A number of blasts were heard from apparent NATO missile strikes targeting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli on Tuesday, witnesses said.
No other details were immediately available, but the blasts occurred against a backdrop of a stalemate in the rebel war to unseat Gaddafi and the resulting dilemma for Western powers over whether to offer covert aid to the rebel cause.
Earlier on Tuesday, Libyan officials took foreign journalists to see what they said was the result of a second NATO strike in just over a week on a government building housing the high commission for children.
The old colonial building, situated in Tripoli’s Dahmani neighborhood, was completely destroyed but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Two telecommunications towers are sited 100 meters (330 ft) and 700 meters (2,300 ft) from the building, which had been damaged in what Libyan officials said was the previous strike on April 30. Neither of the towers appeared to have been damaged.
On Monday, rebels said NATO bombed government arms depots four times during the day about 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Zintan, a town in the Western Mountains region where conflict is escalating.
“The site has some 72 underground hangars made of reinforced concrete. We don’t know how many were destroyed. But each time the aircraft struck we heard multiple explosions,” a rebel spokesman, who gave his name as Abdulrahman, said by telephone.
Another rebel spokesman said the planes also struck around Tamina and Chantine, east of Misrata, where besieged rebels are clinging on in the last city they control in western Libya.
Gaddafi’s forces have launched a ferocious assault on Misrata and hundreds have been killed in weeks of fighting.
Opposition newspaper Brnieq said Libyan rebels were leading an uprising in the suburbs of Tripoli after being supplied with light weapons by defecting security service officers.
The report on the newspaper’s website could not be independently verified. A Reuters reporter said he could not hear any gunfire and a government official denied the report.
Two months into a conflict linked to this year’s uprisings in other Arab countries, rebels hold Benghazi and towns in the east while the government controls the capital and other cities.
The government says most Libyans support Gaddafi, the rebels are armed criminals and al Qaeda militants, and NATO’s intervention is an act of colonial aggression by Western powers intent on stealing the country’s oil.
Libyan state television reinforced that view, saying NATO warships bombed “military and civilian targets” in Misrata and in the adjacent town of Zlitan on Monday.
The military deadlock confronts allies including the United States, Britain and France with a choice over whether to exploit loopholes in the sanctions regime they engineered in February and March to help the rebels, analysts and U.N. diplomats said.
Another option would be to circumvent the sanctions secretly but both courses risk angering Russia and China. They wield U.N. Security Council vetoes and are increasingly critical of NATO’s operations under a resolution aimed at protecting civilians.
SUPERIOR FIREPOWER
The rebels face a government with superior firepower and resources but they reported a financial breakthrough on Monday, selling oil worth $100 million paid for through a Qatari bank in U.S. dollars.
A rebel military commander said his fighters killed 57 troops and destroyed 17 military vehicles during a major battle west of the insurgent-held city of Ajdabiya on Monday.
The commander, whose statement could not be immediately verified, also told Al-Jazeera television two rebels were killed in the fighting, halfway between Ajdabiya and the strategic oil port of Brega where Gaddafi forces are entrenched.
Given the rebels’ failure to achieve their main target of toppling Gaddafi, the war is focused on Misrata, Zintan and a Libyan border crossing near the Tunisian town of Dehiba.
Two rebel spokesmen in Misrata spoke of intense fighting in the city and at its strategically important airport.
Rebels were trying to extinguish fires at a fuel storage depot bombarded by the government on Friday.
A ship chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived in Misrata, bringing medical supplies, spare parts to repair water and electrical systems and baby food.
The war has killed thousands and caused extensive suffering, not least for tens of thousands of economic migrants from sub-Saharan Africa forced to flee overland or by boat.
Dozens have died trying to reach Italy and the migration creates not only the possibility of a humanitarian crisis but also poses a political headache for NATO and the European Union.
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