Tripoli, April 16: More than a hundred government rockets crashed into Misrata on Friday after Western allies denounced a “medieval siege” of the city and vowed to keep bombing Muammar Qaddafi’s forces until he stepped down.
A local doctor told Al Jazeera at least eight people died and seven others were wounded in the second day of intense bombardment of Misrata, a lone opposition bastion in western Libya. An Amnesty International researcher in the city said several people were killed as they queued for bread on Thursday.
Residents told Al Jazeera at least 120 rockets had hit the city, where hundreds of civilians are reported to have died in a six-week siege.
The attack followed intense fire from Russian-made Grad rocket launchers into a residential district on Thursday when the opposition said 23 people died, mostly women and children. They said more than 200 missiles fell in the port.
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States said in a joint newspaper article that they would press on with their three-week-old air campaign until Qaddafi left power. “It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government.”
Libyan state television said NATO planes had attacked Qaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte on the Mediterranean coast, and Al-Aziziyah south of Tripoli on Friday.
Qaddafi’s daughter Aisha told a rally in Tripoli marking the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Qaddafi’s compound there by US President Ronald Reagan: “Talk about Qaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Qaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans.”
On the fluid eastern front in Libya’s two-month civil war, the opposition said Qaddafi forces advancing from the oil port of Brega had opened fire on the western edge of the opposition-held town of Ajdabiyah on Friday, killing one of their fighters.
Fighter Mansour Rachid said Qaddafi’s forces were spread out in the desert and hard to locate.
Five Libyan military officers, meanwhile, fled to Tunisia by boat Friday, part of a wave of thousands of Libyans who have crossed the border in recent days, Tunisia’s state news agency reported.
The TAP news agency said the five were among 18 people who arrived on two boats at the port of Ketf, near the Libyan border. The report did not identify the five officers or provide other details.
Several top Libyan officials have resigned from the government since the start of the uprisings in mid-February. The highest level defector was former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who took medical leave in Tunisia then flew to London on March 30.
-Agencies