New airstrikes rattle Tripoli in Libya conflict

CNN ^ | July 17, 2011 | By Ivan Watson, Raja Razek and Jomana Karadsheh,

[Jet Jaguar]

Fighting between Libyan rebels and government troops raged around the eastern Libyan oil town of Brega throughout the weekend as NATO warplanes launched a sustained pre-dawn raid on Tripoli's eastern suburbs.

Distant explosions shook windows in central Tripoli for more than an hour during the raid, launched about 1 a.m. Sunday. NATO said later that the targets were warehouses full of Libyan tanks, troop carriers and ammunition in Tajoura, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the city's center.

The Western alliance has been bombarding Libya since late March a U.N. mandate to protect civilians from forces loyal to longtime strongman Moammar Gadhafi, who is attempting to put down a revolt against his nearly 42-year rule.

The strike on Tajoura followed "extensive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" of the target, the allied command reported Sunday. According to NATO, "the military equipment deployed from this facility was used to resupply pro-Gadhafi forces launching attacks on civilians." A surface-to-air missile launcher and radar sites were also hit during the strike, which began shortly after midnight Sunday. It was the first time in several days that the alliance targeted Tripoli and its immediate surroundings.

Allied warplanes also hit Brega, where rebels have reportedly sustained heavy casualties after several days of assaults on Gadhafi's forces. Meanwhile, a boat with 300 Libyan asylum-seekers was rescued off the coast of Lampedusa in Italy, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Sunday's events followed a rally by mounted by pro-Gadhafi rallies in Zawiyah, west of Tripoli, where more than 10,000 portrait-waving demonstrators gathered amid a sea of green flags in the city's cratered and pock-marked central square.

Zawiyah was the scene of intense fighting last winter, in the early days of the anti-Gadhafi uprising that has left this country bitterly divided. Gadhafi's forces

[EGPWS]

Weeks...

[org.whodat]

Protecting people my ass, these are coordinated assault strikes, Obummer has made the united states into an outlaw state.

[Chaguito]

NATO warplanes launched a sustained pre-dawn raid on Tripoli's eastern suburbs.

Ah yes, the suburbs. Where the Libyan fighter aircraft are massing to take to the skies./s

[freedumb2003]

Good thing the Left has taken up protests about this illegal war. I mean, look at what we are seeing:

* code pink linking arms with duct tape with pink T-shirts that with pictures of obama as the devil
* grey haired hippies in tie-died shirts closing down major roads with signs saying “obama lied soldiers died”
* even the generic anti-military lefty loonies are out there, gathering by the hundreds and even thousands with signs like “war is not good for children and other living things” and “we love soldiers when they kill their officers.”

Oh wait. Since 2008, none of that has happened. Thus we learn, that, as with Monica Lewinski, the left is not about PRINCIPLES at all.

We Conservatives knew it all along. But we have physical proof — too bad even Fox isn’t featuring it.

[gleeaikin]

Here is a link with more on strikes by NATO, ground war in Brega, and an expression by the leader of Niger that he does NOT want to see an Islamic state be the result in Libya. There are also several video links at this site.

http://news.yahoo.com/heavy-casualties-reported-libya-fighting-111656600.html

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Jet Jaguar.

[Truth29]

Winners determine war crimes, so it is unlikely the heads of the participating European states and Obama will ever face charges, but if the shoe was on the other foot, they would be in the dock at the Hague.