Gaddafi: Allied Forces In Air, Ground Assault

•Curious Libyan onlookers take pictures of dead African teenagers, members of Moamer Gaddafi forces in al-Wayfiyah, west of Benghazi, hit by French war planes. PHOTOS: AFP.

•Curious Libyan onlookers take pictures of dead African teenagers, members of Moamer Gaddafi forces in al-Wayfiyah, west of Benghazi, hit by French war planes. PHOTOS: AFP.

Allied forces  have launched a second night of strikes on Libya, destroying a building inside the embattled leader’s compound and also hitting ground forces of the regime, the  Associated  Press  has reported.

Although the attacks have emboldened  rebels  trying to bring down the Moammar Gaddaffi regime, they have elicited a defiant reaction from Gaddaffi: he has vowed to fight to the finish and has even gone to arm civilians with weapons.

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 Gaddafi’s air defences.

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 smouldered in a field 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Benghazi, many of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside charred armoured personnel carriers, jeeps and SUVs of the kind used by Gaddafi fighters.

•Curious Libyan onlookers take pictures of dead African teenagers, members of Moamer Gaddafi forces in al-Wayfiyah, west of Benghazi, hit by French war planes. PHOTOS: AFP.

“I feel like in two days max we will destroy Gaddafi,” said Ezzeldin Helwani, 35, a rebel standing next to the smouldering wreckage of an armoured 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, Gaddafi’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.

The U.N. resolution authorising international military action in Libya not only sets up a no-fly zone but allows “all necessary measures” to prevent attacks on civilians.

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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 Gaddafi or help the rebels oust him, instead limiting its stated goals to protecting civilians.

Gaddafi vowed to fight on. In a phone call to Libyan state television Sunday, he said he would not let up on Benghazi and said the government had opened up weapons depots to all Libyans, who were now armed with “automatic weapons, mortars and bombs.” State television said Gaddafi’s supporters were converging on airports as human shields.

“We promise you a long war,” he said.

Throughout the day Sunday, Libyan TV showed a stream of what it said were popular demonstrations in support of Gaddafi in Tripoli and other towns and cities. It showed cars with horns blaring, women ululating, young men waving green flags and holding up pictures of the Libyan leader. Women and children chanted, “God, Moammar and Libya, that’s it!”

“Our blood is green, not red,” one unidentified woman told the broadcaster, referring to the signature color of Gadhafi’s regime.

“He is our father, we will be with him to the last drop of blood. Our blood is green with our love for him.”

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