TRIPOLI: Waves of NATO aircraft hit Tripoli Tuesday in the most sustained bombardment of the Libyan capital since Western forces began airstrikes in March.
By Tuesday afternoon, war planes were striking different parts of the city several times an hour, hour after hour, rattling windows and sending clouds of grey smoke into the sky, a Reuters correspondent in said.
But Moammar Gadhafi vowed Tuesday to fight to the death.

At least 29 people were killed in 60 strikes on the Libyan capital Tuesday, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said. His account could not be independently verified.
Bombs have been striking the city every few hours since Monday, at a steadily increasing pace. They began before 11 a.m. Tuesday and were continuing five hours later. Airstrikes were previously rarer and usually at night.

“We only have one choice: we will stay in our land dead or alive,” Gadhafi said in a fiery audio address, adding that his supporters were flocking to his vast Bab al-Aziziya compound, which was hit several times by NATO airstrikes Tuesday. Describing planes flying overhead and explosions around him, Gadhafi was defiant. “We are stronger than your missiles, stronger than your planes, and the voice of the Libyan people is louder than explosions,” he said in his customary impassioned tone. He added that he was ready to unleash between 250,000 to 500,000 Libyans to swarm across the country to cleanse it from “armed gangs,” a reference to rebels controlling eastern Libya.

Major General Nick Pope, Britain’s Chief of Defense Staff’s Strategic Communications Officer, said several operations carried out by British fighter aircraft had targeted Gadhafi’s secret police headquarters and a military installation on Tripoli’s southwestern outskirts.
The bases, he said, were “engaged in the brutal repression of the civilian population and therefore a legitimate focus for NATO action.”

Libya’s state news agency Jana said NATO flew bombing missions over Gadhafi’s vast compound 12 times.
Pro-Gadhafi forces pulled back to high ground outside Yafran, 100 kilometers southwest of Tripoli Tuesday, after the rebels lifted a weeks-long siege of the town. There were heavy exchanges of fire between the two sides, with anti-aircraft gun being used to hit targets on the ground.
Rebel commander Juma Ibrahim in Zintan said Gadhafi’s forces had massed Tuesday in their biggest numbers in the area since the start of the conflict.

“This is the largest number of troops we have seen in the western mountains since the war’s start,” he said, adding that despite NATO planes hovering overhead there had not been any strikes on Gadhafi troops there.
Mikhail Margelov, special representative for the president of Russia for Africa, visited the rebel capital of Benghazi Tuesday and told reporters that Gadhafi can no longer represent Libya. “We highly believe that Gadhafi has lost his legitimacy after the first bullet shot against the Libyan people,” he said.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said an Egypt-based Chinese diplomat had visited Benghazi for talks with the rebel-led National Transitional Council, adding to signs that China too is courting the insurgents.
Libya’s pro-Gadhafi Foreign Minister Abdelati Obeidi is visiting China as a “special envoy” for Tripoli and will hold talks with counterpart Yang Jiechi.