Allied Forces Attack Libya

U.S. and coalition forces launched military strikes against Libya, a calculated gamble that a rapid, and substantial attack could knock out loyalist support for strongman Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

In an opening salvo, U.S. and U.K. forces on Saturday unleashed around 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Libyan targets. U.S. Vice. Adm. William Gortney told reporters that the missiles, which struck Libya around 3 p.m. EDT, were aimed at more than 20 Libyan air-defense sites.

In the early hours Sunday in Tripoli, heavy antiaircraft guns and small-arms fire were heard for about 15 minutes close to Col. Gadhafi’s compound. It couldn’t be determined if coalition aircraft were in the vicinity, however.

The coalition missile strikes represented a dramatic escalation in turmoil that has swept across the Mideast and North Africa. They came after Col. Gadhafi appeared determined to press his attack on Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that’s become the last bastion of opposition resistance.

Despite a United Nations resolution authorizing force against the regime, the colonel’s troops penetrated deep into the city Saturday and heavily shelled the rebel capital’s residential neighborhoods, threatening to snuff out the month-old Libyan revolution.

In a brief audio address broadcast by state media shortly before midnight Libya time, Col. Gadhafi responded to the strikes by vowing to turn the Mediterranean basin and North Africa into “a battleground,” and said he would arm all Libyan civilians to defend the country against “a second Crusader war.”

Al-Jamahiriya television, the state’s main channel, aired a photo of Col. Gadhafi’s headquarters in Bab Aziziya in Tripoli, which was hit in U.S. airstrikes in 1986, and played Pan-Arab patriotic songs from the 1950s.

A Libyan military spokesman said 48 people had been killed and more than 150 injured in the coalition strikes against civilian and military targets in Benghazi, Misrata, Tripoli, Sirte and Zuwara. The spokesman, who appeared on state television reading from a prepared statement, didn’t provide further details.

The casualty figures couldn’t be independently verified and no coalition strikes could be heard in Tripoli.

A doctor in Misrata said allied strikes hit two locations for Col. Gadhafi’s forces. The doctor said massive explosions lit up the sky.

State-media said strikes by U.S. and coalition forces hit a civilian hospital on the outskirts of Tripoli and a gas storage facility in Misrata. Neither statement could be independently verified.

The international campaign represents a bet that Col. Gadhafi’s forces could quickly crumble under the international assault. Less clear is what might happen if he proves determined to cling to power, especially given his history of support for international terrorism.

U.S. military and intelligence agencies were trying to assess the size and activities of Col. Gadhafi’s forces in Benghazi. “Gadhafi’s forces have moved into Benghazi, but it’s too early to predict how one of the most unpredictable dictators in the world will direct his forces,” a U.S. official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the goal of the international assault was to protect civilians. She declined to speculate on whether Col. Gadhafi could stay in power if he acceded to international demands. “There are many different outcomes,” she said.

Saturday’s action was perhaps the clearest example of how President Barack Obama believes U.S. should deploy military force overseas. The effort was deliberately designed to appear as international as possible, with the U.S. taking something of a back seat to other Western powers, notably France. It is possible that after the initial barrage, U.S. forces would take a minor role.

Col. Gadhafi’s “attacks on his own people have continued, his forces have been on the move and the danger faced by the people of Libya has grown,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Brasilia, part of a previously scheduled swing through Latin America. “We must be clear, actions have consequences and the writ of the international community must be enforced.”

Administration officials said they believe the approach could diminish any impression that the U.S. is directly interfering in the Middle East, an impression that could slow the democratic impulse sweeping through the region. At the same time, it opened the president to criticism, in particular from Republicans, that he isn’t embracing the U.S.’s traditional role of international peacekeeper.

The U.S. arrived at this point somewhat reluctantly. Until several days ago, administration officials had been expressing doubts about the usefulness of a no-fly zone. Allies, especially among North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations, also had qualms. Two weeks ago, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized “loose talk” about military intervention in Libya, warning lawmakers that “a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya.”

But the imminent collapse of Libyan rebel forces, coupled with an endorsement from the Arab League, galvanized the West to act. While the Libya situation is markedly different from recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, Western officials worried that a victory for Col. Gadhafi would prevent the movement from spreading to places they would like to see it reach, such as Syria and Iran.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking at an emergency summit in Paris, said that the U.S. would “not lead” the international response but would offer “unique capabilities” to support the coalition effort. The effort also includes Greece, the Netherlands, Turkey and Poland. Spain, Denmark, Belgium and Qatar also pledged military cooperation.

Indeed, it was French combat aircraft on Saturday that fired the first shots of the allied action in Libya. The French strike destroyed at least one military vehicle, French officials said. France has employed about 20 fighter jets as well as refueling planes, French Defense Ministry spokesman Laurent Teisseire told reporters in Paris.

“As of now our planes are preventing Gadhafi’s attacks on the city,” French president Nicholas Sarkozy said after the Paris summit ended, the first national leader to make such a statement Saturday.

Subsequently, a U.K. Trafalgar Class submarine fired Tomahawk Land Attack missiles at air-defense targets in Libya, Britain’s Defense Ministry said. French officials said Canada could be in charge of enforcing a naval blockade off Libyan shores.

Key coalition strikes were expected along the Libyan coastline, where the country’s integrated and missile-defense systems are located. “Once we do that, that would open up the environment where we could enforce the no-fly zone from east to west of Libya,” a senior U.S. defense official said.

The air campaign, the official said, aimed to “prevent further attacks by regime forces on Libyan citizens and opposition groups, especially in and around Benghazi.”

The military operation, dubbed Odyssey Dawn by U.S. officials, was under the broad operational control of Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of the U.S. Africa Command, which is based in Stuttgart, Germany. A U.S. joint task force was under way in the Mediterranean commanded by Navy Adm. Samuel Locklear aboard the command ship USS Mount Whitney. A coalition commander, as yet unnamed, was expected to take over in the coming days.

A fleet of 11 U.S. and over a dozen European and Canadian ships were in position Saturday to support operations. Italy also was participating.

In addition to the Mount Whitney, U.S. ships under Odyssey Dawn included the Kearsarge and Ponce and the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, along with logistics and refueling ships. At least two U.S. submarines, the USS Providence and the USS Florida, also were in the Mediterranean, according to briefing slides shown by the Pentagon.

The U.S. decided to strike air defenses Saturday after concluding the movement of Col. Gadhafi’s forces toward Benghazi, and the attacks against civilian populace in both Benghazi and Misrata, meant “the regime had no intention of complying with their so-called cease-fire announcement,” a senior defense official said.

“It wasn’t so much about planning to initiate operations on a ‘date certain’ as it was about determining if the regime would heed the warnings of the international community and comply” with the U.N. resolution, the official said.

Time was rapidly running short for the U.S. and its allies to intervene. Col. Gadhafi’s forces, deployed some 100 miles south of Benghazi on Friday afternoon, launched a rapid two-pronged armor assault from the south and the west overnight, outflanking rebel defenses.

By Saturday morning, regime tanks, some of which witnesses said were later disabled or captured by the rebels, reached a key bridge less than two miles from the rebel headquarters in a courthouse on Benghazi’s Mediterranean corniche. Over the past two weeks, the rebels had been pushed back repeatedly.

“Col. Gadhafi continues to defy the world…a cease-fire must be implemented immediately,” Secretary of State Clinton said as strikes began. “We will support the international coalition as it takes all necessary measures” to end the attacks on civilians in Libya, she said.

In Tripoli Saturday before the allied attack, Col. Gadhafi sent irate letters to world leaders, warning that they would live to regret any military action against Libya.

A short time later, Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa said Libya was abiding by the Security Council resolution passed Thursday and that the cease-fire he announced on Friday was still in place. Libyan officials declined to answer questions about reports of intensifying violence around Benghazi.

Libyan state-owned media broadcast unconfirmed reports saying that government forces had retaken most of Benghazi, prompting many of Col. Gadhafi’s supporters to roam the streets of Tripoli and fire heavy celebratory fire in the air.

One television station showed what it said were armed Libyan civilians amassing at an airport in Sabha in southern Libya to act as human shields against any possible Western military strikes.

—Adam Entous in Washington, D.C., Alistair MacDonald in London and David Gautier-Villars in Paris contributed to this article.Write to Keith Johnson at keith.johnson@wsj.com and David Gauthier-Villars at David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com