NATO hits 15 Tripoli targets

The strikes,within a 30-minute period around 1 am,caused thunderous explosions and fireballs that leapt high into the night sky,causing people in neighbourhoods a mile or more away to cry out in alarm. Just as one strike ended,the sound of jet engines from low-flying aircraft in the stormy skies above the capital signaled the imminence of another. Huge plumes of black smoke rose and converged over the darkened cityscape. “We thought it was the day of judgment,” one enraged Libyan said.

The intensity of the attacks,and their focus on the area of the Bab al-Aziziya command compound in central Tripoli,appeared to reflect a NATO decision to step up the tempo of the air war over the Libyan capital.

As NATO intensified its airstrikes,the US State Department’s highest-ranking Middle East official,Jeffrey D Feltman,was in Benghazi on Tuesday on a visit aimed at providing fresh impetus to the rebel cause. Speaking at a news conference,Feltman said that the Obama administration had invited the Libyan opposition to open an office in Washington.