He called on the coalition to provide air cover for ships to deliver humanitarian aid to the port, which is functioning.
“Every minute counts,” he said. “It could mean more people are dead.”
Libyan TV broadcast on Tuesday night what it said was a brief live address by ruler Moammar Gaddafi at his encampment near Tripoli. Gaddafi was shown standing on a balcony before a crowd of supporters. (March 22)
Hear from correspondents on the ground in Libya, and follow how events are unfolding.
Earlier, a Misurata resident who gave his name only as Saadoun told Reuters news agency by telephone that people were “more optimistic” after the Western airstrikes began to relieve the pressure on the besieged city surrounded by Gaddafi’s forces.
“These strikes give us hope, especially the fact they are precise and are targeting the [Gaddafi] forces and not only the bases,” Reuters quoted him as saying. He said there had apparently been two strikes targeting locations in the southwestern part of the city where pro-Gaddafi forces are positioned.
The news agency quoted another resident as saying the strikes hit an air base and military training college that Gaddafi’s forces had been using to launch attacks.
The coalition strikes did not stop snipers loyal to Gaddafi from shooting people from rooftops in the center of Misurata, apparently targeting people trying to gain access to a hospital where hundreds of wounded people are being treated, news agencies said.
Among the fatalities were at least three people who were shot near the hospital, Reuters reported.
Aboard the USS Mount Whitney, the flagship for U.S. naval forces in the Mediterranean, Rear Adm. Gerard P. Hueber told Pentagon reporters by audio link: “We are putting pressure on Gaddafi’s ground forces that are attacking civilian populations in cities.” As long as those forces keep fighting in Ajdabiya and Misurata, he said, “that pressure from Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn coalition partners will continue.”
Hueber, the task force chief of staff, said strikes are aimed at interdicting “mechanized forces or artillery” besieging the cities, as well as cutting off their supply lines and disrupting their command and control.
“We have no indication that the Gaddafi forces are adhering to the United Nations Security [Council] resolution 1973, and that is why we continue to pressurize those forces,” Hueber said, referring to the U.N. resolution that established the no-fly zone over Libya.
Reiterating demands that President Obama made last week and that U.S. forces have made part of their mission, Hueber said: “Gaddafi’s forces must cease fire, all attacks against civilians must stop, forces must have stopped advancing on Benghazi and be pulled back from Ajdabiya, Misurata and Zawiyah, and humanitarian assistance must be allowed to reach the people of Libya.”
Hueber said the no-fly zone is now in force across the entire Libyan coast and that Gaddafi’s air force has stopped flying. He said there have been “no reports of civilian casualties” inflicted by coalition forces as part of their mission to protect Libyan civilians.
“Our efforts have been going well,” Hueber said, but he declined to predict when the campaign would end. The strikes against Gaddafi’s forces have taken place “outside” Misurata and Ajdabiya, he said, and the loyalists “are making incursions into the cities and targeting population centers in those cities” with tanks, artillery and rockets.
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