A rebel leader speaking after talks with a UN envoy in Benghazi offered a cease-fire on condition Qaddafi left Libya and his forces withdrew from cities now under government control. It was unclear if the offer was part of broader diplomatic moves to end a conflict that appears deadlocked on the military front.
Rebels speaking from Misrata said Qaddafi’s forces had brought their superior firepower to bear on the insurgents’ last western enclave with an intense bombardment.
“They used tanks, rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and other projectiles to hit the city today. It was random and very intense bombardment,” the spokesman, called Sami, told Reuters by telephone. “We no longer recognize the place. The destruction cannot be described.”
“The pro-Qaddafi soldiers who made it inside the city through Tripoli Street are pillaging the place, the shops, even homes, and destroying everything in the process.”
The account from Misrata, Libya’s third biggest city 200 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli, could not be verified. Authorities do not allow journalists to report freely from the city.
A doctor in Misrata told Reuters in an e-mail the 32nd Brigade, one of the best-equipped and trained units, had been sent to seize control of the city. “So the question is where is the international community?” it said.
Qaddafi, who has ruled Libya since taking power in a coup in 1969, describes the rebels as terrorists and Western agents. He accuses NATO led air forces, operating under a UN mandate, of killing huge numbers of civilians in bombing raids.
Civilian deaths haunt the calculations of coalition governments. Any sign of mounting casualties could shatter a fragile consensus between Western and Arab capitals who first called for the UN mandate to create a no-fly zone and protect the civilian population. BBC television quoted a Libyan doctor as saying a coalition air strike had killed seven civilians, mostly children, and wounded another 25 near the oil town of Brega on Wednesday. The doctor said he had been called to a village 15 km (9 miles) from Brega after the strike hit a pro-Qaddafi military convoy. A trailer containing ammunition exploded between two homes, killing girls and young men aged between 12 and 20, the BBC said on Friday. The report has not been confirmed.
Al Jazeera quoted a rebel spokesman in Misrata as saying civilians were killed in government shelling.
“A car with a family inside was bombarded and the father and a six-year old child were martired. A house was also targeted in which three youths were killed,” he said.
Libyan rebels moved heavier weaponry toward government forces at the eastern oil town of Brega on Friday and sought to marshal rag-tag units into a more disciplined force to fend off Qaddafi’s regular army and turn the tide of recent events.
Rebels said neither side could claim control of Brega, one of a string of oil towns along the Mediterranean coast that have been taken and retaken by each side in recent weeks.
But there were signs on Friday of a more ordered approach.
Rebels said more trained officers were at the front, heavier rockets were seen moving from the rebel stronghold of Benghazi toward Ajdabiyah to the south late on Thursday and checkpoints were screening those going through.
“Only those who have large weapons are being allowed through. Civilians without weapons are prohibited,” said Ahmed Zaitoun, one of the rebel fighters and part of a brigade of civilian volunteers who have received more training than most.
“Today we have officers coming with us. Before we went alone,” he said, and he pointed to a man complaining at being stopped at one of the checkpoints, adding: “He is a young boy and he doesn’t have a gun. What will he do up there?“
The new approach has yet to be tested after the rout rebels sustained this week when a two-day rebel advance forward along about 200 km (125 miles) of coast west from Brega was repulsed and turned into a rapid retreat over the following two days.
On the road between Ajdabiyah and Benghazi, gun emplacements were set up in freshly dug ditches with sand berms facing toward Ajdabiyah and the front line, the first sign of organized defensive positions protecting the rebel ‘capital’.
Only two weeks ago, Qaddafi’s forces were at the gates of Benghazi and the Libyan leader pledged “No mercy, no pity” for rebels who would be flushed out “house by house, room by room.”
“Benghazi is quite secure,” senior rebel council official Abdel Hameed Ghoga told reporters. “Our forces have defended it before...We don’t think Qaddafi can attack Benghazi again.”
Heavy gunfire rang out near Qaddafi’s fortified compound in Tripoli for about 20 minutes before dawn and residents said they saw snipers on rooftops and heard distant chanting or shouting.
“There were pools of blood on the streets. You will not find anything now. It’s been hosed down and cleaned by the fire trucks,” said one Tripoli resident.
Reporters in the city, on edge in past days with popular anxiety compounded by fuel shortages and increasingly long queues outside bakeries and gas stations, are confined to hotels and unable to verify reports from the streets.
While Western action has failed to bring any end to fighting or a quick collapse of Qaddafi’s administration, signs have emerged of secret contacts between Tripoli and Western capitals.
Foreign minister Moussa Koussa defected in London this week. A Qaddafi appointee also declined to take up his post as UN ambassador, condemning the “spilling of blood” in Libya. Other reports of defections are unconfirmed.
A British government source said Mohammed Ismail, an aide to Qaddafi’s son Saif Al-Islam, had been visiting family members in London, but that Britain had “taken the opportunity to send some very strong messages about the Qaddafi regime.”
Rebel National Council head Mustafa Abdel Jalil discussed prospects for a cease-fire at a news conference after meeting UN special envoy Abdelilah Al-Khatibset in Benghazi:
“We have no objection to a cease-fire but on condition that Libyans in western cities have full freedom in expressing their views...Our main demand is the departure of Muammar Qaddafi and his sons from Libya. This is a demand we will not go back on.”
Rebels were moving quickly to draw income from oil reserves Tripoli says it alone has the right to exploit.
Ali Tarhouni, a top rebel finance official, told a news conference Qatar would provide fuel, medicine, food and other humanitarian needs to rebels as part of a deal eventually to market oil from eastern Libya that remains under a UN embargo.
He also said rebels had set up a “quasi-ministry of oil” and oil staff were now working under that body or for the east-based Arabian Gulf Oil Company, which has said it has cut ties with its parent, state-owned National Oil Corp.
