Nato air strikes leveled a compound used by Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy in Tripoli early today as his forces continued firing rockets in an effort to seize the rebel-held city of Misrata.
The attacks destroyed Gadafy's office in the Bab al Aziziya compound in the capital, Al Arabiya television said, citing unidentified Libyan officials. Government spokesman Mousa Ibrahim said three people were killed, according to al-Jazeera.
Three state television channels went off air immediately afterwards then resumed transmission, the BBC reported.
Firefighters were still working to extinguish flames in part of the ruined building a few hours after the attack, when foreign journalists were brought to the scene in Tripoli.
The press official, who asked not to be identified, said 45 people were hurt in the strike, 15 of them seriously, and some were still missing. That could not be independently confirmed.
Gadafy's son, Saif al-Islam, said that Nato was fighting a "losing battle" in Libya because it is "backed by traitors, agents and spies," according to the state-run Jana news agency.
Saif al-Islam said that targeting Gadafy's office was "an act of cowardice done at night that can do nothing more than terrify children, and it's impossible that it would frighten us or make us surrender."
Meanwhile, rocket attacks on Misrata, the rebel-held city in the west of the country,
killed at least 30 people and wounded 60 today, a Libyan witness told Al Arabiya television.
"There is very intense and random shelling on residential areas. Burned bodies are being brought into the hospital," Ahmed al-Qadi, an engineer who works for a dissident radio station in Misrata said.
"The number of wounded is 60 and the there were 30 martyrs. This is the toll for the past 12 hours," he added.
More than two months of fighting between Gadafy's forces and rebels seeking to end his 42-year role has ground to a military stalemate with the government controlling much of the west of the country and the insurgents holding the east.
Misrata has been besieged for more than six weeks and suffers daily shelling. The conflict in Libya, which has Africa's largest oil reserves, has pushed crude prices to the highest since September 2008. Crude rose 0.4 percent to $112.75 at 7:50 a.m. in London, and has gained more than 30 per cent since the war began in mid- February.
The US carried out its first missile attack from a drone aircraft in Libya on Saturday the Defense Department said. The Nato-led mission began last month after a United Nations Security Council resolution authorising military action to protect civilians and impose an arms embargo.
Libya's Transitional National Council, the interim authority set up by the rebels, has called for more international assistance. The council is getting 50 million dinars ($181 million) from Kuwait, its leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said yesterday during a visit to the Persian Gulf state.
The Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi was in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa today to discuss a peace plan with the African Union (AU).
Obeidi and two rebel representatives were scheduled to hold separate meetings with the AU's Peace and Security Council and with representatives of international groups like the United Nations and the European Union. The rebels rebuffed an earlier AU peace plan because it did not entail Gadafy's departure.
"This will be the first time that they (rebels) are attending a meeting here. We will meet both sides one after the other," Ramtane Lamamra, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, told Reuters.
Reuters