NATO, accused by the head of Libya’s rebel army of being too slow to order air strikes to protect civilians, said it had not lowered its sights.

The besieged Libyan city of Misrata, the only major town in western Libya where the revolt against Qaddafi has not been crushed, is still top priority, NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said.

“The situation on the ground is constantly evolving. Qaddafi’s forces are changing tactics, using civilian vehicles, hiding tanks in cities such as Misrata, and using human shields to hide behind,” she said.

Despite that, “the pace of our operations continues unabated. The ambition and the position of our strikes has not changed,” Romero said. “Misrata is our number one priority.”

The head of Libya’s rebel army earlier accused the Western alliance of being too slow to protect civilians in Misrata, which is under daily attack by Libyan army tanks and snipers.

Romero also reiterated NATO’s position that it had destroyed 30 percent of Qaddafi’s military capacity.

NATO leads air strikes on Qaddafi’s military infrastructure and polices a no-fly zone and an arms embargo, roles it took over on March 31 from a coalition led by the United States, Britain and France.

A rebel military leader lashed out at NATO, saying it was falling short in its mission to protect Libyan civilians.

Abdel-Fattah Younis, chief of staff for the rebel military and Qaddafi’s former interior minister, said on Tuesday he was asking the opposition’s leadership council to take their grievances to the UN Security Council, which authorized force in Libya to stop government troops from wiping out the anti-Qaddafi uprising that began Feb. 15.

NATO forces “don’t do anything” even though the United Nations gave them the right to act, Younis said. He said bureaucracy means that NATO strikes sometimes come eight hours after rebels’ have communicated targets.

“The people will die and this crime will be on the face of the international community forever. What is NATO doing?” Younis said.

NATO last week took control over the international airstrikes that began March 19 as a US-led mission. The airstrikes thwarted Qaddafi’s efforts to crush the rebellion in the North African nation he has ruled for more than four decades, but the rebels remain outnumbered and outgunned and have had difficulty pushing into government-held territory even with air support.

The government pushed back rebel forces in a strategic oil town to the east Tuesday, while rebels claimed they fended off an attack by Qaddafi’s forces in one of a string of opposition-controlled towns southwest of Tripoli, the capital. The rebels have maintained control of much of the eastern half of Libya since early in the uprising, while Qaddafi has clung to much of the west.

Qaddafi has been putting out feelers for a cease-fire, but refuses to step down as the opposition is demanding. On Tuesday his government announced a new foreign minister: Abdelati Al-Obeidi, who has been in Europe seeking a diplomatic solution. He replaces Moussa Koussa, who defected last week.

Al-Obeidi’s deputy Khaled Kaim said the opposition council doesn’t represent most Libyans and that Al-Qaeda is exploiting the crisis. He accused nations supporting the airstrikes of supporting terrorism “by arming the militias, by providing them with materials, and the coalition’s decision to starve 85 percent of the Libyan population, while there was another course for solving this crisis, which was the political course.” Kaim said “history will not forgive” Libyans who sought foreign help to change the regime. “People will reject them whether they are with or against Muammar Qaddafi,” he said.

Some nations, including the US, have considered arming the rebels but have not done so.

Brig. Gen. Mark Van Uhm of NATO said Tuesday that airstrikes have so far destroyed 30 percent of Qaddafi’s military capacity.
 

Libyan rebels, meanwhile, headed out of the eastern town of Brega on Wednesday, trying to regain territory lost in a retreat to Qaddafi’s forces.

Qaddafi’s forces pushed the rebels at least 40 kms east of the oil port of Brega on Tuesday as an inconclusive see-saw conflict continued along the Mediterranean coastal road.

Pick-up trucks loaded with machineguns and rocket launchers headed west from Ajdabiyah while several families fleeing the fighting in cars loaded with their belongings passed them in the opposite direction.

Hossam Ahmed, a defector from Qaddafi’s army, said the frontline was 40-60 km west of Adjabiyah, saying Tuesday’s retreat “wasn’t a full withdrawal, it’s back and forth.

Ajdabiyah, gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, is about 80 km east of Brega.

Like other rebels at Ajdabiyah’s western gate, Ahmed expressed frustration at the lack of NATO action. “There have been no air strikes. We hear the sound but they don’t bomb anything,” he said.

Another rebel, Khaled Al-Obeidi said: “What has NATO done, what has NATO bombed?“

Journalists were banned on Wednesday from heading west from Ajdabiyah, making it difficult to assess the fighting.

“Can you go with Qaddafi’s militias and do interviews with them and photograph the tanks? Well now you can’t with us either,” said Al-Obeidi.