The rapid string of strikes, all within less than half an hour, set off thunderous booms that rattled windows and sent heavy plumes of smoke over the city, including from an area close to Qaddafi's sprawling Bab al-Aziziya compound, The Associated Press reported.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said at least three people were killed and 150 wounded in NATO strikes that targeted what he described as buildings used by volunteer units of the Libyan army.
“The barracks was empty. Most of the victims were civilians living nearby,” the spokesman added, according to Agence-France Presse.
An AFP journalist said the raids lasting more than half an hour began at around 1:00 am (2300 GMT Monday).
They were preceded by a whistling noise and the formation of red balls in the sky, a witness said.
At the hospital on Zawiyah Avenue not far from the targeted barracks, an AFP journalist saw three bodies laid out on stretchers.
Tripoli is targeted nearly daily with air raids by the international coalition, which launched strikes on March 19 to prevent Colonel Qaddafi's forces from attacking civilians.
NATO took over command of the operation on March 31.
NATO said in a statement that a number of the strikes hit a vehicle storage facility adjacent to Bab al-Aziziya that has been used in supplying regime forces “conducting attacks on civilians.” It was not immediately clear if the facility was the only target hit in the barrage. Bab al-Azizya, which includes a number of military facilities, has been pounded repeatedly by NATO strikes.
As jets whooshed low over the city during the night, anti-aircraft fire crackled in response. People could be heard screaming and shouting outside a hotel where journalists are staying. Pro-Qaddafi loyalists beeped their car horns and fired guns, shouting their support for the Libyan leader.
Observers described the bombing as the heaviest attack on the Libyan capital since NATO began its air campaign on March 19 after the passage of a UN Security Council resolution to protect civilians after the 68-year-old colonel responded to the public uprising against his rule by unleashing his military and his militias.
“We have degraded his war machine and prevented a humanitarian catastrophe. And we will continue to enforce the UN resolutions with our allies until they are completely complied with,” President Barack Obama of the United States and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain wrote in The Times newspaper.
NATO has been escalating and widening the scope of its strikes over the past weeks, hiking the pressure on Mr. Qaddafi, while the alliance’s members have built closer ties with the opposition movement that has control of the eastern half of Libya. On Monday, the highest-ranking US diplomat in the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, was in the de facto revolt capital of Benghazi in a show of support.
Despite NATO bombing runs, the protesters have not been able to break Colonel Qaddafi’s grip on the west of the country, including the capital Tripoli.
In another boost to forces fighting to oust the strongman, France said it would provide helicopters for NATO’s air campaign along with Britain, and the EU widened sanctions against Mr. Qaddafi's forces.
“What we want is to better tailor our ability to strike on the ground with ways that allow more accurate hits,” Foreign Minister Alain Juppe of France said, according to Reuters.
“The United States remains committed to protecting Libyan civilians and believes that Qaddafi must leave power and Libya,” said the US representative’s office to the protesters’ National Transitional Council, according to AFP.
In upbeat comments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of the US told a news conference in London on Monday: “We do believe that time is working against Qaddafi, that he cannot re-establish control over the country.”
She said, according to Reuters, the opposition had organized a legitimate and credible interim council that was committed to democracy.
“Their military forces are improving and when Qaddafi inevitably leaves, a new Libya stands ready to move forward,” she said. “We have a lot of confidence in what our joint efforts are producing.”
Washington’s call came a day after the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, opened an EU office in Benghazi and declared the 27-member bloc’s “long-term support” to the rebels.
“It is just not enough to recognize (us) and visit the liberated areas,” spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga told AP. “We have tried very hard to explain to them that we need the arms, we need funding, to be able to bring this to a successful conclusion at the earliest possible time and with the fewest humanitarian costs possible.”
Britain, France, Gambia, Italy and Qatar have already recognized the revolt council as their sole interlocutor in Libya.
The European bloc’s foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss the Libyan stalemate as divisions emerge over an exit strategy.
Protesters now control the populated coastal strip in the country’s east and the western port city of Misrata, which Colonel Qaddafi’s forces have besieged for months. They also control pockets in Libya’s western Nafusa mountain range. Libya’s population is estimated at six million people.
In Geneva, meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the Libyan war could drag on through the end of the year, and it will need another $53 million if that happens, according to AP.
The ICRC’s deputy head of operations for North and West Africa told reporters the money would boost its current budget to $86 million to ease problems due to the fighting since the Libyan uprising began February 15.
Georgios Georgantas said the ICRC expects 850,000 people will need its help there by the end of 2011. It has 95 staff in Libya to fulfill its mission of helping people caught up in violence.
(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya
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