In addition, an Associated Press reporter in the capital said international forces were also heavily bombarding the city that is Gaddafi’s main support base. There were at least nine loud explosions in Tripoli after nightfall and anti-aircraft fire was heard. “Civilian and military areas in Tripoli were hit a short while ago by the crusader, colonialist aggressors,” Libyan state television said in a written news flash.
Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, residents in the contested city of Misrata in western Libya reported fighting Sunday between anti-government rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces firing from tanks on residential areas. Moreover, Reuters News Services reported that witnesses in Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, and in the capital Tripoli said they had heard at least 10 explosions Sunday night. A reporter in Sirte, midway between rebel-held Benghazi and Tripoli, said it was not clear if the four explosions there had been in the town or on its outskirts.
Libyan rebels, emboldened by the capture of Ajdabiyah to the east of Sirte, were pushing west Sunday to retake more territory from Gaddafi’s forces, which were pulling back under pressure from Western air strikes, Reuters said.
The rebels’ advance westward has gained momentum since Friday, when coalition bombings allowed them to subdue Gaddafi forces that had been positioned in the strategic town of Ajdabiya for a week. The rebel advance also underscored the central role that international forces are playing in Libya’s internal conflict, providing military support to rebels that Libyan officials condemned for exceeding the United Nations mandate to protect civilians.
Addressing the nation Saturday, President Obama said, “We’re succeeding in our mission.”
“This is how the international community should work: more nations, not just the United States, bearing the responsibility and cost of upholding peace and security,” Obama said in his weekly address.
Obama has been criticized by some for failing to clearly define US interests in Libya’s war and for leaving ambiguous leaving many Arab and African leaders to speculate the American endgame in the oil-rich North African nation.
Initially reluctant to open a third military front in a Muslim country, Obama eventually pushed for a broad UN resolution after days of watching Gaddafi’s forces advance on Benghazi, the rebels’ provisional capital. Gaddafi had warned Libyan civilians in the rebel-held east that he would show “no mercy” unless they surrendered, and Obama feared a mass killing if the ragtag insurgency collapsed.
The UN resolution authorizing military action in Libya limits operations to those necessary to protect civilians, potentially leaving Obama’s long-term policy goal of removing Gaddafi unmet by the airstrikes and no-fly zone. He has ruled out sending U.S. troops to Libya.
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