BENGHAZI: French fighter jets fired the first shots at Muammar Gaddafi's troops, and the US military launched a missile attack against Libya's air defenses Saturday, launching the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war in support of an uprising that had seemed on the verge of defeat. Libyan state TV claimed the airstrikes hit civilian areas in Tripoli and fuel tanks supplying the besieged city of Misrata and surrounding areas. Mohammed Ali, a spokesman for the exiled opposition group the Libyan Salvation Front, said the Libyan air force headquarters at the Mateiga air base in eastern Tripoli, and the Aviation Academy in Misrata had been targeted. Neither report could be independently confirmed. Thousands of regime supporters, meanwhile, packed into the sprawling Bab Al-Aziziya military camp in Tripoli where Gaddafi lives to protect against attacks. In the hours before the no-fly zone over Libya went into effect, Gaddafi sent warplanes, tanks and troops into the eastern city of Benghazi, the rebel capital and first city to fall to the rebellion that began Feb. 15. Then the government attacks appeared to go silent. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after an emergency summit in Paris that French jets were already targeting Gaddafi's forces. The 22 participants in Saturday's summit agreed to do everything necessary to make Gaddafi respect a UN Security Council resolution Thursday demanding a ceasefire, Sarkozy said. “Our consensus was strong, and our resolve is clear. The people of Libya must be protected, and in the absence of an immediate end to the violence against civilians our coalition is prepared to act, and to act with urgency,” US President Barack Obama said in Brasilia, Brazil, on the first day of a three-country Latin American tour. A senior US military official said later that US Navy vessels in the Mediterranean Sea had launched missiles aimed at sites along the Libyan coast. The official said the assault would unfold in stages and strike at air defense installations around Tripoli and a coastal area south of Benghazi. The rebels, who have seen their advances into western Libya turn into a series of defeats, said they had hoped for more, sooner from the international community, after a day when crashing shells shook the buildings of Benghazi and Gaddafi's tanks rumbled through the university campus. Libyan state television showed Gaddafi supporters converging on the international airport and a military garrison in Tripoli, and the airport in Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, in an apparent attempt to deter bombing. Saturday's emergency meeting involved 22 leaders and top officials, including Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the foreign ministers of Jordan, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
