Gadhafi vows 'long war' after US, allies strike

RIPOLI, Libya – A defiant Moammar Gadhafi vowed a "long war" after the U.S. and European militaries blasted his forces with airstrikes and over 100 cruise missiles early Sunday, hitting air defenses and at least two major air bases and shaking the Libyan capital with explosions and anti-aircraft fire.

Despite the strikes, Gadhafi's troops lashed back, bombarding the rebel-held city of Misrata with artillery and tanks on Sunday, the opposition reported.

In the overnight barrage, ship-fired Tomahawk cruise missiles and bombs and missiles from an international arsenal of warplanes including American B-2 stealth bombers and F-15 and F-16 fighter-bombers rained down on Libyan targets — including ground forces — in the widest international military effort since the Iraq war. The air assault came as Gadhafi's overwhelming firepower was threatening to crush the month-old rebellion against his 41-year rule. State television said 48 people were killed in the strikes.

The strikes gave immediate, if temporary, relief to the besieged rebel capital, Benghazi, in eastern Libya.

Airstrikes, apparently from French aircraft, devastated a Libyan tank force 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Benghazi. At least seven demolished tanks were still smoldering in a field hours later, five of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside two charred armored personnel carriers and around a dozen damaged jeeps and SUVs of the type often used by Gadhafi fighters.

Jubilant rebel fighters climbed on the remains on the tanks, shooting assault rifles in the air in celebration. It was not known how many people were killed in the strike — any bodies had been taken away in the morning — but shredded boots and foam mattresses and tomato paste cans strewn around the scene suggested the Gadhafi forces had been camped at the site when they were hit.

U.S. and European military officials said the assault was only the first wave in the international operation in Libya. But already there were signs of differences over the goals. France took a more assertive stance, suggesting the allies' intervention must ultimately lead to Gadhafi's downfall. The U.S. military appeared more wary of overtly taking a side and getting pulled deeper into Libya's conflict, with the top American U.S. officer saying Gadhafi's ouster wasn't necessarily the goal.

Libya's claims of civilians among the dead from the strikes also appeared to make Arab countries nervous, after the Arab League took the unprecedented step of calling for a no-fly zone. On Sunday, Arab League chief Amr Moussa criticized the allied strikes, saying they went beyond what the Arab body had supported.

"What happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives," Moussa told reporters in Cairo. "What we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians."

The initial assault aimed to take out Gadhafi's air defenses to clear the way for enforcing a no-fly zone, targeting more than 20 radar systems, communications centers and surface-to-air missile sites. But the U.N. resolution authorizing the action goes much further, allowing "all necessary means" to protect civilians.

That means the U.S. and Europeans have a free hand in the next stages to attack Gadhafi's ground forces besieging rebel cities or other military targets. The rebels, who control most of the eastern half of Libya, hope the allied intervention will tip the scales back in their favor after an onslaught by Gadhafi's forces threatened to reverse their gains early in the uprising — and eventually lead to the toppling of the Libyan leader.

The strikes hit one of Libya's main air bases, on Tripoli's outskirts, the opposition said. Also hit, it said, was an air force complex outside Misrata, the last rebel-held city in western Libya — which has been under siege the past week by Gadhafi forces. Those forces have been bombarding the city from the complex, which houses an air base and a military academy.

Despite the strikes, Gadhafi forces resumed bombarding Misrata after daylight on Sunday, said Switzerland-based Libyan activist Fathi al-Warfali.

"Misrata is the only city in western Libya not under Gadhafi's control; he is trying hard to change its position," said al-Warfali, who told The Associated Press he was in touch with residents in the city.

In Benghazi, the rebel capital and first city to fall to the uprising that began Feb. 15, people said the strikes happened just in time. Libyan government tanks and troops on Saturday had reached the edges of the city in eastern Libya in fierce fighting that killed more than 120 people according to Gibreil Hewadi, a member of the rebel health committee in Benghazi. He said the dead included rebel fighters and civilians, among them women and children.

Sunday, the city was quiet. As part of the international assault, French warplanes hit targets in the Benghazi area.

"It was a matter of minutes and Gadhafi's forces would have been in Benghazi," said Akram Abdul Wahab, a 20-year-old butcher in the city.

Mohammed Faraj, 44, a former military man who joined the rebels, held a grenade in each hand as he manned a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city.

"Me and all of Benghazi, we will die before Gadhafi sets foot here again," Faraj told The Associated Press. "Our spirits are very high."

Asked on ABC's "This Week" if the allied effort aimed to get rid of Gadhafi, France's ambassador to the United Nations, Gerard Araud, said "We want the Libyan people to be able to express their will, I've said ...and we consider that it means that Gadhafi has to go."

Still, the top U.S. military officer said the goals of the international campaign are "limited" and won't necessarily lead to the ousting of Gadhafi.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether it was possible that the mission's goals could be achieved while leaving Gadafi in power, Adm. Mike Mullen said, "That's certainly potentially one outcome." Pressed on this point later in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Mullen was more vague, saying it was too early to speculate. He said the Libyan leader is "going to have to make some choices about his own future" at some point.

Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In a phone call to Libyan state television, he said he would not let up on Benghazi and said the government had opened up weapons depots to all Libyans, who were now armed with "automatic weapons, mortars and bombs." State television said Gadhafi's supporters were converging on airports as human shields.

"We promise you a long war," he said.

He called the international assault "simply a colonial crusader aggression that may ignite another large-scale crusader war."

Throughout the day Sunday, Libyan TV showed a stream of what it said were popular demonstrations in support of Gadhafi in Tripoli and other towns and cities. It showed cars with horns blaring, women ullulating, young men waving green flags and holding up pictures of the Libyan leader. Women and children chanted, "God, Muammar and Libya, that's it!"

"Our blood is green, not red," one unidentified woman told the broadcaster, referring to the signature color of Gadhafi's regime. "He is our father, we will be with him to the last drop of blood. Our blood is green with our love for him."

The overnight attack early Sunday shook coastal cities, including Tripoli, where anti-aircraft guns could be heard firing.

Libyan TV quoted the armed forces command as saying 48 people were killed and 150 wounded in the allied assault. It said most of the casualties were children but gave no more details.

Mullen said he had seen no reports of civilian casualties.

The cruise missile assault was the "leading edge" of a coalition campaign, named Operation Odyssey Dawn, said Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

He said it would take six to 12 hours to assess whether the main targets — Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles — were taken out, then it would be safe to send an unmanned Global Hawk surveillance drone to get a better picture of the area.

French fighter jets fired the first salvos overnight, carrying out several strikes in the rebel-held east, around the Benghazi area, while British fighter jets also bombarded the North African nation. The cruise missile barrage was fired from five U.S. ships in the Mediterranean — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and three submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.

The U.S. military announced that Navy electronic warfare aircraft and Marine Corps attack jets joined the international assault early Sunday. Navy EA-18G Growlers launched from unspecified land bases to provide electronic warfare support over Libya. Marine AV-8B Harriers from the USS Kearsarge sailing in the Mediterranean conducted strikes against Gadhafi's ground forces and air defenses.

President Barack Obama said military action was not his first choice and reiterated that he would not send American ground troops.

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. "We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy."

The U.S. has struck Libya before. Former President Ronald Reagan launched U.S. airstrikes on Libya in 1986 after a bombing at a Berlin disco — which the U.S. blamed on Libya — that killed three people, including two American soldiers. The airstrikes killed about 100 people in Libya, including Gadhafi's young adopted daughter at his Tripoli compound.

US, Europe wary of Egypt protest contagion: analysts

PARIS (AFP) – The United States and Europe are raising pressure for democratic reform in Egypt but face a tricky task amid fears that the violent unrest there could spread far beyond its borders, analysts say.

The United States on Sunday raised pressure on Egypt's long-time President Hosni Mubarak, its closest ally in the Arab world, to make reforms. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for an "orderly transition" to democracy.

Denis Bauchard of the French International Relations Institute (IFRI) said US President "Barack Obama has taken the lead, calling for political reform, without sparing Mubarak, and that's quite smart."

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Clinton went further on Sunday, saying that Mubarak's move to name his first ever vice-president and a new premier was not nearly enough to answer the concerns of his people.

"We're trying to promote an orderly transition and change that will respond to the legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people which the protests are all about," Clinton told CBS television news.

She urged the government and the military "to do what is necessary to facilitate that kind of orderly transition," apparently implying that Mubarak, who has ruled for nearly 30 years, should not run in September's presidential polls.

Britain, France and Germany also spoke out jointly on Saturday over the street clashes that have left at least 125 people dead.

"We urge President Mubarak to embark on a process of transformation which should be reflected in a broad-based government and in free and fair elections," the three countries said in a statement.

Previously, the Europeans and Americans had acted with "great caution" that was tantamount to "support for the regime", said Didier Billion, an expert at Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris.

"One of the lessons here is that we need to be on the right side of history in these countries," said US Senator John McCain, who lost his 2008 White House bid to Obama.

"We need to do a better job of emphasising and arguing strenuously for human rights," he said on the CNN news channel.

"You can't have autocratic regimes last forever. The longer they last, the more explosive the results."

Paris had also taken a cautious line during similar unrest in its former colony Tunisia, not turning against authoritarian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali until after he was driven out.

The Tunisian uprising set a precedent for the region that has now recurred in Egypt -- a bigger, more strategically important country.

Another IRIS analyst, Pascal Boniface, said Tunisia created a "generic model" for challenging authoritarian governments, which could be reprised "in Africa, Asia, anywhere repressive powers dominate and appear worn out".

Obama made a key speech in Cairo in 2009, shortly after his election, pledging to reach out to the Arab world.

Since then however, optimism has waned amid setbacks to US efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Now the stakes are high for the United States in managing the crisis in its top regional ally Egypt. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have backed Mubarak.

"Egypt remains a major pawn in the Middle East," said Billion. The West fears "a domino effect if Mubarak falls, with a protest movement that could grow across the world."

With long-time leaders such as Mubarak, Libya's Moamer Kadhafi, Ali Abdallah Saleh of Yemen and numerous leaders in sub-Saharan Africa racking up decades in power, observers see potentially historic change looming.

"The African continent is at a special moment in its history, with 22 presidential and legislative elections due in the coming year," said one senior French official who asked not to be named.

"It is not a good time for dictators," he added. "This could be contagious."

Egypt's Mubarak faces crisis, protest defies curfew

CAIRO (Reuters) – President Hosni Mubarak, clinging on despite mass popular demands for an end to his 30-year rule, met on Sunday with the generals who may hold the keys to Egypt's future, but in Cairo protesters defied a curfew.

As his key ally the United States called for an "orderly transition," Mubarak's disparate opponents, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, rallied behind retired international diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei to lead possible talks with the army on organizing a handover of power to a national unity coalition.

"I ask of you patience, change is coming in the next few days," Baradei told thousands of demonstrators on Cairo's Tahrir Square after dark. "You have taken back your rights and what we have begun, cannot go back."

He added: "We have one main demand -- the end of the regime and the beginning of a new stage, a new Egypt."

"The people want the regime to fall!" thousands chanted as troops looked on patiently from their U.S.-built battle tanks.

Baradei, 68, won a Nobel peace prize as head of the United Nations' nuclear body. Though little known to many Egyptians, he had hoped to run in a presidential election in September.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Fox News: "We want to see an orderly transition so that no one fills a void.

"We also don't want to see some takeover that would lead not to democracy but to oppression and the end of the aspirations of the Egyptian people."

For a week, since Egyptians inspired by the overthrow of the aging strongman in Tunisia began a push for change, it has been unclear who might emerge as an alternative to Mubarak and, more widely, to the military class which has run Egypt since 1952.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

A senior figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Islamist group that has long seemed the strongest single force against Mubarak, said it backed ElBaradei as negotiator.

The Brotherhood has stayed in the background although several of its senior officials have been rounded up. The government has accused it of planning to exploit the protests.

Some of its leaders walked free from jails on Sunday.

As many as 10,000 people protested in Tahrir Square, a rallying point in the center of Cairo, to express anger at poverty, repression, unemployment and corruption -- themes that are rumbling across the Arab world after first Tunisia and now the most populous Arab state Egypt have been plunged in unrest.

As the curfew started and was ignored, warplanes and helicopters flew over the square. By late afternoon more army trucks appeared in a show of military force but no one moved.

"Hosni Mubarak, Omar Suleiman, both of you are agents of the Americans," shouted protesters, referring to the appointment on Saturday of intelligence chief Suleiman as vice president, the first time Mubarak has appointed a deputy in 30 years of office.

It was the position Mubarak, 82, held before he become president and many saw the appointment as ending his son Gamal's long-predicted ambitions to take over and as an attempt to reshape the administration to placate reformists.

Mubarak held talks with Suleiman, Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Chief of Staff Sami al-Anan and others.

Clearly those in Tahrir Square did not wish to see Mubarak's ruling structure replaced by a military line-up featuring his closest associates. "Mubarak, Mubarak, the plane awaits," they said. There was also a big protest in Alexandria.

SHOCKWAVES AROUND MIDDLE EAST

The turmoil, in which more than 100 people have died, has sent shock waves through the Middle East where other autocratic rulers may face similar challenges, and unsettled financial markets around the globe as well as Egypt's allies in the West.

In Tunisia, the detonator of the regional movement, an exiled Islamist leader was welcomed home by thousands on Sunday. In Sudan, Egypt's southern neighbor, police beat and arrested students taking part in anti-government protests in Khartoum.

In Egypt, the military response to the crisis has been ambivalent. Troops now guard key buildings after police lost control of the streets, but have neglected to enforce a curfew, often fraternizing with protesters rather than confronting them.

It remains to be seen if the armed forces will keep Mubarak in power, or decide he is a liability to Egypt's national interests, and their own. It was also unclear if Mubarak had decided to talk with the generals or if he was summoned by them.

It was Tunisian generals who persuaded former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee last month after weeks of protests.

In Suez, on the canal, one senior local officer, Brigadier Atef Said said his troops would give protesters a free voice:

"We will allow protests in the coming days," he told Reuters. "Everyone has the right to voice their opinion."

The crisis deepened on Sunday after police had disappeared from the streets. Egyptians faced lawlessness on the streets with security forces and citizens trying to stop looters.

Through the night into Sunday, Cairo residents armed with clubs, chains and knives formed vigilante groups to guard neighborhoods from marauders after the unpopular police force withdrew following the deadly clashes with protesters.

Security sources said police would be back on Monday.

TANKS SPRAYED WITH SLOGANS

In surreal scenes, soldiers from Mubarak's army stood by tanks covered in anti-Mubarak graffiti: "Down with Mubarak. Down with the despot. Down with the traitor. Pharaoh out of Egypt."

Asked how they could let people scrawl anti-Mubarak slogans on their mostly American-made vehicles, one soldier said: "These are written by the people, it's the views of the people."

Egypt's armed forces -- the world's 10th biggest and more than 468,000-strong -- have been at the heart of power since army officers staged the 1952 overthrow of the king. It benefits from about $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid.

The army appears to be showing restraint and there is no talk at this time about halting U.S. aid to Egypt, Clinton said.

The government has interfered with Internet access and mobile phone signals to try and disrupt demonstrators' plans.

On Sunday, it ordered pan-Arab channel Al Jazeera to shut down and cut off its local broadcasts.

The tumult was affecting Egypt's tourist industry and the United States and Turkey said they were offering evacuation flights Other governments advised people to leave Egypt.

The United States and European powers were busy reworking their Middle East policies, which have supported Mubarak, turning a blind eye to police brutality and corruption in return for a bulwark against first communism and now militant Islam.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was closely watching events in Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979.

"This is the Arab world's Berlin moment," said Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics, comparing the events to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. "The authoritarian wall has fallen, and that's regardless of whether Mubarak survives."

(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Sherine El Madany, Yasmine Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Alexander Dziadosz in Suez, Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Peter Apps, Angus MacSwan and William Maclean in London; Writing by Peter Millership, editing by Alastair Macdonald)