Coalition Strikes Libyan Military Amid Ground Stalemate

March 24, 2011

French Air Force Rafale jet fighter comes back from a mission to Libya, at Solenzara Air Base, Corsica, March 24, 2011

Anti-aircraft batteries fired into the air over Tripoli overnight as coalition warplanes bombed military targets inside the capital and elsewhere.

ABC

News reported that coalition forces shot down a Libyan warplane that was defying the U.N.-imposed no-fly zone.

Meanwhile, Libyan state TV showed images of several charred bodies it said were casualties of the coalition bombing. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe insisted that coalition airstrikes are targeting only military sites.

Haitham al Traboulsi, a Libyan doctor who said he is in Tripoli, told al-Arabiya TV that "no civilians were hit" in recent coalition airstrikes and that the strikes were "extremely precise." He claimed that the bodies shown on Libyan TV were of people killed in previous fighting in Zawiya and Tripoli”

Libya's Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kaim, however, complained to reporters that the western coalition is hitting civilian targets and he called for an end to airstrikes:

"The airstrikes as what happened today did not differentiate between civilians and armored personnel,” Kaim said. “To start up the national dialogue and get life back to normal, the airstrikes should stop immediately."

Witnesses in the government-besieged, rebel stronghold of Misrata in western Libya complained that pro-Gadhafi forces were shelling at random. A doctor in the town said snipers are firing on civilians, tanks are firing on buildings, there is no running water, food is scarce and conditions at the hospital are deplorable.