Allies Resume Strikes to End Siege in Misrata

Allied forces resumed airstrikes on Wednesday against Libyan government targets involved in the siege of the coastal city of Misrata, east of Tripoli, according to several residents who also recounted a grim humanitarian situation and atrocities still being committed by Col. Moammar Gadhafi's troops.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said allied forces remained concerned about the regime's actions in Misrata, although military strikes have been successful in forcing Col. Gadhafi's forces to retreat from the eastern city of Benghazi.

Residents in Misrata said fighter jets were heard starting at about 1:30 a.m. Libya time, and that this was followed by the sound of multiple explosions. In one instance they said the sky was lit up and a flame rose briefly from the direction of the air-force academy and airport south of the city where a large contingent of Col. Gadhafi's troops has been hunkered down for weeks.

The sound of intermittent explosions continued until about 11:00 a.m., local time, said the residents who were reached by telephone.

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It's not possible for journalists based in Tripoli to go anywhere near Misrata, about 125 miles to the east, because of checkpoints and a heavy presence by Col. Gadhafi's forces and the fact that key areas around the city—such as Zlitin to the west, Bani Walid to the southwest and Tawurgha to the southeast—remain loyal to the regime.

Government officials in Tripoli have insisted over and over again that the situation was calm in Misrata and that they were only confronting a small band of Islamic extremists.

Misrata, Libya's third-largest city and an important commercial hub, rose up against the regime when the first wave of protests swept the country last month. As in many other places in Libya, the protesters were brutally suppressed, prompting a violent backlash. Rebels subsequently took control of Misrata's center and formed local military and civilian councils to manage their affairs.

Since then Col. Gadhafi's forces have encircled the city center from all directions and have tried to isolate it from the outside world by cutting water and electricity supply, preventing food and medicine shipments, and disconnecting the cellular telephone network there. Residents now rely on water pumped from deep wells and distributed by tanker trucks.

Col. Gadhafi's forces have relentlessly shelled the city center with heavy artillery and have made several incursions that have triggered street battles with the rebels. The violence, including the use of sniper fire by Col. Gadhafi's troops, has resulted in the death of dozens of people, according to two doctors in the city. One said the overall death toll has reached at least 170 since late February. This couldn't be independently confirmed.

Government forces now control one of the city's major arteries known as Tripoli Street and have moved into the sprawling central hospital which has been under reconstruction since 2007, according to witnesses. They said government forces have posted snipers on rooftops and tanks in front of the hospital.

In London, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said the United Nations-mandated military action in Libya has made good progress, but it is clearly in the early stages and a lot more remains to be done.

Speaking in Parliament, he said a no-fly zone was now in place over the country, with 11 nations contributing more than 150 aircraft towards the effort.

"Any idea that the second cease fire was any more meaningful than the first cease-fire, we can see that is complete nonsense," he said. "So I think we made good progress in the no-fly zone, good progress in terms of turning those forces back and protecting civilians, but clearly this is early stages and a lot more remains to be done."

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Coalition members haven't been able to agree on whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should take charge of the mission. France, seen by some diplomats as trying to mend fences with Arab neighbors while leading the fight to protect Libyan rebels against the Tripoli regime, has proposed a command structure with NATO in a subsidiary role.

NATO did agree Tuesday to enforce an arms embargo, but not on its role in the no-fly zone. So far, the Libya operations have been led by U.S. Adm. Locklear, coordinating with military commanders of France, Britain and the other armed forces involved.

A NATO official Wednesday said NATO warships has begun patrolling off Libya's coast to enforce the U.N. arms embargo on the country, the Associated Press reported. The naval mission will be commanded from NATO's operational center in Naples, Italy, and will consist of two frigates, six minesweepers and a supply ship, the official told AP.

The Obama administration has indicated it wants to hand over command, preferably to NATO, in coming days—an objective backed by Britain, Italy, Norway and others. Speaking in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, on Tuesday just before ending his Latin American trip, Mr. Obama said the U.S. could cede control soon.

Late Tuesday, President Barack Obama called French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron as he sought to resolve the dispute over the control structure. The president and other top U.S. officials called on other leaders to contribute forces to the cause.

Another looming question is how the U.S. and its partners would proceed in case of a long military standoff in which the allies succeed in protecting civilians and rebel forces, but Col. Gadhafi remains in power. The allied nations have each offered different interpretations of the campaign's end goals.

A U.S. warplane crashes in Libya overnight. The pilot and crew members ejected safely. WSJ's Stephen Fidler reports.

Coalition forces are going to "great lengths" to avoid civilian casualties as they carry out a series of air strikes against Gadhafi's army in Libya, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Gates said Tuesday on a visit to Russia.

Col. Gadhafi made a defiant appearance late Tuesday in front of a clutch of diehard supporters from impoverished Tripoli neighborhoods at his headquarters in Bab Azizya, two days after allied forces struck a building there, which caused significant material damage but no casualties, Libyan officials said.

France, which recently rejoined NATO's military command structure after more than 30 years, has insisted it doesn't want to give the organization a central command-and-control role. French officials have said Arab countries are against NATO involvement, and that the current command structure is working fine.

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Other diplomats said the Arab League doesn't object to NATO's role. They are also concerned that the operation is taking big risks already by not having a unified command. Some officials described it as being barely coordinated on Saturday when French jets launched attacks in Libya hours ahead of allies.

In Paris on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé proposed a new political steering committee to oversee military operations over Libya. The new body would include foreign ministers of participating states, such as Britain, France and the U.S., as well as the Arab League.

"For us, this operation is carried out by a coalition," Mr. Juppé told the French National Assembly, the lower house of the country's parliament. "So it's not a NATO operation."

Turkey, another NATO member, has expressed strong reservations about the no-fly zone. But several diplomats said they expected Ankara would eventually agree to NATO participation, subject to conditions.

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Libyan army soldiers stood on a building, destroyed in what the government said was a western missile attack, inside Bab Al-Aziziyah, Col. Gadhafi's heavily fortified Tripoli compound Monday.

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A senior U.S. official said the Obama administration was still cobbling together a command structure for the Libya operations. The official said the U.S. expects NATO to be central, but also believes Muslim countries such as Turkey and Qatar will play a larger part. "NATO obviously has a key role here," said the official. "But that's part of a broader effort and that's not to say it's NATO only."

The U.S. has sought participation by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have among the region's most modern militaries, largely equipped with U.S.-made equipment. So far, though, both Arab countries have declined to participate militarily, despite the support that their own regional bloc, the Gulf Cooperation Council, has expressed for the intervention. Only Qatar among the six GCC nations is sending jets.

The U.A.E., which had led Arab nations' calls for allied military action, surprised coalition members by holding back from deploying its own aircraft. The former commander of its airforce said Tuesday that was because of dissatisfaction with U.S. and European complaints about regime violence against protesters in its ally Bahrain.

South Africa and China criticized the allied airstrikes over Libyan claims of civlian casualties, which U.S. officials denied. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the pace of airstrikes should decline in the next few days and cautioned against believing what he called Col. Gadhafi's "outright lies."

Germany, which abstained from the U.N. vote, Wednesday approved the use of Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft, or AWACs, over Afghanistan to free up military resources of other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for their mission in Libya.

Up to 300 soldiers, coming from a flexible reserve of German troops for Afghanistan, could be used in Afghanistan in relation to the AWAC use, said Steffen Seibert said, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The mission is approved until Jan. 31, 2012.

The government Wednesday will table the AWACs decision for approval in Germany's parliament.

Germany's offer to use AWACs in Afghanistan comes as Mrs. Merkel tries to avoid the impression that Germany is isolated among its Western allies.

—Stacy Meichtry and Bernd Radowitz contributed to this article.

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Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com, Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com and Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com
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