In the biggest Western intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, American warships and a British submarine fired at least 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libya on Saturday, the US military said.
Admiral William Gortney told reporters at the Pentagon the cruise missiles "struck more than 20 integrated air defence systems and other air defence facilities ashore."
The action came two days after a UN Security Council resolution with Arab backing authorised military action to prevent Kadhafi's forces from crushing an uprising against his 41-year autocratic rule.
A correspondent said bombs were dropped early Sunday near Bab al-Aziziyah, Kadhafi's Tripoli headquarters, prompting barrages of anti-aircraft fire from Libyan forces that lasted about 40 minutes.
State television had earlier said hundreds of people had gathered to serve as human shields at Bab al-Aziziyah and at the capital's international airport.
A Libyan official said at least 48 people had died and 150 were hurt -- mainly women and children -- in the assaults, which began with a strike at 1645 GMT Saturday by a French warplane on a vehicle the French military said belonged to pro-Kadhafi forces.
Libyan state media said Western warplanes had on Saturday night bombed civilian targets in Tripoli, causing casualties while an army spokesman said strikes also hit fuel tanks feeding the rebel-held city of Misrata, east of Tripoli.
Kadhafi, in a brief audio message broadcast on state television, fiercely denounced the attacks as a "barbaric, unjustified Crusaders' aggression."
He vowed retaliatory strikes on military and civilian targets in the Mediterranean, which he said had been turned into a "real battlefield."
"Now the arms depots have been opened and all the Libyan people are being armed," to fight against Western forces, the veteran leader warned.
Libya's foreign ministry said that following the attacks, it regarded as invalid the UN resolution ordering a ceasefire by its forces and demanded an urgent meeting of the Security Council.
The attacks on Libya "threaten international peace and security," the ministry said.
"Libya demands an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after the French-American-British aggression against Libya, an independent state member of the United Nations," it said.
On Thursday, the Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which authorised the use of "all necessary means" to protect civilians and enforce a ceasefire and no-fly zone against Kadhafi's forces
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