The military alliance conducted "deliberate, multiple strikes against command and control facilities of the Kadhafi regime" on Monday night, NATO said in a statement.

The targets included communications infrastructure used to coordinate attacks against civilians, and the headquarters of the 32nd Brigade located 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Tripoli.

The brigade "has been used to lead and coordinate military actions against the Libyan civilian population," NATO said.

"NATO will continue its campaign to degrade the Kadhafi regime forces that are involved in the ongoing attacks on civilians," said Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO operations in Libya.

In a separate statement, the British military said its HMS Triumph warship fired a number of Tomahawk missiles in the early hours of Monday morning as part of the operation.

"These were synchronised with precision strikes by coalition aircraft, including Tornadoes and Typhoons," said Major General John Lorimer, strategic communication officer to the Chief of Defence Staff.

"A further salvo of Tomahawk missiles was launched by Triumph at additional command and control sites last night," he said.

In a list of Monday's operations, NATO said it destroyed nine ammunition bunkers in the vicinity of Tripoli as well as six surface-to-air missiles, four tanks, three air defence missile sites and one mobile rocket launcher near Misrata.

The alliance said it also struck three ammunition storage bunkers near Sirte, Kadhafi's home town, as well as three tanks, one anti-aircraft weapon system and one armoured vehicle near Zintan.

One regime building was destroyed in the vicinity of the eastern oil town of Brega.

Libya's official news agency JANA reported earlier that NATO air strikes on Tuesday hit the Libyan capital Tripoli, Sirte and also the town of Aziziyah, south of the capital.

Deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim said these raids were carried out "at the request of the rebels who are preparing to carry out massacres in the region."

Early in the afternoon, AFP journalists in Tripoli reported at least one plane flying over the capital.

earlier related report
NATO does not need US for Libya: Biden
Washington (AFP) April 19, 2011 - US Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview published Tuesday that NATO can handle Libya without US help, saying Washington's efforts are better focused on places like Pakistan or Egypt.

"If the Lord Almighty extricated the US out of NATO and dropped it on the planet of Mars so we were no longer participating, it is bizarre to suggest that NATO and the rest of the world lacks the capacity to deal with Libya -- it does not," Biden told the Financial Times.

"Occasionally other countries lack the will, but this is not about capacity," he told the daily amid deep unease among the US public and lawmakers over military action in Libya.

His comments came after the US Defense Department said the US military had flown more than 800 sorties over Libya since handing control of the air campaign's operations to NATO.

Navy Captain Darryn James said US fighter jets this month unleashed bombs eight times on the air defenses of strongman Moamer Kadhafi's government, which is battling anti-regime rebels in the North African nation.

Washington coordinated operations in the first days of allied intervention in Libya after the United Nations Security Council approved international military action to thwart attacks by Kadhafi forces on rebel-held cities.

It transferred command to the NATO alliance earlier this month, leaving the Pentagon primarily providing refueling and surveillance aircraft, but it still flexes its military might.

Biden argued that Washington had to decide whether to spend resources "focusing on Iran, Egypt, North Korea, Afghanistan [and] Pakistan", or give Libya more attention, stressing: "We can't do it all."

"The question is: Where should our resources be?" he asked.

If it came down to deciding between getting a complete picture of Libya's opposition or understanding events in Egypt and the role the Muslim Brotherhood -- an Islamist group feared by some in Washington -- then "it's not even close," said Biden.

But the vice president flatly denied that domestic US political considerations had shaped the US handover to NATO.

"This is about our strategic interest and it is not based upon a situation of what can the traffic bear politically at home," he said.

"The traffic can bear politically more in Libya: There's a bad guy there, everybody knows he's a bad guy, the people don't like him, and so that's not hard," he added, referring to Kadhafi.

Fulfilling the UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians "is totally, thoroughly, completely within the capacity of NATO," he said.

"Where we brought unique benefits to bear and unique assets we have applied those assets and we will."

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