NATO targets Gadhafi hub

TRIPOLI, Libya – NATO airstrikes targeted the center of Moammar Gadhafi’s seat of power early today, destroying a multistory library and office and badly damaging a reception hall for visiting dignitaries.

Gadhafi’s whereabouts at the time of the attack on his sprawling Bab al-Azizya compound were unclear. A security official at the scene said four people were lightly hurt.

Today’s strike came after Gadhafi’s forces unleashed a barrage of shells and rockets at the besieged city of Misrata, in an especially bloody weekend that left at least 32 dead and dozens wounded.

NATO’s mandate from the U.N. is to try to protect civilians in Libya, split into a rebel-run east and a western area that remains largely under Gadhafi’s control. While the coalition’s airstrikes have delivered heavy blows to Gadhafi’s army, they have not halted attacks on Misrata, a city of 300,000 people besieged by Gadhafi loyalists for two months.

Still, in recent days, the rebels’ drive to push Gadhafi’s men out of the city center gained momentum.

Late last week, they forced government snipers out of high-rise buildings. On Sunday, rebels took control of the main hospital, the last position of Libyan troops in the center of Misrata, said a city resident, who only gave his first name, Abdel Salam, for fear of reprisals. Throughout the day, government forces fired more than 70 rockets at the city, he said.

“Now Gadhafi’s troops are on the outskirts of Misrata, using rocket launchers,” Abdel Salam said.

Ali Misbah, a captured Libyan soldier who had been wounded in the leg, was held under guard in a tent in the parking lot of the Al Hikmeh Hospital.

Misbah, 25, said morale was low among Gadhafi’s troops. “Recently, our spirit has collapsed and the forces that were in front of us escaped and left us alone,” he said.

Misbah said he and his fellow soldiers were told that they were fighting against al-Qaida militants, not ordinary Libyans who took up arms against Gadhafi.

“They misled us,” Misbah said of the government.

A senior Libyan government official has said the military is withdrawing from the fighting in Misrata, ostensibly to give a chance to tribal chiefs in the area to negotiate with the rebels. The official, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim, said the tribal chiefs were ready to send armed supporters to fight the rebels unless they lay down their weapons.

Kaim also claimed that the army has been holding its fire since Friday.

Asked about the continued shelling on Misrata, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the army was responding to attacks by rebels. He insisted that most of Misrata was still under government control.

Rebels on Sunday dismissed government claims that tribes in the area were siding with Gadhafi and that troops were redeploying voluntarily.

“It’s not a withdrawal. It’s a defeat that they want to turn into propaganda,” said Dr. Abdel-Basit Abu Mzirig, head of the Misrata medical committee. “They were besieging the city and then they had to leave.”