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Building in military centre is destroyed as coalition forces target facilities used by Libyan leader. Last Modified: 21 Mar 2011 04:20 A three-storey building in a military command centre used by Muammar Gaddafi has been destroyed in an air strike by coalition forces. The Sunday-night strike was the first reported attack on the Bab al-Azizia, a sprawling compound in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, that Gaddafi has used several times as a setting for televised addresses, and which was bombed by the United States in 1986. The regime invited journalists to visit the site of the attack early on Monday morning. Spokesman Mussa Ibrahim called it a "barbaric bombing" but said no one had been hurt. He declined to say whether Gaddafi himself was inside the compound. Al Jazeera''s Anita McNaught, reporting from Tripoli, was not invited to the scene but reported earlier that there had been an explosion in the area of the Bab al-Azizia and that smoke was rising from the area. Coalition forces from France, the United Kingdom, United States and other nations began striking the regime''s military assets on Saturday as part of an effort to enforce a UN Security Council resolution aimed at protecting Libyan civilians. Coalition officials told journalists on Monday that the building hit in the attack was a military command and control centre for Gaddafi. Tripoli hit for second day Other loud explosions rocked Tripoli on Sunday night, as Britain''s ministry of defence said one of its submarines had again fired guided Tomahawk missiles on Libyan air defence systems. "The principle firing happened around nine o''clock in the evening local time and that''s when we believe there was a strike in the region of Gaddafi''s compound," McNaught said. "We saw a large plume of smoke coming from an explosion somewhere in that general direction. It is likely there were plenty of useful military targets there if you were a major international force looking to persuade Gaddafi to make peaceful noises." The blasts came two days after the United Nations Security Council authorised international military action to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, as well as "all necessary measures" to prevent attacks by Gaddafi forces on civilians. The uprising against Gaddafi broke out on February 15, and hundreds of civilians have died in the regime''s brutal crackdown. ''Gaddafi not a target'' The US military said the coalition campaign, called Operation Odyssey Dawn in the United States, had succeeded in "severely degrading" Gaddafi''s air defences. US Navy Vice Admiral William E Gortney stressed in a press briefing on Sunday that the Libyan leader is not a target for the international military assault on the country. Gortney, the US spokesman for the coalition, added that any of Gaddafi''s ground troops advancing on pro-democracy forces are open targets for US and allied attacks. "If they are moving on opposition forces ... yes, we will take them under attack," he told reporters. "There has been no new air activity by the regime and we have detected no radar emissions from any of the air defence sites targeted and there''s been a significant decrease in in the use of all Libyan air surveillance radars." Gortney said the coalition acting against Gaddafi, which originally grouped the US, Britain, France, Italy and Canada, had broadened to include Belgium and Qatar. Libyan ceasefire His comments came shortly after the Libyan military announced its second ceasefire since the UN resolution authorising the no-fly zone was passed.
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Monday 21 March 2011
Missile hits Gaddafi compound in Tripoli
التسميات:
Aljazeera
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