After three days of strikes authorized by the United Nations Security Council, however, disputes within the allied coalition over the future of the mission seemed unresolved, while China added its voice to demands by opponents of the intervention for an immediate cease-fire.
According to the United States military, an F-15E Strike Eagle warplane
went down late Monday “when the aircraft experienced equipment malfunction.” The aircraft, normally based in England, was flying out of Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy when it crashed. “Both crew members ejected and are safe,” an American statement said.
But Channel 4 News in Britain said that six villagers were shot by American troops during the rescue operation. None of the villagers — who were interviewed by a Channel 4 reporter in a nearby hospital — were killed, though a small boy could have a leg amputated. The United States military said it was investigating the reports.
A photograph shows its charred wreckage surrounded by onlookers in the middle of what looked like an empty field.
American officials said on Monday that military strikes to destroy air defenses and establish a no-fly zone over Libya had nearly accomplished their initial objectives, and that the United States was moving swiftly to hand command to allies in Europe.
But divisions persisted on Tuesday over how the campaign should continue and under whose command.
Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has said responsibility for the no-fly zone would be transferred to NATO. But France objected to that, with its foreign minister, Alain Juppé, saying: “The Arab League does not wish the operation to be entirely placed under NATO responsibility. It isn’t NATO which has taken the initiative up to now.”
Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said on Tuesday that the United Nations should be the umbrella for a solely humanitarian operation in Libya, Reuters reported, insisting that his country, a NATO ally, “will never ever be a side pointing weapons at the Libyan people.” The dispute raised concerns that American plans to hand over command of the operation could be delayed by disputes among its partners over who should take control.
The White House released a statement Tuesday saying that President Obama had called Mr. Erdogan and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, to impress upon them the need for “a broad-based international effort, including Arab states,” in the military campaign in Libya.
Outside the Western alliance, divisions seemed to deepen on Tuesday, with China joining Brazil and Russia in calling for a cease-fire, while India said there should be no foreign presence in Libya. India, Brazil, Russia, China and Germany abstained from the United Nations vote last week that authorized the intervention.
American, British and French warplanes have been flying sorties since Saturday, stalling a ground attack by pro-Qaddafi forces in the east and hitting targets including air defenses, an airfield and part of Colonel Qaddafi’s compound in Tripoli.
But the firepower of more than 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles and attacks by allied warplanes have not yet succeeded in accomplishing the more ambitious demands by the United States — repeated by President Obama in a letter to Congress on Monday — that Colonel Qaddafi withdraw his forces from embattled cities and cease all attacks against civilians.
Ahmed Khalifa, a rebel spokesman in Benghazi, said on Tuesday that there was still heavy fighting in the western rebel-held cities of Misurata and Zintan, which have been under siege by pro-Qaddafi troops for weeks. Government snipers and artillery in Misurata killed 40 people and wounded 189, he said, adding that rebel fighters were “combing” the city for Colonel Qaddafi’s troops. “Snipers are everywhere in Misrata, shooting anyone who walks by while the world is still watching,” a doctor in Misurata told The Associated Press. “The situation is going from bad to worse. We can do nothing but wait. Sometimes we depend on one meal per day.”
Government shelling of Zintan had demolished a mosque, Mr. Khalifa said, adding that Colonel Qaddafi’s talk of a cease-fire was “meaningless.” He said that the allied airstrikes “did in fact prevent further death and destruction.”
“The front lines are still very fluid,” he said, saying there was no movement in the standoff between rebel fighters and Qaddafi forces in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. The rebel fighters are no match for the firepower of the pro-Qaddafi forces dug in around the city, which rests firmly in their control. But a correspondent for the Guardian, a British daily, said he had heard loud explosions around the city and had to “assume coalition aircraft are attacking Qaddafi forces around Ajdabiya.”
State television in Libya said on Tuesday that there had been more attacks by what it called the “crusader enemy,” Reuters reported, but the broadcaster struck a defiant tone, saying, “These attacks are not going to scare the Libyan people.”
But the airstrikes seemed to have emboldened the citizens of Tripoli, the capital city that is considered a pro-Qaddafi stronghold. On an officially supervised visit to the Old City on Tuesday, foreign reporters who work under close government scrutiny said people seemed noticeably readier to voice criticism.
Almost within earshot of official minders, one person approached a reporter to say, “It will be a beautiful country once we change the system.” But no one wanted to be identified by name in a city where retribution has long been the price of rare dissent. “They have killed a lot of people here. People here are very afraid,” one Libyan said. Referring to official shows of support for Colonel Qaddafi, he said, “This is not the real Libya.”
Pentagon officials are eager to extract the United States from a third armed conflict in a Muslim country as quickly as possible. But Qaddafi forces were holding out against the allied military campaign. Rebel fighters trying to retake Ajdabiya said their advance was halted on Monday by tank and rocket fire from government loyalists still controlling entrances to the city. Dozens of fighters fell back to a checkpoint about 25 miles north of Ajdabiya, in Zueitina.
By the early afternoon, the fighters said at least eight of their confederates had been killed in the day’s fighting, including four who were killed when a tank shell struck their pickup truck.
In the western city of Misurata, forces loyal to Colonel Qaddafi were still at large and were using civilians as human shields, Reuters reported, but that could not be immediately confirmed.
At the Pentagon, officials said that the intensive American-led assault unleashed over the weekend was a classic air campaign, chosen by Mr. Obama among a range of military options, which was intended to have coalition aircraft in the skies above Libya within days and without fear of being shot down. “You don’t do that piecemeal,” a United States military official said. “You do it all at once, and you do it as fast as you can.”
The targets included radar installations, fixed and mobile antiaircraft sites, Libyan aircraft and hangars, and other targets intended to make it safe for allied aircraft to impose the no-fly zone. They also included tanks and other ground forces engaged with the rebels around the country, reflecting the broader aim of pushing Colonel Qadaffi’s forces to withdraw from disputed cities. Communications centers and at least one Scud missile site were also struck.
Explosions and antiaircraft fire could be heard in and around Tripoli on Monday in a third straight night of attacks there against Colonel Qadaffi’s forces.
Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the United States Africa Command, who is in charge of the coalition effort, said that there would be strikes on Colonel Qaddafi’s mobile air defenses and that some 80 sorties — only half by the United States — were flown on Monday.
General Ham also said he had “full authority” to attack the regime’s forces if they refused to comply with President Obama’s demands that they pull back from Ajdabiya, Misurata and Zawiya.
In Santiago, Chile, Mr. Obama restated that the United States would soon turn over full responsibility to the allies to maintain the no-fly zone. He also sought to distinguish the stated goals of the United Nations-authorized military operation — protecting Libyan civilians, establishing a no-flight zone and forcing Colonel Qaddafi’s withdrawal from the cities — with his own administration’s demand, not included in the United Nations resolution, that Colonel Qaddafi had to leave office.
“It is U.S. policy that Qaddafi needs to go,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference with the Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera. “And we’ve got a wide range of tools in addition to our military effort to support that policy.” Mr. Obama cited economic sanctions, the freezing of assets and other measures to isolate the regime in Tripoli.
United States military commanders repeated throughout the day that they were not communicating with Libyan rebels, even as a spokesman for the rebel military, Khaled El-Sayeh, asserted that rebel officers had been providing the allies with coordinates for their airstrikes. “We give them the coordinates, and we give them the location that needs to be bombed,” Mr. Sayeh told reporters.
On Monday night, a United States military official responded that “we know of no instances where this has occurred.”
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