuesday) this morning and then again less than two hours ago,” a resident, Saadoun, told Reuters by telephone from Misrata.

“They (pro-Gaddafi forces) haven’t fired a single artillery (round) since the air strike.”

At least two explosions were heard in the Libyan capital Tripoli before dawn on Wednesday on a fourth night of strikes, Reuters witnesses said. The roar of a warplane was heard above the city followed by a barrage of anti-aircraft gunfire. [Read More]

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Source: The New Nation - Independent Daily