Allied forces prepared today for new raids on Libya to enforce a UN resolution aimed at halting its leader Muammar Gaddafi's attacks on civilians in suppressing a month-long uprising.
A first round of strikes by aircraft and cruise missiles prompted a defiant Gaddafi to warn of a long war in the Mediterranean "battlefield" as Tripoli reported dozens of deaths.
Journalists reported anti-aircraft fire in Tripoli late today near Gaddafi's residence.
Arab as well as Western warplanes converged on Italy's air bases to join the international campaign, while French aircraft carrier the Charles de Gaulle headed towards Libya.
Four Danish F-16 fighters left the Sigonella air base for Libyan airspace, Denmark's public radio said, quoting an eyewitness reporter.
Aircraft from the United Arab Emirates were also due at the Decimomannu air force base on Sardinia, where four Spanish F-18 fighters arrived yesterday.
Italian Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said Rome had assigned eight combat aircraft for the operation which can be used "at any time," while Norway said the first of the six F-16s it had committed would leave tomorrow for a southern European base.
British Defence Secretary Liam Fox said Typhoon fighters and Tornado strike aircraft would fly this weekend to the Gioia del Colle base in southern Italy.
The US military said the first stage of coalition raids under a UN Security Council remit to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya had been "successful," with Gaddafi's offensive on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi stopped in its tracks.
But dissenting voices arose as the scale and method of Operation Odyssey Dawn became apparent, including from the Arab League which had backed the no-fly zone.
"What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians," League Secretary General Amr Mussa told reporters.
"From the start we requested only that a no-fly zone be set up to protect Libyan civilians and avert any other developments or additional measures."
Mussa said preparations were now under way for an emergency meeting of the 22-member Arab League.
Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani earlier defended Doha's declared participation in the strikes on a fellow Arab state, saying the sole aim was to "stop the bloodbath."
A French defence ministry spokesman said Qatar had decided to deploy four aircraft in the operation, describing it as a "crucial point."
Russia, which abstained in Thursday's Security Council vote instead of using its veto, called for an end to "indiscriminate use of force" by the coalition, citing the casualties reported by Tripoli of 48 dead and 150 wounded.
Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the raids had included attacks on non-military targets, and had damaged roads, bridges and a cardiology centre.
"We proceed from the inadmissibility of using the Resolution 1973 mandate... for ends that clearly overstep its framework, which stipulates only measures to protect the civilian population," he said.
The French defence ministry spokesman said Paris was fully applying the UN resolution but not going beyond it.
US officials said the overnight targets were Libya's air defences to enable other coalition aircraft to enforce the no-fly zone, while Britain said it was taking "every precaution" to avoid civilian casualties.
China, another abstainer, expressed regret at the air strikes, saying it opposed using force in international relations.
In the West's biggest intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, eight years earlier, US warships and a British submarine fired more than 120 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libya late yesterday, US military officials said.
Admiral William Gortney told reporters at the Pentagon the cruise missiles "struck more than 20 integrated air defence systems and other air defence facilities ashore."
They were followed by strikes by manned aircraft including B-2 Stealth bombers which dropped 40 bombs on a Libyan military airfield.
Top US military commander Admiral Michael Mullen said the initial part of the campaign "has been successful," and the aim now was to cut off logistical support for Gaddafi's forces.
But analysts warned the next steps were far from easy in trying to stop attacks by Gaddafi's infantry inside rebel-held cities by air power alone.
An AFP correspondent said bombs fell early today in the greater Tripoli area, prompting barrages of anti-aircraft fire from Libyan troops in Bab al-Aziziyah, Gaddafi's headquarters in the capital.
State television showed footage of hundreds of Gaddafi supporters it said had gathered earlier to serve as human shields at Bab al-Aziziyah and at the capital's international airport.
State media said Western warplanes had bombed civilian targets in Tripoli, while an army spokesman said strikes also hit fuel tanks feeding the rebel-held city of Misrata, east of Tripoli.
As Tripoli awaited new attacks, AFP journalists saw residents who had fled Benghazi returning to the rebel capital in eastern Libya.
Medics in Benghazi said 85 civilians and rebels were killed in fighting with Gaddafi's forces on Friday and yesterday, while AFP correspondents counted nine bodies of Gaddafi loyalists in a hospital, with more expected to be brought in.
AFP correspondents and rebels said dozens of government military vehicles, including tanks, were destroyed this morning in air strikes west of the city.
The bodies of African fighters in khaki uniforms were seen amid a pile of smashed tanks and burned artillery pieces at a site 35 kilometres from Benghazi.
According to the rebels, French warplanes -- which began the coalition operation with a strike at 1645 GMT yesterday -- strafed government forces for two hours from 0330 GMT today.
The French spokesman said Paris had deployed 15 aircraft of air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities.
A furious Gaddafi said today that all Libyans were armed and ready to fight until victory against what he branded "barbaric aggression."
"We promise you a long, drawn-out war with no limits," he said, speaking on state television for a second straight day without appearing on camera.
The leaders of Britain, France and the United States will "fall like Hitler... Mussolini," warned the strongman of oil-rich Libya who has ruled for four decades but been confronted with an armed uprising since mid-February.
"America, France, or Britain, the Christians that are in a pact against us today, they will not enjoy our oil," he said. "We do not have to retreat from the battlefield because we are defending our land and our dignity."
He vowed retaliatory strikes on military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, which he said had been turned into a "real battlefield."
But Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam told the US ABC television channel today there would be no retaliation against commercial flights.
US President Barack Obama called Odyssey Dawn a "limited military action," unlike the regime change aims of the war against Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
He pledged no US troops would be deployed on the ground, while Mullen said the aim was "not about going after Gaddafi himself or attacking him at this particular point in time."
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Gaddafi was now feeling the "unified will" of the international community.
"He has been killing his own people. He declared that he will search house to house and kill all the people. That is unacceptable," Ban told AFP in Paris.
Libya's foreign ministry said that following the attacks it regarded as invalid the UN resolution which had ordered a ceasefire in the war against the rebels, and demanded an urgent Security Council meeting.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he blamed Gaddafi for the escalation.
"We have all seen the appalling brutality that Colonel Gaddafi has meted out against his own people, and far from introducing the ceasefire he spoke about he has actually stepped up the attacks and the brutality," he said.