First Libyan jet destroyed by French air force as coalition continues attacks

A French airstrike destroyed a Libyan warplane yesterday amid fierce bombardment of Muammar Gaddafi's military bases and ground forces.

French officials said that a Rafale fighter jet had fired on the aircraft after a coalition Awacs surveillance plane detected that it was violating the no-fly zone above the city of Misrata, the scene of fierce fighting for more than a week. The missile hit the warplane after it landed at the city's airport. While an assault by the Western forces had resulted in a pullback by regime tanks from the city, residents said regime forces returned on Wednesday night, laying siege to the hospital in the city, 130 miles east of Tripoli.

Residents said that the armoured forces were periodically forced to pull back by air strikes but that these were not disrupting tanks already in the town.

While the airstrikes continued – including in the area of Tripoli – anti-aircraft fire audible in the capital appeared to be at a lower level than earlier in the week, raising the possibility that the batteries had been severely degraded.

The French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, defended the pace of the US, British and French operation. "The destruction of Gaddafi's military capacity is a matter of days or weeks, certainly not months," he said.

The Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said last night that the regime had received "intelligence that the Libyan broadcasting and communications infrastructure will be targeted" by the coalition forces. He appealed to the UN to prevent "illegal and immoral" strikes against the "civilian" networks.

The regime has claimed that there had been a mounting civilian death toll from the bombing, with Mr Ibrahim saying that it was now "close to 100", though that included military cadets. He gave no figure for military casualties. Coalition governments have expressed scepticism at the claims of civilian casualties.

In the early hours of yesterday, a Reuters photographer was taken to a hospital in the Tripoli suburb of Tajoura, where strikes have reportedly hit a military airbase, and shown 18 charred bodies. No details were given of the identity of the bodies or the circumstances of the deaths, though the agency was told that the bodies were both military and civilian.

Reporters, including from The Independent, who independently attempted to visit Tajoura yesterday were stopped by Libyan militia and held for around 90 minutes by the roadside before being ordered back to the city.

Other journalists were taken by the government to a televised funeral at the city's Martyrs' Cemetery where at least 13 bodies were buried amid chants of "The people want revenge for the martyrs" and guns fired into the air.

Libyan officials said later that 18 bodies were buried at the cemetery in all, and journalists at the event said other bodies brought there had been taken away, apparently for burial elsewhere.