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.
Western reporters and a senior Libyan government official said the pounding airstrikes Tuesday easily outstripped the number of bombing runs on any day since the international air campaign began in mid-March.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim claimed some 30 people were killed in 60 NATO strikes on Tripoli. Previous government tolls have proven to be exaggerated, and reporters, who face tight restrictions in the Libyan capital, saw only one dead man during a visit to Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound.
The dust-covered bloodied man was draped around a cement column at one of the crushed compound buildings. He was seen on a government-escorted tour of bombed sites.
The boot and legs of the man, identified as Misbah Hussein, in his forties, stuck out from beneath a pile of twisted metal close to the remains of a building just inside the eastern entrance of the Gadhafi compound.
As his comrades realized what they were staring at, they rushed toward him, their arms raised.