New fighting breaks out in heart of Libyan capital (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya – A gunbattle erupted Friday between hundreds of revolutionary forces and Moammar Gadhafi supporters in the capital for the first time in more than two months after loyalists tried to raise the green flag that symbolizes the ousted leader's regime.

The fighting began when dozens of loyalists carrying the green flag appeared on the streets of Tripoli's Abu Salim neighborhood, which houses the notorious prison of the same name.

Shouting "God is Great," anti-Gadhafi fighters converged on the area, which has long been a pro-Gadhafi stronghold, in pickups mounted with weapons, setting up checkpoints as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets.

Friday's outbreak of violence underscored the difficulty Libya's new rulers face in restoring order as Gadhafi remains on the run. The capital has been relatively calm since then-rebels swept into the city in late August, toppling the regime and sending Gadhafi, the ruler for nearly 42 years into hiding. But his loyalists have control of at least two cities around the country and have battled off revolutionary forces besieging them for weeks, while Gadhafi has issued several audio recordings from hiding trying to rally supporters against the North African nation's transitional leadership.

The crowd of men and women tried to raise Gadhafi's green flag at the end of a street in the Hay Nasr district, witnesses said.

"I looked out of my window and I saw men and women in a group of 50 to 80 people, carrying the green flag," said Abadi Omar, a resident in one of the buildings in the area. "They put one of these flags at the end of our street. This is when the rebels came out and these people disappeared."

Revolutionary forces started searching every building in the area and found weapons on some of the rooftops, many hidden under water tanks, Omar said. Then snipers opened fire and the gunbattle began as anti-Gadhafi fighters gave chase around the closely packed buildings.

Assem al-Bashir, a fighter with Tripoli's Eagle Brigade, also said revolutionary forces suspected there were snipers in the surrounding high rises after spotting a man trying to raise the green flag.

Another fighter, Ahmad al-Warsly, from the Zintan brigade, said several Gadhafi supporters apparently planned a protest but drew fire because they were armed. They then fled and were pursued by revolutionary forces, prompting fierce street battles.

Al-Warsly said one man carrying a gun was captured and identified as a suspect wanted for the killings of protesters in the nearby city of Zawiya.

"It seems like it was organized," he said. "They were planning to have a big demonstration, then the fight started."

Explosions also were reported elsewhere in the capital, but details could not immediately be confirmed.

While Tripoli has remained mostly calm in recent weeks, revolutionary forces are fighting remnants of the regime in Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte and the desert enclave of Bani Walid.

In Geneva, a senior U.N. human rights official expressed concern about a risk of serious abuses against suspected loyalists occurring when Gadhafi's last strongholds fall to revolutionary forces.

The head of the U.N. human right's office's rule of law section, Mona Rishmawi, said Libya's transitional government is trying to ensure the rights of captured Gadhafi fighters are protected but "the system that is currently in place is not adequate."

She said in Geneva Friday that "there is a lot of room for abuse" of the estimated 7,000 people detained in sometimes makeshift prisons throughout Libya.

Rishmawi recently visited Libya as part of a U.N. delegation.

Fighters in Sirte pounded loyalists holed up in two neighborhoods with rocket and machine-gun fire Friday, but also suffered heavy casualties themselves, with wounded men streaming into frontline medical units, then being evacuated to field hospitals on the city's outskirts.

Libya's new rulers have insisted Sirte's fall is imminent, and they expect to declare liberation this week. That could allow them to name a new interim government and set a timeline for holding elections within eight months.

But Gadhafi's forces have proven resilient, fighting back fiercely despite heavy shelling and NATO airstrikes.

Former rebels control much of the battered coastal city after launching a major push a week ago, but they were still under intense sniper fire Friday.

NATO was conducting "intensive overwatch missions" around both areas, according to the British Ministry of Defense.

British warplanes struck three armed trucks belonging to former regime forces hidden beneath trees east of Bani Walid on Thursday, the ministry said.

"The vehicles were successfully engaged by our aircraft, using Paveway guided bombs, and destroyed," Maj. Gen. Nick Pope said in a statement.

NATO has called the continued resistance by Gadhafi forces in Sirte "surprising," as they appear to be losing the battle since revolutionary forces have the area surrounded.

Tanks and weapons-mounted vehicles from the revolutionary forces have kept up a steady barrage of fire into the small enclave known as District 2, where commanders believe several hundred remaining loyalists, possibly including high-ranking figures from the former regime, are hiding.

AP Television footage on Friday showed smoke rising from a building in one part of the city, and a burning car presumably in another. Pick-up trucks with mounted machine guns are seen driving through a flooded street, and elsewhere, an injured revolutionary soldier is carried on a stretcher into an ambulance.

Thousands of civilians have fled the city to escape the violence.

One resident returned Friday to collect personal items from his home, which had been used as a firing position for pro-Gadhafi forces. Their uniforms and mattresses littered the front courtyard.

The owner, who would not give his name because of fear of reprisals, left carrying just a blanket, saying, "the pictures speak for themselves." He then left the city with several of his relatives.

___

Associated Press writers Kim Gamel in Tripoli and Christopher Gillette in Sirte contributed to this report.

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Fighting halts aid mission into Libyan siege city (Reuters)

SIRTE, Libya, Oct 3 – A Red Cross convoy carrying aid to relieve a humanitarian crisis in Libya's besieged city of Sirte had to turn back Monday because Libyan interim government forces unleashed a barrage of fire.

Government forces on the other side of the city, Muammar Gaddafi's home town, broke weeks of deadlock by pushing into a district of Sirte where their commanders had said they believed one of Gaddafi's sons, Mo'atassem, was hiding.

In Tripoli, the man convicted of the 1988 bombing of a U.S.-bound airline over the Scottish town of Lockerbie told Reuters in an interview his role had been exaggerated and that the truth behind the bombing would emerge soon.

Aid agencies say they are concerned about the welfare of civilians inside Sirte, one of the last pro-Gaddafi bastions left in the country, who are trapped by the fighting and running out of food, water, fuel and medical supplies.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) took some supplies into Sirte last week, and it tried again on Monday, assembling a convoy of two trucks carrying aid, and accompanied by two four-wheel drive vehicles.

The convoy set off from a bridge a few kilometers west of Sirte but came to a halt after only about 100 meters (109.4 yards) because interim government forces started firing into the city.

They fired a heavy barrage of mortar bombs, artillery, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft weapons just as the convoy was starting to move. The ICRC convoy turned around and headed back west, away from Sirte.

An anti-Gaddafi commander at the scene, Ismail Al-Sosi, told Reuters: "The rebels secured the way for the International Red Cross to go but as soon as they entered the city they returned because of the (pro-Gaddafi) militias firing. We did not start the firing. The militias started the firing."

However, a Reuters team who witnessed the incident, said they saw no incoming fire from the Gaddafi loyalists inside Sirte.

Speaking just before the aborted attempt to get supplies into the city, an ICRC official said the humanitarian situation there was dire.

"We're trying to provide medical assistance and oxygen to the hospital in Sirte," said Hishem Khadrawy. "We are really concerned about the medical situation because of the conflict."

GOVERNMENT ADVANCE

Government forces who had for weeks been pinned down by artillery and rocket fire on the eastern edge of Sirte were able to advance several kilometers into the city, capturing the southern district of Bouhadi.

Commanders with the interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), had earlier said they believed one of Gaddafi's sons was in the district.

"The army has fled," said NTC fighter Hussein al-Mazeq.

A Reuters reporter at a traffic circle in the center of Bouhadi said the NTC forces appeared to be in control, though they said there were isolated pockets where loyalists fighters were still holed up.

Government fighters loaded their pick-up trucks with items taken from houses in the district, including carpets and chairs.

On the way in to Bouhadi, the streets were deserted apart from some burned-out cars and tank shell casings. Billboards which had shown images of Muammar Gaddafi were torn down.

A group of NTC fighters headed out of the city on foot carrying a haul of rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles, boxes of ammunition and pairs of new army boots. They said they found them in the homes of Gaddafi supporters.

"We took them from Muammar, Allahu Akbar! (God is Greatest)," one of the fighters shouted.

LOCKERBIE BOMBING

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi was convicted in a Scottish court over the Lockerbie bombing. He was released two years ago on the grounds that he was suffering from terminal cancer.

Looking frail and his breathing labored, he spoke from a bed at his home in Tripoli, with medical monitors pinging in the background.

"The facts (about the Lockerbie bombing) will become clear one day and hopefully in the near future. In a few months from now, you will see new facts that will be announced," he told Reuters Television.

"The West exaggerated my name. Please leave me alone. I only have a few more days, weeks or months."

Al-Megrahi, who had served as an intelligence agent during Gaddafi's rule, denied any role in the human rights abuses committed by the deposed Libyan leader.

"All my work was administrative. I never harmed Libyans," he said." I didn't harm anyone. I've never harmed anyone in my life."

Libyans ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule in August when rebel fighters stormed the capital. Gaddafi and several of his sons are still at large and his supporters hold Sirte and the town of Bani Walid, south of Tripoli.

Gaddafi's supporters are too weak to regain power, but their resistance is frustrating the new rulers' efforts to start building the post-Gaddafi Libya.

SIRTE HOSPITAL

At the western outskirts of the city, civilians who were able to get out of Sirte spoke of many other people unable to leave and facing deteriorating conditions.

Boshnab Khalifa drove out of the city with his family. A woman in the back seat of his car clutched a Koran.

"We were in our apartment and then the wall was blown in by a rocket," he said. "The situation is very bad. Our family and our friends are trapped inside. They cannot get out. There are many families trapped inside, some have no gas for their cars, other (cars) have been damaged or destroyed.

A city of about 75,000 people, Sirte holds symbolic importance. Gaddafi, known for his self-aggrandizing gestures, transformed his birthplace from a sleepy fishing town into Libya's second capital.

At his instigation, parliament often sat in Sirte and he hosted international summits at the Ouagadougou Hall, a marble-clad conference center he had built on a desert plot in the south of the city.

Concerns about the humanitarian crisis have focused on the city's Ibn Sina hospital. Medical workers who fled Sirte say patients were dying on the operating table because there was no oxygen and no fuel for the hospital's generators.

Medical staff outside Sirte who had treated wounded civilians fleeing the fighting Monday said they had been told the corridors were full of patients and that treatment was being given only to pro-Gaddafi fighters or members of Gaddafi's tribe.

"There is a section for civilians and a section for the (pro-Gaddafi) brigades. They are only treating the brigades and leaving the normal people," one member of an ambulance crew told Reuters. That account was repeated by a doctor at a field hospital near the city.

With Libya's rulers focusing on the battles for Sirte and Bani Walid, a power vacuum has emerged.

The interim government is nominally in charge, but real power on the ground is exercised by armed anti-Gaddafi militias who are jockeying for influence in the new Libya.

The chairman of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, announced a minor reshuffle of his team, but kept the crucial portfolios of oil and foreign affairs unchanged.

(Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Peter Millership)

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Gaddafi loyalists hold off new Libyan attacks (Reuters)

BANI WALID/SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Diehard loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi threw rockets, mortars and heavy gunfire at Libyan fighters who pushed into two besieged towns on Friday in a bid to end months of civil war and capture key figures from the old ruling system.

The smoke of battle hung over Gaddafi's home town of Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast between Tripoli and Benghazi, and Bani Walid, a tribal stronghold in the desert, as the motley forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) mounted their biggest advances after weeks of stalemate and skirmishing.

But the word coming back from the frontlines to Reuters correspondents on the outskirts of both cities was that fierce defense was not being overcome quickly, nearly four weeks after the rebel coalition overran Gaddafi's capital.

Libya's new leaders are getting on with the business of government, trying to impose order on a host of irregular armed forces and restart the oil-based economy. Their latest foreign visitor was Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who hailed the fate of Gaddafi as an example to Turkey's Syrian neighbor.

He also called on the people of Sirte to give up the fight and make peace, though in neither town did that seem imminent.

"It's a very strong resistance," Abusif Ghnyah, a spokesman for the NTC forces at Bani Walid, told reporters watching the battle from high ground. "The most difficult part is the central market, that is where they are firing from."

A Reuters correspondent watched anti-Gaddafi fighters move forward under mortar, rocket and sniper fire, edging from house to house and sheltering behind walls from shrapnel and bullets.

A faux-ancient castle built for Gaddafi on a hill in the center of Bani Walid was also under attack, fighters said.

Many of the town's 100,000 residents fled in recent days.

It was also unclear how many civilians remain in Sirte, a sprawling city of a similar size, which Gaddafi created out of his native village. NTC fighters, who brought up scores of machinegun-mounted pickup trucks and a handful of tanks, spoke of scattered pockets of heavily armed opponents dug in there.

DESERT SKIRMISHING

Contact has not been possible with Gaddafi loyalists inside the two towns, as well as at Sabha, deep in Libya's southern desert where several senior Gaddafi aides have been lately.

Details of developments around Sabha are scant, but a British military spokesman said that British jets had fired about two dozen Brimstone missiles to destroy a group of Libyan armored vehicles near the desert town on Thursday.

Erdogan, visiting a day after the French and British leaders credited by the NTC with rallying support for them, displayed NATO-member Turkey's Muslim credentials by joining NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil for Friday prayers at the newly renamed Martyrs' Square, once a showcase for Gaddafi.

"From here I call out to Sirte," he said of the beleaguered city. "Come, right now. Some 10,000 brothers and sisters are hungry and thirsty -- embrace your brothers in Tripoli.

"Spilling blood does not suit us. Let us come together."

Gaddafi, 69, is still at large and commanding loyalty from at least hundreds of armed men, concentrated from Sirte, through Bani Walid and Sabha, creating a corridor in the vast empty spaces of the desert through which members of Gaddafi's family and senior aides have reached Algeria and Niger.

The new leadership, struggling to maintain unity and restore order as international powers line up to offer aid and seek contracts for oil and reconstruction contracts, says Gaddafi and his sons and aides pose a threat, at the very least of insurgent attacks, and wants to capture their last bastions.

BANI WALID FIGHTING

At Bani Walid, truckloads of NTC fighters shouting "Let's go! Bani Walid!" and columns of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns had advanced on the town in early morning.

"We are going in. We finally have the orders," Mohammed Ahmed said, his rifle sticking out of his car window. "God is greatest. God willing, Bani Walid will be free today."

However, the going proved slow. Throughout the day, there was heavy fighting, though casualties among the cautious government forces appeared light -- a spokesman said three were wounded -- as they moved forward, setting up supply dumps and dressing stations to support the advancing front. Mortars and Grad rockets landed around the government lines outside.

"It is a very strong resistance," fighter Isham al-Nasser said as he returned from the frontline in a truck convoy.

In the northern outskirts, streets were deserted with few civilians in sight. Houses were peppered with bullet holes.

Local farmer Mohamed Khalil Mohamed, 31, said the end of the siege and victory for Gaddafi's opponents would be welcome: "At first we were afraid because we didn't know who they were but now that we have seen them, we are very happy."

The traditional stronghold of Libya's biggest tribal grouping, Bani Walid's complex mix of loyalties is a proving ground for the ability of the new leadership in Tripoli to hold together a nation whose historic divisions Gaddafi exploited during his 42 years of personal, and often bloody, rule.

NTC fighters said they had arrested several suspected Gaddafi loyalists. But one such man, sitting on the back of a pickup truck in handcuffs, protested his innocence.

"I'm not with the militia, I'm innocent. I'm free to support whoever I want," said the man, clutching a green medallion -- a symbol of Gaddafi support.

"I did not kill anyone, I did not do anything," he said, looking frightened but unhurt.

SIRTE ASSAULT

At Sirte, NTC fighters massed around a breeze-block mosque on the outskirts, while others drove on toward the center accompanied by two tanks. Mohammed, a 23-year-old fighter from the city of Misrata said the resistance was coming from pockets of Gaddafi supporters dotted around a city which Gaddafi developed from a village into a would-be "capital of Africa."

"They have got heavy weapons," he said. "Gaddafi has been gathering heavy weapons for 42 years ... We are regrouping, pulling back, hitting them with heavy weapons and then advancing again."

Al Jazeera television said NTC forces had taken Sirte's airport, which lies some 10 km (six miles) south of the city.

Gaddafi's spokesman said he had thousands of supporters.

"We are telling you that as of tomorrow there will be atrocious attacks by NATO and their agents on the ground on the resisting towns of Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha," Moussa Ibrahim told Syrian-based Arrai television late on Thursday.

The television said 16 people had been killed in Sirte, including women and children, as a result of NATO bombing, and that Gaddafi forces had destroyed a NATO warship and vehicles.

A NATO spokesman dismissed those claims and said its air forces struck military targets, including a tank and several missile systems, but was unaware of any civilian casualties:

"It is clear," he said, "That Gaddafi forces are once again trying to spread rumours, claiming unsubstantiated victories and attempting to terrorise the local population."

(Additional reporting by William MacLean and Joseph Logan in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Ras Lanuf, Emma Farge in Benghazi, Philippa Fletcher and Giles Elgood in London and Barry Malone and Sylvia Westall in Tunis; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Libyan convoys in Niger, may be Gaddafi deal (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) – Scores of Libyan army vehicles crossed the desert frontier into Niger in what may be a bid by Muammar Gaddafi to seek refuge in a friendly African state, military sources from France and Niger told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Libyan rebels who overthrew Gaddafi two weeks ago said they also thought about a dozen other vehicles that crossed the remote border may have carried gold and cash apparently looted from a branch of Libya's central bank in Gaddafi's home town.

Details of the developments remained very sketchy.

The military sources said a convoy of between 200 and 250 vehicles was escorted to the northern city of Agadez by the army of Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony. It might, said a French military source, be joined by Gaddafi en route to adjacent Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum.

U.S. officials said they thought Gaddafi was still in Libya, though the convoy in Niger might contain senior figures.

France, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as Libya's new rulers and NATO, all denied knowing where Gaddafi was or of any deal to let him go abroad or find refuge from Libyans and the International Criminal Court who want to put him on trial.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said it was for Libyans to decide the venue but that Gaddafi must not slip away quietly. "He will have to face justice for all the crimes he has committed in the past 42 years," he said.

Near Tripoli, Reuters journalists found torture chambers used recently as Gaddafi tried to suppress the revolt.

Sources close to Niger's government said the head of Gaddafi's security brigade, Mansour Dhao, was in the capital Niamey. He was allowed in to the country earlier in the week.

But Niger's foreign minister, Bazoum Mohamed, was quoted by Al Arabiya television saying that Gaddafi was not in the military convoy, which arrived late on Monday.

Those comments did not contradict a French military source who said the 69-year-old fugitive and his son and heir Saif al-Islam might join the convoy later to head for Burkina Faso.

France has taken a lead in the NATO action backing Libya's uprising and, with its Western allies, would be likely to have the ability to track any sizeable convoy in the empty quarter.

But Niger's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Adani Illo, told Reuters that such surveillance over thousands of miles of desert was still hard. "The desert zone is vast and the frontier is porous," he said. "If a convoy of 200 to 250 vehicles went through, it is like a drop of water in an ocean."

Gaddafi has broadcast defiant messages since he was forced into hiding two weeks ago, and has vowed to die fighting on his own soil. But he also has long friendships with his poor African neighbors, with which he shared some of Libya's oil wealth.

The sources said the convoy, probably including officers from army units based in the south of Libya, may have looped through Algeria rather than cross the Libya-Niger frontier. Algeria last week took in Gaddafi's wife, daughter and two other sons, angering the interim council now ruling Libya.

"GOOD SPIRITS"

Gaddafi's fugitive spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said in remarks broadcast on Monday: "Muammar Gaddafi is in excellent health and in very, very high spirits ... He is in a place that will not be reached by those fractious groups, and he is in Libya."

NATO warplanes and spy satellites have been scouring Libya's deserts for months, raising the likelihood that any convoy of the size mentioned would have been spotted. But a spokesman for the Western alliance said it was not hunting Gaddafi and had a U.N. mandate only to stop his forces attacking civilians.

"Or mission is to protect the civilian population in Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people," Colonel Roland Lavoie said in a statement.

Tuareg nomads living in the Sahara say those fleeing Libya include many black Africans, some of whom may have been fighters for Gaddafi and most of whom fear the anger and reprisals of Gaddafi's enemies among Libya's Arabs.

NTC commanders last week said both Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam were in the tribal stronghold of Bani Walid, 150 km (90 miles) south of Tripoli. But that belief has evaporated this week after days of blockade of the town.

NTC officials said Saif al-Islam, for one, may have escaped south into the desert, toward the southern, pro-Gaddafi bastion of Sabha and perhaps on to Niger. Tracking him would be hard; fully 1,300 km (800 miles) of sand separate Sabha from Agadez, with a further 750 km of road to travel to Niamey.

Near Sirte, Gaddafi's home town on the Mediterranean coast, there was the first sign of heavy fighting for some days. Combatants reported exchanges of shell fire and rockets to the east. Several NTC fighters were wounded in an ambush.

Though conditions in Tripoli were improving with the return of water supplies two weeks after rebels overran Gaddafi's headquarters compound, evidence of brutality during his battle to cling to power during the Arab Spring is also accumulating.

Reuters journalists in the provincial town of Khoms found evidence Muammar Gaddafi had deployed squads which held suspected opponents in shipping containers, tortured them for information about insurgent networks and disposed of their bodies in unmarked graves.

"They wanted to frighten the people, so if anyone was thinking of going over to the rebels, they would change their minds," said Nabil al-Menshaz, a council official in the town.

AFRICAN JOURNEYS

A spokesman for the NTC said banknotes in the convoy of gold and cash that the council believed had reached Niger had been stolen from Sirte's branch of the Central Bank of Libya.

NTC official Fathis Baja told Reuters: "Late last night, 10 vehicles carrying gold, euros and dollars crossed from Jufra into Niger with the help of Tuaregs from the Niger tribe."

It was unclear if these vehicles were separate from the much larger military convoy reported by the foreign sources.

Burkina Faso, also once a French colony and a recipient of large amounts of Libyan aid, offered Gaddafi sanctuary last month but has also recognized the NTC as Libya's government.

President Blaise Compaore, like Gaddafi, took power in a military coup. He has run the country for 24 years.

Gaddafi has long touted his origins among the peoples of the desert. After largely turning his back on fellow Arab leaders, most of them allied with his Western adversaries, Gaddafi had portrayed himself as an African "king of kings".

He was fond of epic road journeys on his travels around the continent, so the drama of a flight across the Sahara into friendlier lands further south might seem a fitting departure.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas, Christian Lowe and Alex Dziadosz in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Umm Qundil, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Barry Malone and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Erika Solomon in Dubai, Nathalie Prevost in Niamey, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Richard Valdmanis and Mark John in Dakar; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Libyan forces close in on Gaddafi stronghold (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan forces closed in on Muammar Gaddafi's home town on Sunday, saying they would seize it by force if negotiations for its surrender failed.

Libya's new rulers, trying to establish control over all the country, set their sights on the coastal city of Sirte --Gaddafi's birthplace -- and two other towns controlled by his supporters, Sabha in the southwest and Jufrah in the southeast.

One commander said his forces were within 100 km (60 miles) of Sirte from the east and others were advancing from the west.

"We will continue negotiations as long as necessary. However, the liberation of these cities will take place sooner or later," said the military spokesman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"In our opinion this is a matter of days," Colonel Ahmed Bani said.

In Tripoli, the stench of rotting bodies and burning garbage still hung over the city, overrun by anti-Gaddafi forces last week. Many corpses have turned up, some of slain Gaddafi soldiers, others the victims of killings in cold blood.

A Libyan official said 75 bodies had been found at the Abu Salim hospital, which was caught up in heavy fighting, and another 35 corpses were found at the Yurmuk hospital.

The NTC and the Western powers that backed rebel forces with a five-month bombing campaign are acutely aware of the need to prevent Libya collapsing into the kind of chaos that plagued Iraq for years after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

The NTC, whose leaders plan to move to Tripoli from Benghazi this week, is trying to impose security, restore basic services and revive the oil- and gas-based economy.

GOOD OMENS

In good omens for economic recovery, officials announced that a vital gas export pipeline to Europe had been repaired and that Libya's biggest refinery had survived the war intact.

In the far west, Tunisian authorities reopened the main border crossing into Libya, restoring a key supply route for Tripoli, after Gaddafi forces were driven out on Friday.

That should help relieve a looming humanitarian crisis in the city, where food, drinking water and medicines are scarce.

Trucks loaded with food and other goods were already moving across the Ras Jdir crossing toward Tripoli, about two hours' drive away. A U.N. official said aid would be sent along the route once it was confirmed to be secure.

The streets of the capital were quiet after sporadic overnight gunfire and explosions in a city traumatized by emerging evidence of widespread summary killings that took place during last week's battles to expel Gaddafi.

Some residents ventured out to hunt for water, food and fuel. And in Martyrs' Square, known as Green Square in the Gaddafi era, traffic police reappeared in crisp white uniforms, directing cars amid a sea of bullet casings.

"I came back to work on Friday. Life is beginning to come back to normal," said one policeman, Mahmoud al-Majbary, 49.

Asked if fighters were obeying the traffic police, he said: "Not yet, we're getting there slowly. We're mainly really here to reassure the people that they are safe."

Libyans may remain fearful as long as the man who subjected them to his capricious will for 42 years remains at large.

Gaddafi, 69, is on the run, perhaps intending to lead an insurgency against his foes grouped loosely under the NTC.

NTC officials rejected any idea of talks with Gaddafi, saying he was a criminal who must be brought to justice.

"We did not negotiate when we were weak, and we won't negotiate now that we have liberated all of Libya," the NTC's information minister, Mahmoud Shammam, told a news conference.

The Associated Press earlier quoted Gaddafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, as saying Gaddafi was still in Libya and wanted to discuss forming a transitional government with the NTC.

NTC officials say Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his spy chief should be tried in Libya, although they are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Sirte, 450 km (280 miles) east of Tripoli, is a vital prize for anti-Gaddafi forces, who say they prefer a negotiated handover of the city, but will storm it if need be.

"Our aim isn't bloodshed, our aim is liberation," Colonel Salem Muftah al-Refaidy, an NTC commander, said in Benghazi.

He told Reuters there was no going back to the past. "After all this bloodshed we can't say, 'Come here Muammar, come here Saif -- we're sorry, take Libya'. It's done. Game over."

He said NTC troops were within 100 km of Sirte from the east and were also approaching from Misrata to the west.

Shammam warned that negotiations could not be "endless," adding that if talks failed rebel supporters already in Sirte would rise up as they had in Tripoli before it fell.

SHORTAGES

In Tripoli, residents queued for bread or scoured grocery shops for food. Many took a stoical view of their plight.

"This is a tax we pay for our freedom," said Sanusi Idhan, a lawyer waiting to buy food.

Aymen Mohammed poured water into plastic containers for his neighbors. "There are many people here who don't have water so we're filling the bottles from our well," he said.

With Libyan television off the air, the NTC has begun using mobile phone text messages to reach the public. One issued on Sunday urged electricity workers to get back to work.

An earlier message said former Gaddafi loyalists should be treated with dignity and respect. Another said any pro-Gaddafi fighters still carrying weapons should be treated as outlaws.

Usama el-Abed, deputy chairman of the Tripoli council, said water shortages were affecting 70 percent of the city's two million people. He told reporters hospitals were all working except for the one where the killings occurred in Abu Salim.

Shammam said public sector workers would not lose their jobs. Efforts to pay the salaries of those in and around Tripoli were under way.

"Money is still tight, but things will be better in the next few days," he told a news conference in Tripoli.

The NTC hopes to gain access soon to hundreds of millions of dollars of assets frozen abroad. It also needs to get oil and gas revenue, normally 95 percent of exports, flowing again.

Bani, the military spokesman, said the gas pipeline to Europe had been repaired.

"The gas pipeline is back and running, supplying the pump stations and the Mellitah (gas processing) refinery. Gas will start flowing to Europe," he declared, without saying when such shipments would resume.

The pipeline, which supplied about 10 percent of Italy's gas imports in 2010, was shut down in February shortly after the revolt against Gaddafi began.

Libya's largest oil refinery at Ras Lanuf on the Mediterranean coast is intact despite fighting that had raged nearby and staff are preparing to restart operations at the 220,000 barrel per day plant, the general manager told Reuters.

Ras Lanuf was held by Gaddafi forces until a few days ago and the front line is only about 25 km to the west.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas and Maria Golovnina in Tripoli, Robert Birsel, Alex Dziadosz and Emma Farge in Benghazi and Richard Valdmanis in Tunis Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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UN envoy meets with both sides of Libyan conflict (AP)

By KARIN LAUB and BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA, Associated Press Karin Laub And Bouazza Ben Bouazza, Associated Press – 2?hrs?6?mins?ago

ZAWIYA, Libya – The United Nations' special envoy for Libya said Tuesday that he was meeting with representatives of both sides of the conflict, days after rebels made a dramatic advance that brought them within 30 miles of Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital Tripoli.

A Tunisian security official said the discussions late Monday centered on a "peaceful transition" in Libya. The official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity matter, said the rebels reacted angrily to the proposal with one member of their delegation throwing a shoe during the meeting to show his deep disdain.

Abdel-Elah al-Khatib, Jordan's former foreign minister, arrived in the Tunisian capital Tunis Monday for the meetings with representatives of both Gadhafi and the rebels. He said there were no direct negotiations as he met the two sides separately in the neighboring country. He did not identify those he met or say what they discussed, speaking to reporters after a meeting Tuesday with Tunisian Foreign Minister Mouldi Kefi al-Khatib.

The Tunisian security official said the U.N. envoy might also meet with a representative of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez's envoy has been on the Tunisian isle of Djerba for the past few days.

The U.N. denied its special envoy was taking part in the meetings. In a statement sent to The Associated Press in Tunis, saying it had "no concrete information about talks supposedly taking place in Tunisia."

Back in Libya, a rebel advance over the weekend into the strategic city of Zawiya on the Mediterranean coast, just 30 miles from Tripoli, put the opposition force in the strongest position since the 6-month-old civil war began to attack the capital. Residents were fleeing Tripoli and other cities on the coast in long lines of cars, fearing the fighting would soon reach them.

The Obama administration said Monday that the U.S. was encouraged by the rebel advances and hoped they had broken a monthslong stalemate with Gadhafi's forces.

In a sign of the regime's growing distress, U.S. defense officials said Libyan government forces tapped into their stores of Scud missiles this weekend, firing one for the first time in the half-year conflict with rebels. No one was hurt. The missile was fired toward a second front line in the east of the country around the town of Brega.

The missile launch was detected by U.S. forces shortly after midnight Sunday and the Scud landed in the desert about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside Brega, said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. It was launched about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Sirte, a city on the Mediterranean coast about 230 miles (370 kilometers) east of Tripoli. Sirte is Gadhafi's hometown and a bastion of support for him.

Noting that Scuds are not precision guided missiles, officials said they couldn't tell if Brega was the target.

NATO spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie cited the firing of a "Scud-like" short-range ballistic missile over the weekend. Although the missile landed far from any rebels, Lavoie said it still represented a direct threat to innocent people.

"The missiles are highly inaccurate (and) their use against an urban area is utterly irresponsible," he said.

On Tuesday, rebels and Gadhafi forces fought for control of Zawiya on a main road leading from Tunisia in the west to Tripoli. Rebels are trying to cut off two major supply routes into the capital from Tunisia in the west and another in the south. The routes are critical with NATO imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Rebels said Monday they also cut oil pipelines from Zawiya to Tripoli. Oil-rich Libya's only functioning refineries are in Zawiya.

Medics at a field hospital on the outskirts of Zawiya said that 15 people were killed the day before in an artillery strike, including a woman and a child, and that one person was killed Tuesday.

On the second front in the east, NATO planes could be heard overhead in Brega as rebels patrolled a ghost town. Furniture and clothing were strewn all over the residential compound, and many houses were broken into, their windows shattered and walls pocked with bullet holes.

Smoke was seen rising from the industrial town as fighting raged.

Rebel and regime forces have battled over the strategic port city of Brega throughout the conflict, and control has swung back and forth between the two sides.

In Tripoli, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim confirmed that former interior minister Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah had defected from the Gadhafi regime and left to Egypt.

"He was under psychological and social pressure and he could not resist it, but the battle continues," said Ibrahim.

On the diplomatic front, Moscow said it was "deeply disturbed" that NATO had "overstepped" its aerial campaign in Libya.

A Russian official said that his country as well as some other members of the U.N. Security Council were unhappy with the destruction of infrastructure and attacks on power supplies in government-controlled areas.

The NATO spokesman Lavoie denied that the alliance was overstepping its mandate.

"We take the side of the people of Libya," said Lavoie. "When we strike a tank, it is because we understand it does represent a threat to the local population."

_____

Bouazza reported from Tunis, Tunisia. Rami al-Shaheibi contributed to this report from Brega, Libya.

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Libyan rebel commander killed by allied militia (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebels say the gunmen who shot dead their military chief were fighters allied in their struggle to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, raising questions over divisions and lawlessness within rebel ranks.

The assassination of Abdel Fattah Younes, apparently by his own side, has hurt the opposition just as it was winning broader international recognition and launching an offensive against Gaddafi's forces in the west of the country.

After 24 hours of confusion, rebel minister Ali Tarhouni said Younes had been killed by fighters who went to fetch him from the front and that his bullet-riddled and partially burned body was found at ranch near the rebel capital of Benghazi.

Tarhouni said a militia leader had been arrested and had confessed that his subordinates had carried out the killing.

"It was not him. His lieutenants did it," Tarhouni told reporters late on Friday, adding that the killers were at large.

Younes had been part of Gaddafi's inner circle since the 1969 coup that brought the Libyan colonel to power and was interior minister before defecting to the rebels in February.

Many rebels had been uncomfortable working under a man who had been so close to Gaddafi for 41 years, and rebel sources said on Thursday Younes had been recalled over suspicions that he or his family were secretly in contact with Gaddafi.

Rebels were divided over who had killed Younes, some suspecting his execution was ordered by rebel leaders for treason, many believing he was killed by Gaddafi supporters who had infiltrated rebel ranks and still others suggesting a rebel splinter group had acted alone.

Whatever the truth, the killing deepens concerns among the rebels' Western backers, keen to see them prevail in a five-month-old civil war but frustrated by their lack of unity and nervous about the influence of Islamists.

The United States, which like some 30 other nations has formally recognized the opposition, called for solidarity.

"What's important is that they work both diligently and transparently to ensure the unity of the Libyan opposition," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington.

REBELS TARGET GADDAFI STRONGHOLD

Rebels who rose up against Gaddafi in February have seized swathes of the country but remain poorly equipped and are still far from ousting him, despite support from NATO airstrikes.

Anti-Gaddafi forces said on Saturday they had encircled the Libyan leader's last stronghold in the Western Mountain region and hoped to seize it soon.

Rebel tanks fired at Tiji, where an estimated 500 government troops are stationed, and said the blasts could be heard from the nearby town of Hawamid, which was captured on Thursday.

"We have Tiji surrounded and we hope to take it by the end of the day," rebel commander Nasir al Hamdi, a former colonel in Gaddafi's police force, told Reuters as gunfire crackled in the distance and he surveyed a battleground scattered with tankshell casings and government anti-aircraft bullets.

NATO airstrikes continued in western Libya overnight. NATO said it had bombed three satellite dishes in Tripoli to stop "terror broadcasting", but Libyan state TV remained on the air.

In the east, confusion reigned over who had killed Younes.

Rebel fighters said members of the February 17 Martyrs' Brigade, a rebel group that fights on the front and helps enforce security in the rebel-held east, had collected Younes from the frontline near the oil town of Brega on Thursday.

Younes knew and trusted the men who came to fetch him and went without a struggle when they explained they had a judge's order to take him to Benghazi for questioning, the rebels said.

The February 17 Martyrs Brigade is made up largely of civilian volunteers led by military commanders and is widely used by the Transitional National Council for some policing duties.

However, Tarhouni, the rebel minister, said it was not this group but another militia, the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade, who had killed Younes.

Locals said the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade was mainly comprised of former prisoners of Gaddafi's notorious Abu Salim prison in the capital Tripoli, who had always distrusted Younes.

Named after one of the companions of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, the group is likely to have Islamist leanings.

One rebel commander, who asked not to be named, said Islamists whom Younes had targeted as interior minister may have killed him in retaliation.

"Some of those Islamists are now fighting with the rebels and they have always refused to fight under Younes's command and have always viewed him with suspicion," he said.

"I don't think the investigation will lead anywhere. They don't dare to touch the Islamists."

The government in Tripoli, which has always warned of Islamist influence in the east, said al Qaeda was to blame.

Further complicating an already murky situation, some Libyans said they feared that Younes' death would trigger a bloody tribal feud. At the funeral on Friday, his Obeidi tribe pledged allegiance to the rebel cause.

But in an apparent effort to calm nerves among Younes' relatives, a rebel source said that he could be replaced by Suleiman Mahmoud al-Obeidi, a member of the same tribe.

Another leading candidate to take over as military chief was Khalifa Heftar, who lost an early contest with Younes over leadership of the rebels' military campaign, the source said.

The longer the war drags on, the further eastern Libya appears to slip into lawlessness, raising questions about what kind of Libya could emerge if and when Gaddafi goes.

Tarhouni told reporters on Friday night that an armed gang had attacked a prison, helping about 300 former Gaddafi soldiers and loyalists to escape.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Hawamid; Mussab Al-Khairalla in Misrata; Missy Ryan in Tripoli; Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers; writing by Lin Noueihed; editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Mystery surrounds killing of Libyan rebel army head (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Libya's rebel military commander was shot dead in an incident shrouded in mystery, dealing a blow to the Western-backed forces struggling to topple Muammar Gaddafi.

Rebels said Abdel Fattah Younes, long a member of the veteran leader's inner circle before defecting in February, was shot by assailants on Thursday after he had been summoned from the battlefield for unspecified talks with other rebel leaders.

The killing of such a senior figure is an embarrassment and a setback for the rebels regardless of who was responsible -- Gaddafi agents apparently able to strike deep in rebel inner circles, or his own side. There are known to be stark divisions between Gaddafi defectors and those who never worked with him.

The rebels did not say who killed Younes or where. His death coincided with a new rebel offensive in the west and further international recognition for rebels, which they hope will help unfreeze billions of dollars in Libyan state funds.

On Friday, weeping relatives and supporters brought his coffin into the main square of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to mourn him.

"We got the body yesterday here (in Benghazi), he had been shot with bullets and burned," Younes's nephew, Abdul Hakim, said, crying as he followed the coffin through the square.

"He had called us at 10 o'clock (on Thursday morning) to say he was on his way here."

RUMOURS OF SECRET TALKS

Officials would not give details of why Younes had been recalled to Benghazi from the front line near the oil port of Brega for questioning. Rumors had circulated in Benghazi that he had held secret talks with the Gaddafi government.

"If the Rumors that General Younes was feeding information to Gaddafi were there then it would make sense that some rogue elements might attempt to assassinate him," said Alan Fraser, an analyst with London-based risk consultancy AKE.

Rebel defense minister Omar Hariri told Reuters his death was still being investigated and the loss would be great.

In Benghazi relatives vowed allegiance to the rebels' political leader.

"A message to Mustafa Abdel Jalil: We will walk with you all the way," nephew Mohammed Younes told hundreds of mourners in the main square.

But at the funeral later, worried mourners expressed fears he may have died at the hands of other rebels.

Seraj, a soldier who described himself as a relative, said he had heard that Younes and two other army officials killed with him had gone without a fight with men who had summoned them to Benghazi. "Later we heard that he was killed," he said.

Nephew Hakim said another coffin brought into the square by a crowd of men, some in military fatigues and some with rifles, held the body of one of the other men killed with Younes.

"It seems this was an assassination operation organized by Gaddafi's men," said London-based Libyan activist Shamis Ashour. "There certainly was treason, a sleeping cell among the rebels."

"The alternative, which is equally possible," said another analyst, Shashank Joshi, "is summary execution by rebels, an internal act of decapitation by the rebels themselves."

Joshi, of London's Royal United Services Institute, said this explanation would highlight divisions in rebel ranks already known to exist, and put a question mark over the rebels' reliability as partners for Western states.

"All these things would humiliate governments that have supported the rebels. Particularly Britain, which came late to the fray, partly for reasons like this," he said.

One rebel commander said Islamists may have been to blame.

Libyan state TV named a rebel it said had killed Younes.

Younes, from eastern Libya where the rebels are strongest, was Gaddafi's interior minister but swapped sides to become the military chief in the rebel Transitional National Council, whose political leader Jalil announced his death.

Jalil said the killers were still at large but added:

"The head of the armed cell, to which the accusing finger points and a member of which carried out this individual cowardly crime, has been arrested." He gave no details.

Younes, who was involved in the 1969 coup that brought Gaddafi to power, was not trusted by all rebel leaders due to his previous role in cracking down on dissidents.

CAMPAIGN BLOW

His death is likely to be a severe setback to a movement that has won the backing of some 30 nations -- most recently Britain and Portugal -- but is laboring on the battlefield.

Hariri, the rebel defense minister, visited the front line in western Libya on Friday. At a nearby checkpoint he told Reuters Younes's death was still being investigated.

"Of course this will have an impact on the rebels, after all we have lost a key leader," he said. "But they will recover, and there will be other leaders."

Analyst David Hartwell of IHS in London said:

"He was one of the few credible senior opposition military commanders and he has been a key figure in helping stabilize and re-organize rebel fighters."

Fighters on the front line near the town of Misrata said they viewed Younes as a martyr and would avenge his death.

"It will be an extra motive for us in the fight against the tyrant," said Khaled al-Uwayyib.

Rebels took swathes of Libya early on after rising up in February to end Gaddafi's 41 years of domination of the oil-producing North African state but have made few recent advances despite the support of NATO air strikes.

They said they had seized several towns in the Western Mountains on Thursday but are yet to make a major breakthrough.

A rebel commander near Ghezaia told Reuters on Friday that around 100 insurgents had taken control of the town, from which Gaddafi forces had dominated plains below the mountains.

Reuters could not go there to confirm the report as rebels said the area could be mined. But looking through binoculars from a rebel-held ridge near Nalut, reporters could see no sign of Gaddafi's forces in Ghezaia.

Another rebel commander said the settlements of Takut and Um al Far had also been seized.

With prospects fading for a negotiated settlement, the five-month-old civil war will grind on into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in August.

Nick Witney, analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris, said the West had hoped for a "nice simple conflict" with right prevailing, but this had ignored Libya's nuanced tribal-based politics.

"It was a brave and right thing to do," he said. "But I feel we've lost the moral high ground a bit and wandered into something that will be prolonged and messy, but we're not in a position to sort out."

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy near Ghezaia; Mussab Al-Khairalla in Misrata; Alexandria Sage in Paris; Samia Nakhoul, Avril Ormsby and Clare Kane in London and Missy Ryan in Tripoli; writing by Richard Meares; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Libyan rebels claim control of Brega (AFP)

AJDABIYA, Libya (AFP) – Libya's rebels claimed control of Brega on Monday as pro-Kadhafi troops retreated westward leaving just 150-200 loyalist fighters pinned down inside the oil town, a spokesman said.

"The bulk of (Moamer) Kadhafi's forces have retreated to Ras Lanuf," rebel spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah told AFP, referring to another oil hub some 50 kilometres (32 miles) to the west.

The loyalist forces were said to have been led in retreat by their commander, Kadhafi's son Mutassim, according to another rebel military source citing intercepted radio chatter.

But deep in the town's industrial zone some remnants of Kadhafi's forces were still holed up, left with dwindling supplies and what must be a growing sense of foreboding.

"Their food and water supplies are cut and they now will not be able to sleep," said Abdulmolah. "It's a matter of time before they come to their senses, we hope to prevent some bloodshed."

Holding the town would be a major rebel victory, boosting morale and recapturing infrastructure vital to Libya's economic future.

Brega is a major centre for channelling oil through the pipelines of the resource-rich Sirte Basin to the rest of the world.

Fighters on the ground said there were no signs yet of those oil installations being set on fire or sabotaged, but the area had been heavily mined.

On the approach to the front there were already signs of relief and celebration.

"Tonight we sleep in Brega!" cried 25-year-old Mufta Idris from a sand-smeared Toyota pick-up that was carrying him and four other members of the Hasan Jaber Brigade to the front.

In nearby Ajdabiya, where many of the 300 rebels wounded in the five days of fighting had been brought, there was a marked lull in activity at the local hospital.

Doctors stood chatting amicably in the hallway for the first time in days. The white marble floor that had been streaked with the blood of some 21 dead fighters had been washed clean.

There were no cries of pain from the operating theatre where doctors had tended severe shrapnel wounds without morphine.

Across the front, the toll on Kadhafi's forces may never be fully known.

The battle had begun around four hours before sunset on Thursday, when the largely volunteer rebel army launched a bold three-pronged attack that belied their inexperience of military tactics.

They had hoped months of waiting and training would arrest a bloody to-and-fro that had seen Brega change hands several times since the revolution began five months ago.

The rebels appeared to have learned the lessons from a series of hard-fought military gains that were washed away by hasty and badly coordinated advances.

This time rebel columns approached slowly from the northeast, east and southeast, surrounding Kadhafi's forces and reaching the outskirts of the city's eastern-most tip late on Friday.

Since then there has been a steady pattern of rebel advance followed by tactical retreat to allow NATO warplanes to do their work.

Such is the new-found caution that even now the complete occupation of Brega may have to wait.

"Most of the troops going in right now are anti-mine teams," said Abdulmolah. "We have found an extraordinary number of anti-personnel mines."

He added that the effort to clear the ordnance is being hampered by missile attacks from the village of Bishr around 20 kilometres (13 miles) away.

The rebels hope that a phalanx of their fighters which swept past Brega from the south will soon take out those positions.

"We hope to take Bishr today," said Abdulmolah.

But the rebel victory is unlikely to bring a quick end to the war.

Southwest of Tripoli, Kadhafi's forces continued to fire rockets at rebel positions in Gualish in the Nafusa Mountains and around Bir Ayad, a key junction on the road to Tripoli in the plains below, rebel commanders said.

The rebels responded with rocket fire against the loyalist-held hill town of Asabah, an AFP correspondent reported.

Meanwhile British Prime Minister David Cameron sought to bridge the gap with South African President Jacob Zuma over bringing a political end to the conflict.

Zuma has accused NATO of overstepping its UN mandate to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, although South Africa voted for the UN resolution that the alliance uses to justify its bombing campaign.

"It is no secret that we have disagreed on some aspects of how to respond to the violence in Libya," Cameron said.

"... We agree on the ultimate destination that Kadhafi must step aside to allow the people of Libya to decide their own future.

Zuma's comments pointed to only partial agreement: "What happens to Kadhafi must be decided by the Libyan people. You need to negotiate how, why and where he must go," Zuma said.

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Libyan rebels seize 2 mountain towns (AP)

By ADAM SCHRECK and BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Adam Schreck And Ben Hubbard, Associated Press – 1?hr?36?mins?ago

TRIPOLI, Libya – Rebel fighters in western Libya seized two mountain towns from government troops Wednesday as their counterparts east of the capital Tripoli suffered heavy losses in intense fighting with government troops.

Meanwhile, the embattled regime of Moammar Gadhafi sought to show it remains in control of the country, laying out plans to try rebel leaders for treason in court next week.

In the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi, tens of thousands of rebel supporters poured into the city's main square for a rally aimed at sustaining momentum for their nearly five month-old uprising. Fighting began in February when a popular movement against Gadhafi quickly escalated into armed conflict.

The civil war has been largely deadlocked, with the rebels controlling the east and Gadhafi clinging to large parts of western Libya, but unable to retake rebel bridgeheads there. The rebels made some gains Wednesday, taking two more towns in the western Nafusa mountains and pushing further from the port city of Misrata, their main stronghold in the west, toward the town of Zlitan, 12 kilometers to the west.

Gadhafi's forces fired more than 500 rockets at rebel positions near Zlitan, from dawn until after nightfall, said Dr. Ayman Abu Shahma, a physician in Misrata. He said 18 rebel fighters were killed and 30 wounded Wednesday. He said two civilians, including a 12-year-old girl, also were killed when a rocket hit their Misrata house.

NATO, meanwhile, said it struck equipment used to refuel government military vehicles near the key eastern oil town of Brega, which has been a frequent site of clashes between rebel fighters and troops loyal to Gadhafi.

The alliance said its warplanes have destroyed 2,700 military targets, including 600 Libyan tanks and artillery guns and nearly 800 ammunition stores, since NATO began bombing Gadhafi-linked sites in March under a U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that Gadhafi's forces remain a threat. "Without NATO there would be a massacre. Gadhafi would be free to use his tanks and missiles on towns and markets," he said. "We will not let that happen."

NATO's campaign was intended to deliver a sharp, devastating blow. However, with the campaign dragging on inconclusively, there have been increasing international calls for a negotiated end to the war. The ragtag rebel forces to the east and south of Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital Tripoli have failed to achieve a breakthrough in recent months.

Still, rebel fighters in the Nafusa mountains southwest of Tripoli seized control Wednesday of two towns after pushing out government forces, a member of the local military council said.

Col. Gomaa Ibrahim said via Skype that rebel forces moved into Qawalish and Kikla on Wednesday morning, after a battle in which one rebel fighter was killed and five were injured. It was unclear if any government soldiers were killed.

While the two towns are small, their capture further expands the area seized from government troops in recent months by relatively small bands of mountain rebels. A string of similar victories has left rebels in control of most of the Nafusa mountains, bringing them within about 100 miles (160 kilometers) of Tripoli.

Most of Libya's rebel-held territory lies in the east, where the rebel's National Transitional Council runs the movement from its de facto capital in Benghazi. Rebels also control the western port city of Misrata, 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.

NATO airstrikes, regime defections and increasing international isolation have eroded Gadhafi's grip on the country. His regime struck back Wednesday, saying it planned to charge rebel leaders with treason. A judge compiling the charges laid out his case against 21 rebel officials, including the National Transitional Council's head, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil. Defendants will be tried in absentia.

Rebel spokesman Jalal Galal dismissed the charges as a political stunt.

"He (Gadhafi) thinks it's a joke or a game, but now the people have awakened, and the people have spoken," he said in response to the allegations. "He has to stand trial for his crimes against humanity."

The charges include facilitating foreign intervention in Libya, providing aid to the enemy and seeking to topple Gadhafi.

Judge Khalifa Isa Khalifa told reporters in Tripoli that he will present the case before a special court presided over by a three-judge panel next week. His evidence includes witness testimony.

The allegations "amount to treason of the homeland of Libya," government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said. He added that those found guilty of treason could face the death penalty.

If the rebel leaders are convicted, Libya will seek international help, Khalifa said, such as warrants from Interpol to "demand that they are brought to justice."

That's a long shot at best. The rebels enjoy significant support from the West and several oil-rich Gulf Arab states.

Last week, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi for alleged crimes against humanity. International prosecutors at the Netherlands-based court allege government troops fired on civilian protesters during anti-Gadhafi demonstrations inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year.

Libyan officials reject the ICC's authority, saying their special court will bring justice to anyone who committed crimes during the uprising. Khalifa declined to say whether this also meant Gadhafi and his inner circle.

"We are ready and prepared to investigate any person in this country if there are people who are willing to come to the (attorney general) with accusations or complaints," he said.

In rebel-held Benghazi, tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into Martyrs' Square for what observers described as one of the biggest rallies in months.

They waved the rebels' tricolor flag along with those of allied nations including Qatar, France and Britain. Others released colorful balloons and chanted slogans, including "Come on, Tripoli! Make this Friday the last day" — a call to the capital's residents to rise up.

___

Hubbard reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Maggie Michael in Cairo, Rami al-Shaheibi in Benghazi and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed reporting.

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Rockets push back rebels south of Libyan capital (Reuters)

BIR-AYYAD, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan rebels who had advanced to within 80 km (50 miles) of Muammar Gaddafi's stronghold in the capital were forced to retreat Friday after coming under a barrage of rocket fire from government forces.

The rebels' advance five days ago to the outskirts of the small town of Bir al-Ghanam had raised the possibility of a breakthrough in a four-month old conflict that has become the bloodiest of the "Arab Spring" uprisings.

Rebel fighters who had been massing on a ridge near Bir al-Ghanam and preparing for an attack were now pulling back under fire from Russian-made Grad rockets, said a Reuters photographer in Bir-Ayyad, 30 km to the south.

He said the rocket barrage was now reaching as far back as Bir-Ayyad, a road junction in the foothills of the Western Mountains range south-west of Tripoli from where the rebels had launched their advance last week.

The reversal underlines the resilience of Gaddafi's forces, who have withstood 15 weeks of bombardment by NATO missiles and warplanes, and attempts by rebels on three fronts to break through their lines.

Frustration at the slow progress is growing inside the military alliance, with some members worried about the cost, civilian casualties and the fact the campaign has now been going on much longer than its backers anticipated.

There are also differences about how proactive NATO members should be in aiding the rebels, who are hampered by a lack of organization and a shortage of equipment.

France this week became the first member of the anti-Gaddafi alliance to acknowledge that it had supplied weapons to the rebels, saying this was justified to protect civilians under threat from Gaddafi's forces.

It said it used parachutes to drop assault rifles and rocket launchers, along with humanitarian supplies, to rebels in the Western mountains.

That admission prompted Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, to accuse France of a "gross violation" of a U.N. arms embargo.

Even France's NATO allies distanced themselves from the French operation, though Britain and the United States said they believed it was justified under U.N. rules.

NATO STRIKE

Libyan state television reported that NATO had bombed military and civilian sites in the government-controlled town of Garyan, on the eastern edge of the Western Mountains.

NATO said it had successfully destroyed a military target in the town Friday.

"It should be noted that the target was well outside the built-up area of the conurbation and no collateral damage was observed afterwards. At no time was any civilian area targeted," a NATO official said.

Gaddafi has said the NATO campaign is an act of colonial aggression aimed at stealing Libya's plentiful oil. His aides say arrest warrants issued Monday by the International Criminal Court for him, his son and his brother-in-law have no legitimacy because the court is a tool of the West.

Gaddafi's daughter, Aisha, said in a television interview broadcast late Thursday that her father's administration was prepared to cut a deal with the rebels if that was what it took to stop the bloodshed.

The offer marks a shift in tone. Until now Libyan officials have dismissed the rebels as criminals and no one in the Libyan leader's inner circle has publicly raised the possibility of making any accommodation with them.

"There are direct and indirect negotiations and we should stop letting Libyan blood," Gaddafi's daughter said in an interview with France 2 television.

"And for that we are ready to ally with the devil and that is the armed rebels," said Aisha Gaddafi, a lawyer who has no official government role but has often acted as a mediator on behalf of her family.

But she dismissed the prospect of her father going into exile. "This word departure, departure, departure ... what I find strange is where do you want him to go? This is his country, his land, his people," she said.

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported Gaddafi's representatives had been meeting officials from France and Britain on the Tunisian island of Djerba.

Citing unnamed sources from the Gaddafi and opposition camps, the newspaper said Gaddafi was willing to step down if he was spared prosecution and allowed to live in his hometown of Sirte, northern Libya, with guarantees for his security.

There was no confirmation of the report from Gaddafi's government, Britain or France.

OPTIONS NARROWING

Anti-Gaddafi rebels rejected talks with the Libyan leader's administration after the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrants, saying there was no point talking to a war criminal.

Some Libya-watchers say Gaddafi has floated the possibility of a peace deal several times to stall for time and weaken the resolve of the Western alliance to push him out.

But others say he may be looking for a negotiated exit as his options narrow. International sanctions are causing a shortage of fuel in Gaddafi-controlled areas, and NATO strikes are eroding his ability to enforce his power.

The Libyan conflict has sent ripples far beyond the North African country of six million people.

The fighting has halted Libyan oil exports, helping push up world crude prices to about $111 a barrel.

It has also created a security vacuum which officials in the region say could be exploited by Islamist militants and al Qaeda's North African wing.

"If this civil war goes on, it would be a new Somalia, which I don't say lightly. In three months we could be dealing with extremists," Marouane Abassi, World Bank country manager for Libya, told Reuters in the Tunisian capital.

(Additional reporting by Tarek Amara and Andrew Hammond in Tunis, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Sami Aboudi in Dubai and John Irish in Paris; Writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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French military confirms arms drops to Libyan rebels (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – The French military confirmed on Wednesday that earlier this month it had air dropped arms shipments to Libyan rebels fighting Moamer Kadhafi's forces in the highlands south of Tripoli.

The NATO military operation in Libya was launched under a UN Security Council resolution authorising world powers to take action to "protect civilians" and this was the first time France has admitted arming rebels.

The news came as a surprise even to France's closest allies, and Britain -- which has joined Paris in spearheading the air campaign against Kadhafi -- distanced itself from the move and said it would not follow suit.

The Le Figaro newspaper and a well-placed non-government source said that France had dropped several tonnes of arms including Milan anti-tank rockets and light armoured vehicles to the revolt.

But Colonel Thierry Burkhard, spokesman for the French general staff, told AFP that the shipments were essentially of "light arms" such as assault rifles to help civilian communities protect themselves from regime troops.

Mahmud Shamman, a spokesman for the rebel National Transitional Council, the revolutionary high command, visiting Paris, told reporters he could not comment on the reported arms shipments.

The British foreign ministry was also cautious, telling reporters: "Our position is clear: there is an arms embargo on Libya.

"But at the same time UN Security Council Resolution 1973 allows all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack," it said in a statement.

"We do think the United Nations resolutions allow, in certain limited circumstances, defensive weapons to be provided but the UK is not engaged in that. Other countries will interpret the resolution in their own way."

In New York, a UN diplomat speaking on condition on anonymity, told AFP that while there is an arms embargo a "close reading of the resolution would suggest air drops of arms are not illegal if they are to protect civilians."

Burkhard said France had become aware in early June that rebel-held Berber villages in the Djebel Nafusa highland region south of the capital had come under pressure from the Libyan strongman's loyalist forces.

"We began by dropping humanitarian aid: food, water and medical supplies," he said. "During the operation, the situation for the civilians on the ground worsened. We dropped arms and means of self-defence, mainly ammunition."

Burkhard described the arms as "light infantry weapons of the rifle type" and said the drops were carried out over several days "so that civilians would not be massacred".

According to Le Figaro, which said it had seen a secret intelligence memo and talked to senior officials, the drops were designed to help rebel fighters encircle Tripoli and encourage a popular revolt in the city itself.

"If the rebels can get to the outskirts of Tripoli, the capital will take the chance to rise against Kadhafi," said an official quoted in the report.

"The regime's mercenaries are no longer getting paid and are scarcely getting fed. There's a severe fuel shortage, the population has had enough."

A well-placed non-government source told AFP that 40 tonnes of weapons including "light armoured cars" had been delivered to rebels in western Libya.

According to Le Figaro the French arms shipments were dropped from planes across the Djebel Nafusa region, where Berber tribes have risen to join the revolt against Kadhafi's rule and seized several provincial towns.

The crates hold assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, it said, and also European-made Milan anti-tank missiles, a powerful addition to the rebel arsenal that can destroy a tank or a bunker.

Qatar has also reportedly been involved in sending weapons to the rebels, and the Figaro report said that opposition fighters control two small desert air strips south of Djebel Nafusa where its planes have landed.

France has taken a leading role in organising international support for the uprising against Kadhafi's four-decade old rule, and French and British jets are spearheading a NATO-led air campaign targeting his forces.

Rebel forces are based in Benghazi in the east of the country, and hold a besieged enclave supplied by sea in the western coastal town of Misrata, but have been unable to mount a convincing advance on the capital.

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Libyan rebels claim advances in western mountains (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya – Rebels in Libya's western mountains said they have advanced and are battling Moammar Gadhafi's forces in a strategic town southwest of the capital, ramping up pressure against government troops on a second front.

The rebels' claim of an advance into the outskirts of the town of Bair al-Ghanam, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Tripoli, follows weeks of intense fighting in the Nafusa mountains in which opposition forces have slowly pushed Gadhafi troops back toward Tripoli.

Libya's rebels control the eastern third of the country and pockets, including a number of Nafusa mountain towns, in the west.

The bulk of the fighting in recent months has been focused on front lines to the east of Tripoli. But a push by rebels from the Nafusa mountains could force Gadhafi to commit more troops to the southern and western approaches to the capital.

A rebel military spokesman in the Nafusa mountains, Gomaa Ibrahim, said opposition fighters and government troops have been fighting since early Sunday on the perifery of Bair al-Ghanam.

Guma el-Gamaty, a spokesman for the rebels' National Transitional council, said the town is significant because it is only 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of the city of Zawiya, a key western gateway to the capital and home to a crucial oil refinery.

Opposition fighters seized control of Zawiya in March before government troops crushed rebel forces there to retake the city. Fighting broke out in the city again earlier this month, briefly cutting access to the vital coastal highway that passes through Zawiya. The route links Tripoli with the Tunisian border and is one of Gadhafi's last main supply lines.

In Tripoli, Gadhafi's government remained defiant. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Gadhafi is in "high spirits" and remains in day-to-day control of the country. He insisted Gadhafi will remain in Libya, but wouldn't confirm that the leader is still in the capital.

"Gadhafi is here, he is staying. He is leading the country. He will not leave. He will not step down," Ibrahim told reporters in Tripoli, challenging the rebels and the NATO-led coalition giving them air support. "If they want to continue the fight, we are ready. We will fight street to street, house to house."

As he spoke, deafening bursts of automatic rifle fire shot into the air by female soldiers and fresh civilian trainees rang out at a pro-government event in central Tripoli. Moussa told reporters that the government so far has distributed 1.2 million weapons to supporters in the west of the country to defend themselves.

Just over 100 Libyans arrived in Tripoli by ship from the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi early Sunday. The ferry was operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, which transported about 300 people in the opposite direction, to Benghazi from Tripoli, on Friday.

Many of those arriving aboard the blue-and-white "Ionis" ferry on Sunday appeared to be families with small children and elderly people. While a small number of passengers waved green Libyan flags and chanted pro-Gadhafi slogans, others said they were returning simply to be reunited with loved ones in the west.

Mohammed Saad Aziz said he was returning to Tripoli to be with family following the recent death of his mother. He called on NATO to stop its daily bombing runs to give Libyans a chance to resolve the conflict on their own.

"We need to solve our problems ourselves and we do not want anyone to interfere. They (NATO) have to step aside and let us work out our problems. We will solve our own problems through dialogue," he said.

Red Cross spokesman Robin Waudo said many more people displaced by the conflict would like to make the sea journey across the front lines, but have so far been prevented from doing so because officials on both sides must approve who makes the crossing.

Meanwhile, African leaders meeting in Pretoria, South Africa said Gadhafi has agreed not to take part in negotiations to end the more than four months of turmoil in Libya. There was no immediate confirmation from the Libya regime of what could be a significant concession.

In a communique issued after a daylong meeting in South Africa's capital, the African Union's committee on Libya said it "welcomes Col. Gadhafi's acceptance of not being part of the negotiation process."

The communique did not elaborate, and committee members did not take questions.

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Associated Press writers Maggie Michael in Cairo and Donna Bryson in Pretoria, South Africa, contributed to this report.

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