loyal to libyan leader, moammar gadhafi. and what you re hearing there, just some of the anti-aircraft fire we heard in the last hour in libya s capital, tripoli. you heard it here as we were talking to nic robertson. still no sign of coalition aircraft, though. no clue, really what they were shooting at. at present, about seven nations actively involved in what s now known as operation odyssey dawn. its aim of course to force the libyan leader, moammar gadhafi, to abide by a united nations authorized cease-fire and no fly zone. u.s. joint chiefs of staff chairman mike mullen says most of gadhafi s air defense systems and some air fields have been taken out. libyan ground forces have been hit as you can see there. a briefing expected less than half an hour from now from the pentagon. we will of course be bringing that to you live. meantime, the arab league
u.s. president, barack obama, spoke about the recent wave of democracy protests in the middle east and the crisis in libya during his speech today in brazil. chessa darlington is traveling with the president and joins us now from rio de janeiro. he kind of had a two-pronged approach in his speaking engagement, he talked about the common bonds between the u.s. and brazil in the days forward. but then he had to touch on libya. well that s right, fredricka. in fact, he started his day on libya. even though he s 5,000 more than 5,000 miles from washington, he started his day with a national security meeting over a secure conference call. he was briefed by the national security adviser, tom donnelly, secretary of state, hillary clinton. the defense secretary and others about the situation in libya. about the military operations, the diplomatic consultations and he took some time also to thank the u.s. armed forces involved
and the no fly zone is in effect. in a speech on state television, gadhafi vowed to fight back against what he called terrorists attacking his country. he called the strikes a confrontation between the libyan people and the quote new nazis. eye witnesses in tripoli describe what they saw and heard when the air strikes began. to be honest, i was asleep, i woke up because of the explosion, i tried to run and see what s happening and i could see, i saw actually one of the explosions. saw one of the fires, it was scary thing. especially that there is an an anti-craft shooting against it. and i saw a couple of the, i don t know what to call it. but it was a very bright light. and i could see, i could see some of the events. i saw them. we want to check in with our senior international correspondent, nic robertson who is in tripoli. and nic, i m learning through our sources that libya s army
not strike any targets today that they did not open fire on loyalists targets in libya. so perhaps this is a reconnaissance mission enforcing the no fly zone. we don t have details on that yet. we do know from the italian defense minister, that italy will make available eight tornado fighter jets for the coalition mission in libya. he said that that would happen after midnight. it seems to have happened a little earlier. and also on this base, the canadians have sent seven f-18s to participate in commencing the 240 fly zone. and they re here and we ve spoken to their p.a.o., their public affairs officer and they said they re also preparing for a possible deployment tonight. and something we were talking about with reza, the canadians, the french, the italians, the americans involved. the crucial thing is going to be seeing some arab planes up in the air.
it s very important for western powers to convey to the world that this is not just a western operation, arab nations are ply playing a role. still not clear if it s a symbolic role, diplomatic, financial support or military support. rehza sayah, thank so much. we ll go to italy, sicily, home base to nato base and a u.s. naval air station. right now a very strategic gathering point for countries helping to enforce the no fly zone. cnn s diana manna is at the u.s. air base in trapani joins us now. i saw an email from you about tornadoes taking off. hi, michael. in the last 15 minutes we ve just seen six tornado fighter jets from the italian air force take off and we ve been told by the air force spokesman on base that they are bound to libya. we obviously don t know the details of their deployment. you know, from the french earlier, the french forces did