Gadhafi talks tough amid airstrikes

TRIPOLI, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi stood defiant Tuesday in the face of the heaviest and most punishing NATO airstrikes yet — at least 40 thunderous daylight attacks that sent plumes of smoke billowing above the Libyan leader’s central Tripoli compound.

The strikes continued overnight. Early Wednesday, some 10 explosions shook the Libyan capital. It was not immediately clear what was hit.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Libyan state television broadcast an audio address from Gadhafi, who denounced NATO and the rebels challenging his rule. He vowed never to surrender. “We will not kneel!” he shouted.

Alliance officials warned for days that they were increasing the scope and intensity of their air campaign to oust Gadhafi after more than 40 years in power. NATO is backing the rebel insurgency, which has seized swathes of eastern Libya and pockets in the regime’s stronghold in the west since it began in February, inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.

Some 6,850 people, nearly all of them Libyans, have streamed across the border from Libya to Tunisia since Monday to flee the NATO raids as well as fighting between the rebels and government forces, according to the Tunisian Defense Ministry.

“We will not surrender: we only have one choice — to the end! Death, victory, it does not matter, we are not surrendering!” Gadhafi said.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama once again called on Gadhafi to step aside.

“Gadhafi must step down and hand power to the Libyan people, and the pressure will only continue to increase until he does,” Obama said during a joint news conference in Washington with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is heading to the United Arab Emirates to confer with NATO nations and others prosecuting an air campaign in Libya to assess the effort to get Gadhafi to leave and increase support for the country’s opposition.

Western reporters and a senior Libyan government official said the airstrikes Tuesday easily outstripped the number of bombing runs on any day since the international air campaign began in mid-March.