French warplanes strike against Gaddafi
By Peggy Hollinger in Paris and James Blitz in LondonPublished: March 19 2011
French warplanes struck against Libya on Saturday, after leaders from the Arab world, Africa, the United States and other western powers approved action to protect civilians under threat from the Gaddafi regime.
Defence officials said French aircraft destroyed four tanks in strikes southwest of the rebel-held city of Benghazi.
Earlier Nicolas Sarkozy said aircraft were over Libya preventing attacks on Benghazi after the leaders met in Paris to discuss a military response to the civil war in Libya.
He said the aim of intervention was not regime change but to “allow the Libyan people to choose their own destiny”.
“We are determined to take all necessary action, including military consistent with UN Security Council resolution 1973 to ensure compliance with all its requirements, ” Mr Sarkozy said.
“We are protecting the population from the murderous madness of the regime."
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Rebel says own plane downed over Benghazi
BENGHAZI, Libya |(Reuters) - A warplane was shot down on Saturday over the Libyan city of Benghazi and an opposition activist said it was a rebel fighter jet hit by accident.
Azeldin al-Sharif, an opposition activist, said rebel forces had brought the plane down by mistake over the city of Benghazi.
The city came under attack from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday, including air strikes by planes loyal to the government.
"The fighter jet that was brought down this morning, was a revolutionary fighter jet and was hit by mistake. There is no communication on the ground," said Sharif, head of the British-Libyan Solidarity Campaign.
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Libyan Forces Defy Cease-Fire, Engage in Battle for Rebel Stronghold
March 19, 2011FoxNews.com
ENGHAZI, Libya – Libyan forces struck Saturday at the heart of the rebellion against Muammar al-Qaddafi, shelling the outskirts of the rebel capital and launching airstrikes in defiance of international demands for a halt to the fighting.
Muammar al-Qadhafi called the United Nations resolution authorizing international military intervention in Libya as "invalid."
The Libyan leader says he sent a message to President Barack Obama defending his decision to attack rebel cities: "If you found them taking over American cities by the force of arms, tell me what you would do."
The statement came from the government spokesman at a news conference in Tripoli.
Qaddafi also sent a letter to the French and British leaders, and the U.N. secretary general, saying the resolution violates the U.N. charter and saying they would "regret" any intervention.
"Libya is not for you, Libya is for the Libyans," he said.
"Libya is not for you, Libya is for the Libyans," he said.
Muammar al-Qaddafi called the U.N. resolution "invalid," and sent letters to U.N. and Western leaders.
The announcement came after rebels shot down a warplane Saturday that was seen bombing the outskirts of the key rebel-held city of Benghazi, sending up a massive black cloud of smoke. An Associated Press reporter saw the plane go down in flames and heard the sound of artillery and crackling gunfire in the distance.
The fighting galvanized the people of Benghazi, with young men collecting bottles to make Molotov cocktails. Some residents dragged bed frames and metal scraps into the streets to make roadblocks.
"Where is France, where is NATO?" cried a 50-year-old woman in Benghazi. "It's too late."
Government spokesman Ibrahim Musa denied that a government plane had gone down. He also denied government forces shelled any Libyan towns on Saturday, saying the rebels are the ones breaking the cease fire by attacking military forces.
"Our armed forces continue to retreat and hide, but the rebels keep shelling us and provoking us," Musa told The Associated Press.
Leaders from the Arab world, Africa, the United States and other Western powers were holding urgent talks in Paris on Saturday over possible military action against Qaddafi's forces, which are trying to crush the nearly 5-week-old rebellion against him.
Trying to outmaneuver Western military intervention, Qaddafi's government declared a cease-fire on Friday as the rebel uprising faltered against his artillery, tanks and warplanes. But the opposition has said shells rained down well after the announcement and accused the Libyan leader of lying.
Wary of the cease-fire, Britain and France took the lead in plans to enforce a no-fly zone, sending British warplanes to the Mediterranean and announcing the crisis summit in Paris with the U.N. and Arab allies. In Washington, President Barack Obama ruled out the use of American ground troops but warned that the U.S., which has an array of naval and air forces in the region, would join in military action.
There should be no doubt about the Libyan leader's intentions "because he has made them clear," Obama said. "Just yesterday, speaking of the city of Benghazi, a city of roughly 700,000, he threatened 'we will have no mercy and no pity.' No mercy on his own citizens."
In a joint statement to Qaddafi late Friday, the United States, Britain and France -- backed by unspecified Arab countries -- said a cease-fire must begin "immediately" in Libya, the French presidential palace said.
The statement called on Qaddafi to end his troops' advance toward Benghazi, the rebel headquarters, and pull them out of the cities of Misrata, Ajdabiya and Zawiya, and called for the restoration of water, electricity and gas services in all areas. It said Libyans must be able to receive humanitarian aid or the "international community will make him suffer the consequences" with military action.
Parts of eastern Libya, where the once-confident rebels this week found their hold slipping, erupted into celebration at the passage of the U.N. resolution. But the timing and consequences of any international military action remained unclear.
Misrata, Libya's third-largest city and the last held by rebels in the west, came under sustained assault well after the cease-fire announcement, according to rebels and a doctor there. The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals, said Gadhafi's snipers were on rooftops and his forces were searching homes for rebels.
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Military buildup for Libya mounts at Italian bases
ROME (AP) -- Six Danish F-16 fighter jets landed Saturday at the U.S. air base in Sicily, and American F-18s and Canadian CF-18 Hornets were in the region as the international military buildup mounted in Italy for action against Libya.
Italy has offered the use of seven military bases to help enforce the U.N.-authorized no-fly zone over Libya and protect Libyan civilians from Moammar Gadhafi's troops.
World leaders attending an emergency summit in Paris authorized immediate military action Saturday after Gadhafi's forces attacked rebel-held Benghazi, the heart of the uprising, with troops, tanks and warplanes. French jets began flying over this eastern Libya's city in an attempt to block attacks by Gadhafi's forces, an official said.
Danish air force spokesman Lars Skjoldan said the six their F-16s that arrived at the U.S. air base at Sigonella, Sicily on Saturday would be ready for operation in Libya by Sunday.
Canada has committed six CF-18 fighter jets to help enforce the no-fly zone, and early Saturday Canadian aircraft landed at the Prestwick Airport in Glasgow, Scotland to refuel and left, an airport spokesman said.
Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said it would take two days to prepare for any mission.
Sigonella's size and close proximity to Libya makes it an obvious staging point for any military action, but other bases were being readied as well, including the U.S. air base at Aviano in northern Italy.
Witnesses reported Saturday that five American F-18s, two C-17s and a C-130 cargo plane landed Saturday at Aviano, which is home to the 31st Fighter Wing.
Two U.S. officials said U.S. forces are not involved in the military operation at this point. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
Spokesmen at both Aviano and Sigonella, a naval air station which primarily provides logistical support for the U.S. 6th Fleet and NATO forces, didn't immediately return calls.
Italy's defense minister Ignazio La Russa said Saturday that Italy wasn't just "renting out" its bases for others to use but was prepared to offer "moderate but determined" military support as well.
"We're doing it in the right way, not just giving the keys of our house to friends who will use them correctly, but also participating directly in an operation that surely we never would have wanted but which is necessary for the region's stability and safety of the Libyan people," he said.
Italy, Libya's former colonial ruler, has extensive oil and gas interests in the country.
In addition to the aircraft already in Italy, Norway said it was prepared to send six F-16 fighter jets to enforce the no-fly zone, but that they wouldn't be operational for five to six days.
One of the two British bases in Cyprus, meanwhile, was supporting AWACS surveillance aircraft assigned to monitor the no-fly zone over Libya, said spokesman Kristian Gray.
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Mar 19, 2011
Allied planes fly over Libya; Gaddafi hits Benghazi
By Mohammed Abbas
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BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Allied warplanes are stopping Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces attacking the rebel-held city of Benghazi, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Saturday.
Gaddafi's troops on Saturday morning pushed into the outskirts of Benghazi, the second city of some 670,000 people, in an apparent attempt to pre-empt Western air strikes that came after a meeting of Western and Arab leaders in Paris.
But as the meeting ended, Sarkozy announced that allied air forces had already gone into action.
"Our planes are already preventing air attacks on the city," he said, adding that military action supported by France, Britain, the United States and Canada and backed by Arab nations could be halted if Gaddafi stopped his forces attacking.
Earlier, a French military source told Reuters that French reconnaissance planes were flying over Libya.
Hundreds of cars full of refugees fled east from Benghazi towards the Egyptian border after the city came under bombardment overnight. One family of 13 women from a grandmother to small children, rested at a roadside hotel.
"I'm here because when the bombing started last night my children were vomiting from fear," said one of them, a doctor, sitting crying in the lobby of a hotel on the road to Egypt. "All I want to do is get my family to a safe place and then get back to Benghazi to help. My husband is still there."
In the besieged western city of Misrata, residents said government forces shelled the rebel town again on Saturday and they were facing a humanitarian crisis as water supplies had been cut off for a third day.
"I am telling you, we are scared and we are alone," a Misrata resident, called Saadoun, told Reuters by telephone.
Gaddafi said Western powers had no right to intervene.
"This is injustice, this is clear aggression," government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim quoted Gaddafi as saying in a letter to France, Britain and the United Nations. "You will regret it if you take a step towards interfering in our internal affairs."
The Libyan government blamed the rebels, who it says are members of al Qaeda, for breaking the ceasefire around Benghazi.
PLANE SHOT DOWN OVER BENGHAZI
As explosions shook Benghazi on Saturday morning, rebel fighters said they were being forced to retreat from the outskirts of the city, but later claimed victory after holding back the advance.
"We revolutionaries have taken control of four tanks inside Benghazi. Rebel forces have pushed Gaddafi's forces out of Benghazi," said Nasr al-Kikili, a lawyer who works for the rebel media centre in Benghazi, as crowds celebrated by firing guns in the air and parading on top of a tank.
Earlier, an unidentified fighter jet was shot down over Benghazi.
"I saw the plane circle around, come out of the clouds, head towards an apparent target, and then it was hit and went straight down in flames and a huge billow of black smoke went up," Reuters correspondent Angus MacSwan said.
"It seems it was attacking the Benghazi military barracks."Inside the city, residents set up make-shift barricades with furniture, benches, road signs and even a barbecue in one case at intervals along main streets. Each barricade was manned by half a dozen rebels, but only about half of those were armed.
Al Jazeera said there were 26 dead and more than 40 wounded in Jala hospital in Benghazi, without giving further details.
Sakozy, whose country, alongside Britain, has led calls for intervention in Libya hosted a meeting of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European and Arab leaders to discuss coordinated intervention in Libya.
France, Britain and Canada were likely to take part jointly in the initial intervention, a source close to the meeting said, while the United States could participate later on and any participation by Arab nations would come after that.
Ambassadors from the 28 NATO states adjourned a meeting in Brussels on Saturday to discuss possible NATO involvement in policing Libyan skies till after the talks in Paris.
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