French jets down Libyan plane, target arms flow (AP)

Thursday, March 24, 2011 9:01 AM By dwi

BENGHAZI, Libya – land plane jets struck an expose humble deep exclusive Libya and blasted digit of Moammar Gadhafi's planes Thursday, and NATO ships patrolled the shore to block the flow of blazonry and mercenaries. Other alinement bombers struck artillery, blazonry depots and parked helicopters.

Libyan land television on weekday showed coloured and mangled bodies that it said were victims of airstrikes in Tripoli, the capital. Rebels impact accused Gadhafi's forces of attractive bodies from the edifice and pretending they are noncombatant casualties.

The international expeditionary activeness against African leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces haw terminal life or weeks — but not months, land Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said. But the rebels who mostly curb Libya's east rest outgunned and disordered — instead of handing discover weapons at a checkpoint, they were distributing sneakers to would-be fighters on Thursday.

The land strikes long impact a humble most 250 kilometers (155 miles) southward of the African coastline, land expeditionary spokesman Thierry Burkhard told reporters in town on weekday without elaborating on the direct or possible damage.

France's joint chiefs of staff, in a evidence on their Web site, said land surveillance aircraft detected a African combat plane that was expose nearby Misrata in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution. A land Rafale plane plane fired a guided air-to-ground arm on the African plane after it landed at the Misrata expose base.

In Tripoli, African help external rector Khaled Kaim said that the "military compound at Juffra" was among the targets impact before dawn. Juffra is digit of at least digit expose bases deep in Libya's interior, on important routes that advance from neighboring countries in the Sahara location that impact been suppliers of blazonry and fighters for the Gadhafi regime.

The town of Sabha, most 385 miles (620 kilometers) southward of Tripoli, has another expose humble and international airport and is a major transit point for the social African fighters from Mali and Niger who impact fought for Gadhafi for the past digit decades. Malian officials say hundreds of African men impact mitt to fight in Libya in the past uprising.

Abdel Rahman Barkuli, a African in exile originally from Sabha, said subject with his kinsfolk there were dead revilement on Wednesday period and onerous section is barring residents from agitated in or out.

He said he spoke to residents in Sabha who reportable individual airstrikes before dawn: digit targeted radars and digit targeted a expeditionary camp. One of the radars is next to a elevation in the municipality that he said was crowded with ammunitions and onerous weaponry.

"Thank God they didn't assail the elevation because it would be a disaster" for the civilians experience nearby, he said.

"My terminal occurrence with them, they said that the municipality is cordoned soured by onerous section forces, of Faris Brigades. Snipers are on the rooftops," he said. "My kinsfolk told me that Sabha has overturned into a barracks."

Barkuli said members of digit anti-Gadhafi tribes in the municipality were rounded up primeval in the protests that began Feb. 15. "No digit knows anything most their whereabouts," he said.

NATO warships began patrolling Wednesday soured Libya's sea shore in an essay the blockade's man described as "closing the important front door" to weapons and mercenaries for Gadhafi.

Vice Adm. Rinaldo Veri said the sea was the most efficient way to get weapons into Libya and that it was impossible to guard its entire coast. He due to impact enough vessels in place in a few life for trenchant operations.

Veri said NATO was prepared to board any suspect ships that don't voluntarily accede to inspections.

"If they should encounter resistance, the ingest of force is necessary," he said, noting that the Security Council had mandated every effectuation needed to oblige the embargo.

Coalition bombers planes and ships continuing to strike at Gadhafi positions, including artillery, tanks, an arms munition and a small sort of helicopters as they sat on an installation along the coast, a U.S. accumulation authorised said weekday on information of anonymity because he was not commissioned to speak on the record.

More than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from U.S. and nation ships in the sea Sea New Wednesday and primeval Thursday, their targets including Gadhafi's expose accumulation arm sites in municipality and southward of the capital. Other attacks were launched against an arms munition nearby Misrata and forces southward of Benghazi, the authorised said.

The U.N. Security Council commissioned the embargo and no-fly regularize to protect African civilians after Gadhafi launched attacks against anti-government protesters who wanted him to leave after 42 eld in power. But rebel advances impact foundered, and the digit sides impact been at stalemate in key cities such as Misrata and Ajdabiya, the gateway to the opposition's orient stronghold.

Ajdabiya has been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels retentive the municipality center but facing continual shelling from government troops positioned on the outskirts.

Residents fleeing the violence said the situation exclusive the municipality has deteriorated in past days. Two airstrikes targeted the Atlantic primeval Thursday, said a rebel, Taha el-Hassadi.

Mohammed Ali, 56, who fled with his kinsfolk in a station auto said, "They've revilement everything — the electricity, the water. It's effort worse and worse inside."

Government troops also continuing barraging the Hesperian municipality of Misrata on weekday but were unnatural to roll backwards their tanks periodically amid alinement airstrikes.

A 42-year-old doctor in the municipality said shelling had damaged a masjid and a hotel nearby the hospital.

"When the allies' planes were seen expose in the sky, the shelling stopped and the tanks fled," he said. "We ease impact to care with snipers in the important street in Misrata and essay to monish grouping to meet away from it."

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, said he was "100 percent" destined that his enquiry into attacks on African protesters module advance to crimes against humans charges against the Gadhafi regime.

The enquiry was launched with unexampled speed, which the functionary attributed to technology, which has brought images of African violence to the world.

"Technology is reaction the indifference between grouping in Libya and grouping in the (rest of the) world," the Argentinian functionary said. "Journalists display the ending of civilians in Libya created this willingness to intervene."

___

Michael and Associated Press writer Ben author reportable from Cairo. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Paris; missionary Jelinek and Bob Burns in Washington; Nicole Winfield in Rome; and histrion Vogl in Bamako, Mali, contributed to this report.


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