Even as the Western allies tried to settle management issues, they were still struggling to corral Arab backing for the campaign. Mr. Obama telephoned the emir of Qatar , Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, on Tuesday to nail down his support. So far, Qatar is the only Arab state to offer fighter jets to help enforce a no-fly zone, and there were signs that other Arab states were wavering in their support. 
 
 The tension and confusion laid bare the unwieldiness of the coalition — which American officials conceded had been put together on the fly — even four days into the operation, after the coalition had fired 162 Tomahawk missiles and the United States lost its first plane, an F-15E Strike Eagle, which crashed near Benghazi after mechanical troubles. Its two-member crew had minor injuries but was rescued. 
 
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 “This is complicated,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said to reporters with him in Moscow . “This command-and-control business is complicated. We haven’t done something like this, kind of on the fly before. So it’s not surprising to me that it would take a few days to get it all sorted out.” 
 
 At least three bomb blasts were heard in Tripoli Tuesday evening as flares from Libyan antiaircraft guns arced across the sky. Attacks by pro-Qaddafi forces were particularly intense in the western cities of Zintan and Misurata, where snipers and artillery have killed dozens over the past five days and wounded scores more, a rebel spokesman said. 
 
 Colonel Qaddafi made a brief but defiant appearance on Libyan television Tuesday night, appearing at what reporters were told was his Tripoli residence to denounce the bombing raids and pledge victory. “I am here. I am here. I am here,” he shouted from a balcony to supporters waving green flags. 
 
 Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, an American officer who is the tactical commander of the mission, said that his intelligence reports confirmed that Colonel Qaddafi’s forces were attacking civilians in Misurata. 
 
 The admiral, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon by telephone on Tuesday afternoon, did not say whether there had been a response yet, but said, “We are considering all options.” 
 
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 A rebel spokesman, reached by satellite phone in Misurata, said he had not seen any evidence of airstrikes there against the Qaddafi forces, which continued to shell the city and threaten residents with sniper fire. 
 
 “They now control all the way to the town center, and they have put snipers on the rooftops along the way,” said the rebel spokesman, Mohamed, using only his first name to protect his family. 
 
 A doctor at the central Misurata hospital said that 13 residents had died on Tuesday, bringing the total casualty count to 90 over the previous nine days. Rebels say the city has been without telecommunications for three weeks and without water or electricity for nine days during the siege by Qaddafi forces. 
 
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 Despite statements from American military officials that the fighting and level of coalition “kinetic activity” in Libya would soon decline, the Pentagon released figures showing that on Tuesday there were more coalition airstrikes, 57, than on any day since Saturday, the first day of the American-led assaults. 
 
 In San Salvador, Mr. Obama said that the coalition would “fairly shortly” be able to claim it had imposed a no-fly zone over Libya. “We will also be able to say we have averted immediate tragedy,” he said at a news conference with the president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes . 
 
 Mr. Obama reiterated that the United States would yield its lead role to France, Britain and other countries in the coming days. American planes will not enforce the no-fly zone, he said, nor will American ships enforce the arms embargo stipulated by last week’s United Nations Security Council Resolution. 
 
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 “That’s why building this international coalition has been so important,” he said, “because it means the United States is not bearing all the cost.” 
 
 But the building of this coalition has been tortuous, and analysts said holding it together will be no less challenging. On Tuesday, NATO countries were making slow and ill-tempered progress toward deciding who will run the operation. 
 
 France proposed a committee of foreign ministers of countries involved in the operation to act as a “political steering body,” France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppé, told Parliament on Tuesday. NATO would provide “support” — the military “command and control” necessary to coordinate the ships and planes of various countries. 
 
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 A senior American official declined to comment on the French proposal, though he noted that the command structure had to encompass NATO and non-NATO countries — akin to the International Security Assistance Force, which oversees coalition forces in Afghanistan , or earlier coalition campaigns in the Balkans. 
 
 “What we’re saying right now is that NATO has a key role to play here,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, said to reporters on Mr. Obama’s plane, flying from Chile to El Salvador. 
 
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 After two days of meetings in Brussels , NATO ambassadors will meet Wednesday after getting advice from their governments to try to approve a deal. Monday’s meeting was particularly tense, with the French and German ambassadors walking out of the room after their countries’ positions were criticized by the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen . 
 
 American and British plans to have NATO play the leading role have been blocked for different reasons by France and Turkey . This has led Norway to refuse to fly its planes and Italy to say that it may have to rethink the way its air bases were being used. With different air forces flying and no central control, the Italians say, the operation would be uncoordinated, even dangerous. 
 
 France argues that NATO command would be opposed by the Arab League as Western interference in the Muslim world; some allies suggest that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, having pushed Washington to act on Libya, wants to keep himself visible as the driver of the Libyan policy. Turkey, the only Muslim-majority member of NATO, is trying to keep lines open to Colonel Qaddafi as well as to the Libyan opposition. Mr. Obama called Mr. Sarkozy and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain on Tuesday to try to arrive at a solution. 
 
 Turkey had initially expressed fears that the military campaign appeared to go beyond the mandate of the Security Council resolution. On Monday evening, Mr. Obama called Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, and the White House insisted that Mr. Erdogan had thrown his full support behind the effort. 
 
 In a statement, the White House said the two men “underscored their shared commitment to the goal of helping provide the Libyan people an opportunity to transform their country, by installing a democratic system that respects the people’s will.” 
 
 That statement raised some hackles on Capitol Hill, where Republicans said it amounted to an explicit call for regime change. Mr. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, later clarified that this was not the objective of the military mission, though Mr. Obama believes Colonel Qaddafi needs to go because he has lost the confidence of his people. 
 
 Rallying the Arab countries may be a big challenge, however. A former military commander in the United Arab Emirates said his country, which had considered deploying jets, was backing off because of anger at the pressure the West has put on its neighbor Bahrain , over its crackdown on protests there. Saudi Arabia , which has also been at odds with Washington over Bahrain, has yet to pledge help. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story ||||| Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking with ABC's Diane Sawyer, said that Gaddafi was engaged in "theater" and "game playing," but that he might be looking for an exit strategy. 
 
 After claiming that allies have allegedly been reaching out on Gaddafi's behalf, Clinton acknowledged that a lot of the Libyan leader's actions were "theater." However, she then added that "some of it, we think, is exploring. You know, what are my options, where could I go, what could I do. And we would encourage that." 
 
 The U.S., which is currently cooperating with an international coalition on Operation Odyssey Dawn, has said repeatedly that Gaddafi must leave power in Libya. However, Clinton refused to speculate on the outcome of the military operation, declining to say that she was confident the strongman would be removed. 
 
 She added that, "Now obviously, if we want to see a stable, peaceful, hopefully someday democratic Libya, it is highly unlikely that can be accomplished if he stays in power as he is." 
 
 You can find the latest updates on Libya here, and watch the interview below:
– Plenty of observers see the Libya conflict in the shorthand of Obama vs. Gadhafi (as much as the US president objects), and the two main players made fresh appeals today: Gadhafi: In a 3-minute address on state television, he remained defiant, reports the BBC. "In the short term, we'll beat them, in the long term, we'll beat them," he said in during a visit to a site in Tripoli hit by bombs. "I am here, I am here, I am here." He also called for "all Islamic armies" to join the fight. "We will be victorious in the end." Obama: Amid reports of friction about which nation will take the lead once the US steps back, Obama declared in El Salvador that "I have absolutely no doubt that we will be able to transfer the control of this operation to an international coalition." Obama also spoke with Britain's David Cameron and France's Nicolas Sarkozy on the phone aboard Air Force One, notes the New York Times. Click to read Hillary Clinton's view that Gadhafi may be looking for an exit strategy.