Western airstrikes have reached Muammar Gaddafi’s backyard: A four-story building in the Libyan leader’s Tripoli compound was heavily damaged in a raid on Sunday, struck by missiles launched from a British submarine. The building is only a few hundred yards from a statue of a fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet, a monument to the 1986 bombing of Tripoli that left one American plane down. Libyan officials invited Western journalists into the compound to tour the damage, and they saw two circular holes in the building from what were reportedly British Tomahawk missiles. Video also showed collapsed columns, pieces of weaponry, and chunks of concrete, but there were no casualties. Gaddafi’s location isn’t known. As strikes enter their third day Monday, France is beefing up its contribution to the operation by launching an aircraft carrier off the Libyan coast. Meanwhile, Russia called on the U.S., U.K., and France to end what it called their “indiscriminate use of force” in Libya.
