NATO air strikes target Gadhafi residence district again

PanARMENIAN.Net - Fresh NATO-led air strikes on Saturday, May 28, targeted the district of Tripoli where Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has his residence, after G8 world powers intensified the pressure on the strongman to step down.

For the fourth successive night, powerful blasts rocked Bab Al-Aziziya near the city center, AFP reported.

The strikes came after U.S. President Barack Obama told a summit of G8 world powers that the United States and France were committed to finishing the job in Libya, as Russia finally joined explicit calls for Gadhafi to go.

"We are joined in our resolve to finish the job," Obama said after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the G8 summit of industrialized democracies in the French resort of Deauville.

But the U.S. leader warned the "UN mandate of civilian protection cannot be accomplished when Gadhafi remains in Libya directing his forces in acts of aggression against the Libyan people."

G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the U.S. called in their final statement for Gadhafi to step down after more than 40 years, in the face of pro-democracy protests turned full-fledged armed revolt.