>Libya: Gaddafi forces keep up assault on rebel cities

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Fighting has been continuing in Libya for key cities after a fifth consecutive night of air strikes.

Overnight several loud explosions were heard in Tripoli

In Misrata, a rebel-held city east of the capital, government tanks have been shelling the area near the hospital.

There have also been reports of fierce fighting between rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces in strategic Ajdabiya. Residents fleeing the town described shelling, gunfire and houses on fire.

In Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, witnesses had said on Wednesday that tanks had pulled back from their positions under air assault from international forces.

But later residents said the tanks had rolled back into the city and resumed shelling.

An explosion was also reported at a military base in the Tajura region east of Tripoli.

Residents in Tripoli said plumes of black smoke could be seen coming from an area near a military base, although this has not been independently confirmed.

Earlier, the US chief of staff for the mission in Libya insisted there had been no reports of civilian casualties caused by allied action.

Rear Admiral Gerard Hueber’s comments come despite claims to the contrary by Muammar Gaddafi’s government.

Operational control

Earlier, British Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell said Col Gaddafi’s air force no longer existed as a fighting force.

AVM Bagwell said the allies could now operate “with near impunity” over the skies of Libya and were now applying unrelenting pressure on the Libyan armed forces.

“We are watching over the innocent people of Libya and ensuring that we protect them from attack,” he said. “We have the Libyan ground forces under constant observation and we attack them whenever they threaten civilians or attack population centres.”

His comments came as Nato members debated who should lead the intervention, with the US keen to hand over operational control to Nato.

Nato members have been holding talks about assuming responsibility for the no-fly zone over Libya, so far without agreement.

Turkey is an integral part of the naval blockade, but has expressed concern about the alliance taking over command of the no-fly zone from the US.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has again urged Col Gaddafi to step down and leave Libya.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged all sides in Libya to cease hostilities. “All those who violate international humanitarian and human rights law will be held fully accountable,” his spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is in the Egyptian capital Cairo for talks on both Libya and Egypt’s hoped-for transition to democracy following the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

>Gaddafi forces attack rebels anew, even as regime appears to seek talks

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Government and rebel forces engaged in a fierce battle Monday for control of this oil depot on the Mediterranean coast, as regime loyalists mounted assaults on several fronts to reclaim ground lost since the Feb. 17 uprising began.

In a second day of heavy fighting for control of Ras Lanuf, the site of a major oil refinery east of Tripoli, loyalists bombarded the town with airstrikes. To the west, the besieged rebel-held city of Zawiyah faced a fourth straight day of lethal assault.

But with neither side able to muster overwhelming force, the result appeared to be a bloody stalemate, with the death tolls rising in both east and west from the burgeoning civil war over Moammar Gaddafi’s 41-year-long rule.

“Yesterday, we were so optimistic,” said Najla el-Mangoush, a law professor who works with the opposition’s governing council in the eastern city of Benghazi. “Now I’m worried about what’s happening.” He said that Gaddafi “has used every dirty trick on us.”

In an apparent government overture, a former Libyan prime minister appeared on state television to make what was called a direct appeal to the leaders of the opposition in Benghazi, the rebels’ provisional capital.

“Give a chance to national dialogue to resolve this crisis, to help stop the bloodshed, and not give a chance to foreigners to come and capture our country again,” said Jadallah Azous al-Talhi, who was prime minister in the 1980s.

The opposition, however, dismissed the notion of peace talks. “They’ve been asking for contact, but the council has refused,” said Jalal el-Gallal, a spokesman with the opposition in Benghazi, referring to the revolutionaries’ governing committee. Mohamed Fanoush, a member of the Benghazi city council who is allied with the opposition, also said overtures from Gaddafi’s regime had been rejected out of hand. “The answer was: ‘There will be no negotiations as long as you are killing Libyans,’ ” Fanoush said.

In the western city of Zawiyah, a rebel spokesman speaking by satellite phone said Gaddafi’s troops had rolled into the city with tanks for a fourth day Monday. Phone, electricity and Internet services had been cut. “They demolished the mosque, came into the square, but after seven hours, we beat them back,” said the spokesman, Mohamed Magid.

He said that at least 10 rebels were killed and more than 30 wounded in what he described as fierce urban warfare. “For a fourth day, they have come, and for a fourth day, we have beat them back. But they are still on the east, west and south of the city, and they are going to return. . . . We are low on supplies, medicines. We need support. We need help.”

Another rebel-held city, Misurata, which is Libya’s third largest, appeared quiet most of Monday, after weathering a major assault by government troops Sunday. A rebel spokesman at a Misurata hospital, Abed el-Salam Bayo, said 21 opposition fighters and civilians were killed along with 19 government troops. As night fell Monday, door-to-door alerts warned residents that loyalist tanks were again approaching.

“We still fear another attack, so everyone is preparing molotov cocktails that we are making from Pepsi-Cola bottles,” said Salah Abed El-Aziz, a 60-year-old architect in Misurata. “The morale in the city is very high. It was a beautiful battle; the price was high. But this is the price we have to pay for our freedom.”

In Ras Lanuf, which was seized by rebels Friday, the government launched a morning air attack. At least one bomb fell inside the grounds of an ethylene refinery, where chemical storage tanks posed a major risk of explosion. Although the Libyan jets dropped bombs in the area throughout the day, Gallal said that there had been no ground fighting and that rebels maintained control of the city.

“Ras Lanuf is definitely in the hands of the rebels,” Gallal said. “But the other guys are well dug in.” At least for now, the government appears to have succeeded in holding off what the rebels hoped would be a push westward to Sirte, a government stronghold halfway between Benghazi and Tripoli that is Gaddafi’s home town.

Gaddafi made an appearance on state television Monday that was inexplicably cut short. He got more time in during an interview with a French television network, during which he said Libya was an important partner of the West and attempted to paint the rebels as al-Qaeda operatives.

Nearly 200,000 people have fled Libya since the fighting began, according to the United Nations, which said Monday that it expects the number to double over the next three months. In all, as many as 1 million Libyans and migrant workers will require assistance, the United Nations said in issuing an appeal for $160 million to cover the costs.

A summary of the appeal said that although “the clearest humanitarian needs” stem from the outflow of people fleeing the crisis, “there are likely to be many more migrants within Libya who want to leave” but have been unable to do so.

U.N. officials cautioned that the estimate is preliminary and that they do not have a complete picture of the extent of need in Libya, particularly in government-controlled Tripoli and the conflict zone in the west. Over the weekend, Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa acceded to a request by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send an assessment team to Tripoli to determine the extend of Libya’s humanitarian needs. But as of Monday, the U.N. team had not been given the visas and guarantees of unhindered access it needs to carry out its work.

Ban has named Abdul-Illah Khatib, a former Jordanian foreign minister, as a special U.N. envoy to Libya. Khatib has been directed to consult with Libyan authorities and others in the region “on the immediate humanitarian situation as well as the wider dimensions of the crisis.”

>Libya: UN appoints envoy and agrees humanitarian visit

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The UN has appointed a new envoy on Libya and is to send a humanitarian team as the battle between forces loyal to Col Gaddafi and rebels intensifies.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon named a former Jordanian minister to deal with Libya and said Col Gaddafi had agreed to allow an assessment team into Tripoli.

The UN’s top humanitarian official also demanded urgent access to the town of Misrata after fierce fighting there.

 Rebels have been trying to fight off a counter-offensive by Gaddafi forces.

Col Gaddafi’s forces have been attacking both near Tripoli and in the east after recent rebel gains.

‘Hospital bombed’

A statement from Mr Ban’s office said the UN secretary general “notes that civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence, and calls for an immediate halt to the government’s disproportionate use of force and indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets”.

The statement continued: “He stresses that those who violate international humanitarian law or commit grave crimes must be held accountable.”

Mr Ban has appointed Jordan’s former foreign minister, Abdelilah Al-Khatib, as his special envoy “to undertake urgent consultations with the authorities in Tripoli and in the region on the immediate humanitarian situation,” the statement said.

Mr Ban also said Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa had agreed to accept the immediate dispatch of a humanitarian assessment team to the capital.

UN relief co-ordinator Valerie Amos said that after heavy fighting in Misrata, 200km (125 miles) east of Tripoli, “people are injured and dying and need help immediately”.

Government troops with tanks and artillery fought their way into rebel-held Misrata on Saturday before being forced back.

“I call on the authorities to provide access without delay to allow aid workers to help save lives,” Baroness Amos said.

A local doctor told the BBC that 21 dead and more than 100 wounded had arrived at his hospital, which he said was also targeted by government troops.

He said the fighting went on for at least six hours.

“They bombed all the houses with heavy weapons. They intentionally gunned and exploded our drug store. They bombed even around our hospital but fortunately nobody was injured. More than five mosques which I know are bombed.”

A resident of Misrata, Mohamed Benrasali, told the BBC there were joyous scenes there as the Gaddafi forces were turned back.

He said one government tank had been blown up and 16 Gaddafi soldiers killed. Other soldiers had been captured and would be interrogated on Monday.

With a population of 300,000, Misrata is the largest town controlled by rebels outside their stronghold in the eastern part of the country.

Residents have called for the international community to establish a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Col Gaddafi’s air force from attacking.

In the US, ex-ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson and ex-national security adviser Stephen Hadley were among those advocating the supply of arms to rebels.

‘Bigger attack’

Rebels in Zawiya, 50km west of Tripoli, also said they repulsed an attack by government forces on Sunday.

“There was a new attack, bigger than yesterday,” rebel spokesman Youssef Shagan told Reuters.

“There were one-and-a-half hours of fighting… Two people were killed from our side and many more injured. We are still in full control of the square.”

The anti-government forces are centred in the eastern city of Benghazi. The rebels have set up a Transitional National Council that has called on the international community to recognise it as Libya’s sole government.

On Sunday troops backed by helicopter gunships had attacked the major oil town of Ras Lanuf which was taken by rebel forces on Saturday. It is 160km east of Col Gaddafi’s well-defended hometown of Sirte.

Rebels said their forces withdrew from Bin Jawad – about 50km north-west of Ras Lanuf – after coming under attack when they advanced.

The UN estimates that more than 1,000 people have died in nearly three weeks of unrest in Libya, which follows public protests in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt that saw their longtime authoritarian leaders overthrown.

An estimated 200,000 people – mostly foreign workers – have fled the country, creating a humanitarian crisis along Libya’s border with Tunisia.

The UN Security Council approved sanctions last week imposing asset freezes and travel bans on Col Gaddafi and his family and aides.

The resolution also referred Col Gaddafi and his inner circle to the International Criminal Court for investigation of crimes against humanity.