has all of the people of libya standing behind him. it's a dramatic escalation, the turmoil engulfed in the middle east and north africa, and we'll explain what it means for the region. a good day to you. i'm richard quest, cnn in london, and this is "world report." explosion and the sounds of anti-aircraft fire are echoing in triply many morn as foreign forces continue their assault. french, british, and american forces began attacking moammar gadhafi's military capen'ts on saturdays. with missiles and fighter jets, it's part of the uniunited nati resolution to protect libyan civilians. gadhafi said on television sunday vowing to fight back against what he calls naked aggression. he could not be seen. instead only his voice could be heard while they showed this scene, the presidential palace. it was reported that 48 people were killed, 150 people were killed by coalition air strikes. so far cnn is unable to confirm that claim. we need to now know what's happening at the moment in libya. a tripoli resident joins. we will not identify her for obvious safety reasons. first of all, let's check if you can hear me. richard quest in london, ma'am. can you hear me? >> caller: yes, i can hear you. >> good morning to you. we need to begin by asking you what is happening. what are you seeing, what are you hearing and what's been going on for the last four hours? >> caller: there was a fire that we believe has come and gone from an intelligence building. right after the fire started, we could hear ambulance and there's lots and lots of police cars speeding toward where the fire start started. >> and are you hearing the sound of aircraft going overhead or any anti-aircraft fire coming from the ground? >> caller: it stopped in the early morning. we didn't hear anything after 4:00 a.m. >> right. so would you say that it was a fairly noisy night then that you suffered? >> caller: to be honest, i was asleep. i woke up to the sound of the explosion. i tried to run and see what's happening and i could see. i saw actually one of the explosions, but no -- one of the fires. it was a very scary scene, especially since there's an anti-aircraft shooting. 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 some of the advances. i saw them. >> how has the mood in tripoli that you can best gauge from you, your family, your friends, how has that mood shifted in the last 24 hours? >> caller: we are not -- we haven't expected things to speed up this quickly. to be honest, most of us are still in trauma. we're shocked. we're all home. we're scared. i don't know what's going to happen next. we're not scared for what the international community or what the -- the flight strike, we're scared of the other strikes. >> forgive me for pushing harder. in what way? i mean what's your fear basically here? >> caller: my personal fear is for his speech to come true in tripoli where he said he's going to come to each house, each room in each house to kill them. to be honest, i'm scared for my life. >> which is understandable. this comment that opened the arms supply, arm the people so that they can fight back, is this something that people like yourself take seriously? >> caller: not at all. i think he's trying to add what we call a psychological war to intimidate people to say that he is still in command, which is a truth everybody had woken up with, that he's falling. he's falling very fast. he's no longer in command. >> you see, you say that. and let's just explore that for a second. you say that, but his ability to have taken back certain key areas and to continue to defy the international community, you seem to suggest that he's still severely weakened. >> caller: can i ask you a question back? what does taking back command? is it taking back the will of the people or taking back areas by shooting them? that's a serious question. >> good question. as we consider that, we'll let you continue your day and we'll hopefully check in with you later. but do be safe and keep in touch with us and many thanks. that was one of tripoli's residents there who for obvious reasons we're not identifying, and we'll be talking to her in the hours ahead. interesting question there, of course, and we'll be exploring that question with one of our experts, the question of whether or not taking back command involves mere regaining of tear territorial advantage or, of course, the will of the people. moammar gadhafi, though, is vowing to defend libya and says he will open up the weapons depos to his people so that they can fight. gadhafi also called on other islamic neighs to stanld by him. when he was speaking, it was on libya state tv soon after the allied attacks began. >> translator: libya will try to defend itself according to section i of the united nations charter that all targets -- maritime targets will be exposed to real danger, whether the mediterranean and north africa. because of this aggression -- naked aggression and irresponsible aggression, it's a war zone. >> moammar gadhafi. let's look at the countries leading the effort. france's jets are currently enforcing this no-fly zone. the aircraft carrier charles degall will leave the mediterranean port on sunday. the mediterranean is giving its sources. the united states will not disclose its operations but has five combat ships in the mediterranean. that includes a guide missile destroyer while canada is sending c-18 fighter jets and has a warship on standby at libya's coast. it's near morning. they should be looking at the damage the air strikes have cost the country. cnn's barbara starr has more on that. >> i think at first light now over libya there will begin to be this assessment of the damage caused by the initial strikes. did they get the libyan air defenses, the radars, the communications facilities, those surface-to-aramis aisle sites that the libya's man could bring down they're going to have to look at all of that and decide how much of it across this coastline of libya they got, how much is destroyed, and when it will be safe for pilots to begin to fly ore libya in this no-fly zone configuration. but, you know, it's really interesting. you've seen both sides rapidly put their cards on table here. the coalition side going for these very precise unmanned cruise missiles to go after these targets. and look on the other side of your screen. the libyans with their ground weapons in tripoli putting up anti-aircraft fire, tracer fire which isn't so dangerous but making a very public show of their force and really making point that they are in the cities, they're where the civilian populations are, and they're going to make it very tough on the coalition to move in to any additional phase of coming after their ground forces. >> cnn's barbara starr. the coalition will now get some more help enforcing the no-fly zone. spain is going to send fighter jets and a monitoring surveillance plane. it was france that has lobbied hard for international intervention in libya. christopher joins me now live from paris. christopher, is the middle east editor for ""newsweek."" no zend. no happenstance that it was france that led the first attack. >> no, i don't thinking so. president sarkozy has come out very clearly saying it's time to move against gadhafi, but at the same time, president sarkozy likes to be seen as a world leader. his poll ratings are very low so he wants to come out here, fighting, drawing a lot of attention to himself, but also doing the right thing. >> if -- if they have now done their first wave of attacks and they're now going to be looking, if you like, for the damage and the level of degradation to defenses, what happens next, do you believe, politically? >> well, i think the big question, really, is what the libyan people are going to do. i mean this started as a popular uprising against gadhafi, and it almost took him down, but then he turned his weapons on the people and he drove them back, and essentially he drove the opposition back to ben addenda city. ka the opposition turn around now with this umbrella of air power over its head and start to win back territory and win back the rest of the libyan people. than is really the big question mark. and i think that the allies, the united states, britain, france, and the rest of the world are going to have to take a breath right now and see what the libyan people are willing to do. >> you see, you and i were talking a short while ago and you're very much of the opinion that the moment for this action was, you know, was late. >> reporter: it was very, very late. look, really only a few days ago the opposition to gadhafi controlled essentially all the oil resources of the country. that was when they were in russ la nuf. he drive them out of towns and it wasn't till then that the west finally made its move. the problem is he's got the money now. he's got the oil. what is the west's strategy? is it to divide libya? is it to protect benghazi? that's not a very good long-term strategy, and that's precisely why really the next few hours and days we'll see what the libyan people are capable of doing. if it's not capable of bringing libya down, we're going to see a divided country, a protracted struggle, and it's one that the british, french, european people don't have the stomach for. >> let's talk about that lateness of response. how much did the events in japan play into the, if you like, paralysis of policymakers, their inability to deal with two gigantic issues at the same time? u. >> reporter: well, i think that is a huge problem. i mean it's not because of japan, but already you had within the consuls of the american government deep, deep divisions. you had the pentagon. defense secretary robert gates, very much against military intervention and said so publicly. so if there was going to be intervention, if it was going to move ahead quickly, it needed focused global attention, and once you had the earthquake and the tragedies that have beset japan, that attention was diverted. it's not just a problem of the government. it's also a problem of the press, and in a sense, it's a problem of all of us. we watch one thing for a few hours or days and then when something else happens we turn our attention. what happened in japan was huge. suddenly all global attention focused that and it was precisely at that moment that gadhafi was able to move ahead very, very aggressively, using his military force to crush his people. and it was really only at the last minute that you had a million people under siege in benghazi that the west finally got its act together. >> finely, briefly, of course, it wasn't em neptly foreseeable, wasn't it, that the moment the world's attention turned to the horrors of tsunami and earthquake that that would be the moment if you wanted to do something particularly evil, you'd get on and do it. >> reporter: well, that's exactly right. and that's exactly what gadhafi does. you know. gadhafi is very smart about doing evil things, and he's gotten away with them for a very long time. and it didn't only begin with the lockerbie bombing in 1988. it's always gone and an on but he's always been abd to buy his way out of trouble. he also hassans who are a little more savvy about western public opinion. they wrote that tweft was waiting for a massacre, something so huge that it would feel it had to act. you had william haig, the foreign minister of britain saying -- he was essentially saying that. so they didn't give that kind of massacre, that kind of excuse to the west, and then when the cover, as it were, of the tsunami and the earthquake and the nuclear meltdown in japan, that was when they acted. >> christopher dickey joining me there from paris. we thank you for your analysis on that. here with me in the studio is shahshank joshi. and we will be joining shahshank in a moment or two. these are totomy hawks being fi. we'll talk with shahshank joshi after the break. positions near libya's capital into early on sunday. these are pirs of operation odyssey dawn. theal lies are taking action to stop libya's regime from attacking its own people. gadhafi vows to counter what he calls naked aggression. gadhafi's military claims 50 people including women and children were killed in the strikes. these are pictures from libyan state tv of what it says are wounded people from coalition attacks. cnn cannot independently confirm that. shahshank joshi has been with us throughout the morning and says the u.n.'s no-fly zone resolution is historic. obviously historical or not, it's under way. >> absolutely. historic in the sense that it is etched into international law, the ability to protect. it's done so with a broad coalition of states. that's just the first steps. the hard work starts here. with the air strikes we can clear libya's skies but what about ground forces already poised just inside libya's nato cities? how will they deal with those? >> whatever happens, clearly the allied forces do have superiority and weaponry and tactics and muscle. >> well, the last ten years suggest that a superiority finer power will route the forces initially i but where does that get you? how do we transfer to seeing colonel gadhafi fall or a development where they perhaps agree to a settlement with the regime. >> that's a big question, though, isn't it. the age-old question of what happened after 2003 in iraq is exactly back here again. what happens after they've done what they've done? >> well, in 2003 baghdad was taken relatively easily. it was impossible to hold. here tripoli is going to be held. it's not as easy as the rockets. >> in terms of what comes next, is there hope that libyan people will befall gadhafi? >> there's hope that they turn on gadhafi or his regime. both those hopes are gambles. there's no gary teuarantee that will unfold that way. >> if gadhafi survives this, there's a split with the country of mbenbenghazi and others, has allied forces now got an exceptionally dangerous menace on its hands, bearing in mind gadhafi's history involved terrorism, lockerbie, and other attacks. >> between them. one is he renews his sponsorship for terrorism. he organizes movements as far as the japanese red army, plo, i.r.a. he's capable of doing it again. it's very difficult to counter this from a diplomatic point of view. the second is what if the rebels advance west. are they civilians? are they under the mandates of this resolution? can they be protected? what would happen then? >> how did it go so wrong? no, no, no. what i mean is gadhafi was being brought back into the fold. he was making speeches at the united nations. tony blair was visiting him. and now all of a sudden, do not pass go. >> his three-hour speech at the united nations was ripping up united charter. so, yes, eight years of rehabilitation, but at the same time this is the same individual who kill 1,200 of his own citizens in libya in 1996. had he fundamentally changed or was it an exceed yenlt accommodation with the west? i think we're seeing his true colors come out now. >> we may end up -- you and i were talking about this yesterday -- it's not out of the realms of possibility, maybe even probability, that we end up having to deal with him again. >> absolutely. look. saddam hussein hung on after the first gulf war. it's not easy to dislonch dictators with resolve and support. gadhafi has all that and oil. so do not anticipate a quick end to this. >> many thanks. in a meet, we'll continue to the twin disasters and a nuclear crisis. it is, of course, japan. we'll have the latest after the break. es stouffer's fettuccini alfredo so delicious. my peppers and broccoli... they really make the dish. cream is really what makes it. i think you'll find it's the vegetables. the crunch... the texture. deliciously rich. delicious. fantastic! flavorful. [ cow moos ] hey, maybe we could... work together? [ female announcer ] introducing new stouffer's farmers' harvest. now classics like grilled chicken fettuccini alfredo come with sides of farm-picked vegetables... lightly sauteed with herbs and olive oil. and no preservatives. find more ways to get to the table at letsfixdinner.com. p.a.: it's a four-bedroom traditional home on an acre-and-a-half landscaped yard. the master suite has two walk-in closets and a completely updated master bath. there's a totally renovated chef's kitchen, with updated stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and a butler's pantry. it's got a screened-in back porch, plenty of storage and a large backyard. it's the perfect home. in excellent condition, and ready to move in. anytime, anywhere. our agents help guide you to the smartest decisions. coldwell banker, we never stop moving. take look at this video. it's from the japanese coast guard vessel just riding the tsunami wave. that was the wave as it headed straight toward the shore. of course, little did they know what was going to happen. it slammed into the coast of japan killing thousands of people and devastating the country. let us now go to japan for the latest developments. brian todd is in tokyo this morning and joins me now. brian, we've -- obviously there are twin tracks here. there's the nuclear issue, there's the operation to put -- to see what's left over from the earthquake. where would you like to start? >> reporter: well, richard, there are plenty of places to start, but we can start with the situation at the reactor today, and what we now know is that they're still monitoring the pressure in one of the very troubled reactors at the fukushima power reactor plant, that's nuclear reactor number three. that's the one the that's been giving them the most problems this week. it's been cooling down, heating up, cooling down, heating up. the heating rods are exposed and they're trying to find a way to keach it from exploding. what we know now is there was pressure earlier today, pressure of great concern where they thought they might have to force some openings to let the radiation out. sthans time the pressure has receded and they've not had to do that but they're monitoring that very closely. they're very worried about the pressure to the reactor. we can report some positive news that electricity has been restored to another reactor, that's reactor number two. that's key because when they get it restored to the reactors, if the hook-ups are all clean, they can start to pump water into those reactors with electricity. so electricity stored now in one of the reactors. they're trying to connect the others. another key situation here regarding this reactor is the emission of some radioactive material into the food supply. we've been reporting that some radioactive material at abnormally high levels has gotten into the milk and spinach supply. what officials are doing today are trying to reassure the public that although these are abnormally high levels of radiation in the milk and spinach, they're not so extremely high to pose a significant public health hazard at the moment. they're monitoring it very closely. they say that the levels of radio activity are far below the levels of concern where they would be concerned about a major health hazard, but, again, they probably will decide by monday whether to ban the shipment and consumption of milk, spinach, and possibly some other products. they're monitoring other products as well, richard. >> i hesitate to call it the clean-up operation. it's much more than that. but the sheer amount of work that is now being done, i assume it's just still overwhelming. but are they making any serious inroads? >> reporter: you're talking about the clean-up, the overall clean-up of the tsunami or the clean-up at the reactor? >> i beg your pardon. forgive me. i was moving to the earthquake/tsunami. forgive me, yes. i was talking about basically the devastation left in the tsunami wake. >> reporter: well, richard,