The Daily Blog

African Union Says Gadhafi Accepts Cease-Fire Plan.

TRIPOLI, Libya - A delegation of African leaders said Sunday that their Libyan counterpart Moammar Gadhafi accepted their “road map” for a cease-fire with rebels, whom they will meet with Monday. They met hours after NATO airstrikes battered Gadhafi’s tanks, helping Libyan rebels push back government troops that had been advancing quickly toward the opposition’s eastern stronghold.

The terms of the African Union’s road map were unclear - such as whether it would require Gadhafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.

“We have completed our mission with the brother leader, and the brother leader’s delegation has accepted the road map as presented by us,” said South African President Jacob Zuma. He traveled to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Gadhafi, whose more than 40-year rule has been threatened by the uprising that began nearly two months ago.

Rebel fighters watch incoming artillery fire as they retreat from Gadhafi forces in the desert between the towns of Ajdabiya and Brega on Sunday.”We will be proceeding tomorrow to meet the other party to talk to everybody and present a political solution,” Zuma said. He called on NATO to end airstrikes to “give the cease-fire a chance.”

Gadhafi has ignored the cease-fire he announced after international airstrikes were authorized last month, and he rejects demands from the rebels, the U.S. and its European allies that he relinquish power immediately.

Gadhafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya’s oil wealth. So it is not clear whether rebels would accept the AU as a fair broker.Though the AU has condemned attacks on civilians, last week its current leader, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, decried foreign intervention in Libya’s nearly two-month-old uprising, which he declared to be an internal problem.

An official from the African bloc, Khellaf Brahan, said previously that its proposals call for an immediate cease-fire, opening channels for humanitarian aid and talks between the rebels and the government.Through the rebels have improved discipline and organization, they remain a far less powerful force than Gadhafi’s troops. Members of the international community have grown doubtful that the opposition can overthrow Gadhafi even with air support, and some are weighing options such as arming the fighters even while attempting diplomatic solutions.

A rebel battlefield commander said four airstrikes Sunday largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya - a critical gateway to the opposition’s de facto capital of Benghazi. NATO’s leader of the operation said the airstrikes destroyed 11 tanks near Ajdabiya and another 14 near Misrata, the only city rebels still hold in the western half of Libya.

NATO is operating under a U.N. resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians.

The fighting in Ajdabiya on Sunday killed 23 people, 20 of them pro-Gadhafi forces, said Mohammed Idris, the supervisor of a hospital in the city. A total of 38 people were killed in fighting over the weekend, including 11 rebels and seven civilians, Idris said.

The main front line in Libya’s uprising runs along a 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) coastal highway from Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, to Tripoli, the capital, where Gadhafi’s power is concentrated. Rebels have been pushed back on two previous advances toward Tripoli, both times as they approached the heavily fortified Gadhafi stronghold of Sirte.

Over the past few days, Gadhafi’s forces have been knocking the rebels back eastward in their most sustained offensive since international airstrikes drove them back last month. If they had taken Ajdabiya, they would have had a clear path to opposition territory including Benghazi, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away along the coast.

“If he controls Ajdabiya, he makes us feel like we are unsafe because he can move anywhere in the east,” said Col. Hamid Hassy, the rebel battlefield commander.

Western airstrikes, initially conducted under U.S. leadership, began on March 19 to repel Gadhafi’s forces just as they were at the doorstep of Benghazi.

Hassy said Gadhafi’s forces fled the western gate of Ajdabiya and by mid-afternoon had been pushed back about 40 miles (60 kilometers) west of the city. However, sporadic shelling could still be heard around western Ajdabiya.

A body brought to the morgue, said to be a rebel fighter shot near Ajdabiya’s west gate, had his hands and feet bound. Another body was an Algerian who had been fighting for Gadhafi, Dr. Suleiman Rafathi said at the hospital. He said the man’s ID confirmed his origin, but that rebels took the ID before an Associated Press reporter arrived. Rebels have said many Gadhafi fighters are foreign mercenaries.

Another Gadhafi fighter, about 20 years old, was on a ventilator - brain-dead but with a beating heart, Rafathi said.

Rebel fighter Sami Kabdi said the young man had been firing out a window of a school. When rebels told him to surrender, he put the muzzle of his AK-47 under his chin and fired, Kabdi and Rafathi said.

Rebels had been growing critical of NATO, which accidentally hit opposition fighters in deadly airstrikes twice this month. They have complained that the alliance was too slow and imprecise, but Hassy, the rebel commander, said it is getting better.

“To tell you the truth, at first NATO was paralyzed but now they have better movement and are improving,” he said.

The commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, stressed in a NATO statement that the point of the airstrikes was to protect civilians, not to work hand-in-hand with the rebels.

“The situation in Ajdabiya, and Misrata in particular, is desperate for those Libyans who are being brutally shelled by the regime. To help protect these civilians we continued to strike these forces hard,” Bouchard said.

NATO noted that it is enforcing the no-fly zone on both sides, having intercepted a rebel MiG-23 fighter jet that it forced back to the airport Saturday.In the embattled city of Misrata, the lone rebel outpost in the west of the country, residents said shelling continued Sunday, killing one and wounding two others seriously.

“We woke up at 7 a.m. from the tank fire,” said a doctor working at the local hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Libya’s third-largest city has been pounded without cease for more than a month by Gadhafi’s heavy weapons, but the rebels have managed to hold out.

In Tripoli, Libya’s deputy foreign minister accused NATO of a double standard on the no-fly zone, claiming that government forces shot down two U.S.-built Chinook helicopters being used by rebel forces in the east of the country.

“We have a question for the allied forces - is this resolution made for the Libyan government only or everyone in Libya?” he asked.

The report could not be confirmed with the rebels, but journalists in the area did describe seeing at least one helicopter apparently fighting for the rebels in the area Saturday, though it lacked the distinctive double rotor design of the Chinook and appeared to be a Russian-built model.

Envoy Says Gadhafi Seeking End to Libya Crisis.

BENGHAZI, Libya - An envoy of Moammar Gadhafi told Greece’s prime minister Sunday that the Libyan leader was seeking a way out of his country’s crisis two weeks after his government’s attacks to put down a rebellion drew international airstrikes, Greek officials said.

Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi, a former Libyan prime minister who has served as a Gadhafi envoy during the crisis, will travel next to Turkey and Malta in a sign that Gadhafi’s regime may be softening its hard line in the face of the sustained attacks.”From the Libyan envoy’s comments it appears that the regime is seeking a solution,” Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas said in a statement after the meeting in Athens.

The foreign minister said the Greek side stressed the international community’s call for Libya to comply with the U.N. resolution that authorized the airstrikes and demanded Gadhafi and the rebels end hostilities.

The message, Droutsas said, was: “Full respect and implementation of the United Nations decisions, an immediate cease-fire, an end to violence and hostilities, particularly against the civilian population of Libya.”

Gadhafi’s government has declared several cease-fires but has not abided by them.

Few other details of the Athens talks were released publicly.On Friday, the Libyan envoy had said Gadhafi’s government was attempting to hold talks with the U.S., Britain and France in an effort to halt the international airstrikes that began March 19 and which have pounded Libya’s troops and armor and grounded its air force.

Gadhafi’s superior forces had been close to taking the rebel capital of Benghazi in eastern Libya before the international military campaign.

Rebel forces made up of defected army units and armed civilians have since seized much of Libya’s eastern coast, but have been unable to push westward toward the capital, Tripoli.

On Sunday, Gadhafi’s forces pressed on with attacks against Misrata, the last key city in the western half of the country still largely under rebel control despite a weeks-long assault.

Government troops besieged civilian areas for around two hours Sunday morning with Grad rockets and mortar shells and lined a main street with snipers, said a doctor in the city.

Two shells landed on a field hospital, killing one person and injuring 11, he said. The attacks, including tank fire, began again after nightfall, he said. He did not want to be identified by name out of fear for his security.

A Turkish ship carrying 250 wounded from Misrata docked in Benghazi Sunday. The boat, which carried medical supplies, was also expected to pick up around 60 wounded people being treated in various hospitals in Benghazi, as well as 30 Turks and 40 people from Greece, Ukraine, Britain, Uzbekistan, Germany and Finland.

A leader of the rebel movement, meanwhile, sought to ease concerns from Western governments about its character and goals, emphasizing in an interview that the rebels will not allow Islamic extremists to hijack their plans to install a parliamentary democracy in place of Gadhafi’s four-decade rule.

The issue takes on added importance as Western officials debate whether to send the rebels weaponry in an attempt to help them gain the upper hand over Gadhafi’s superior troops.

“Libyans as a whole - and I am one of them - want a civilian democracy, not dictatorship, not tribalism and not one based on violence or terrorism,” said Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, vice chairman of the opposition’s National Provisional Council.

The council, based in Benghazi, was formed to represent the opposition in the eastern Libyan cities that shook off control of the central government in a series of popular uprisings that began Feb. 15.

In Washington, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives was among several key lawmakers cautioning that the U.S. and its allies needed to know much more about the rebel forces before providing them with weapons.

Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, said on NBC television’s “Meet the Press” that there may be strains of al-Qaida within the rebel ranks and the NATO-led coalition in the campaign against Gadhafi should proceed with caution before arming them.

Libya’s opposition has said any extremists among their ranks would be few in number, and Gadhafi’s own punishing campaigns crushed Islamic militants in the country years ago.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday that his country would neither arm the rebels nor send ground troops to Libya.

“We have taken no decision to arm the rebels, the opposition, the pro-democracy people - whatever one wants to call them,” he told the BBC.

A British diplomatic team arrived Saturday in the rebels’ de facto capital of Benghazi to speak to members of the opposition council to learn more about their aims, British officials said Sunday.

Other fighting Sunday was concentrated around the strategic oil town of Brega, as it has been repeatedly during weeks of back-and-forth battling along Libya’s eastern coast. The rebels, backed by airstrikes, made incremental advances.

Rebels fired truck-mounted rocket launchers, then moved to avoid government counter-strikes, suggesting improving tactics and training.In Tripoli, an opposition supporter said Sunday that anxiety was spreading in areas of the capital as dozens of people disappear in pre-dawn raids, apparently carried out by Gadhafi’s security apparatus.

“They pick them up from their houses and they disappear. We don’t know if they’re still alive or dead,” said the activist who spoke on condition he not be identified to avoid arrest.

He also described the city as being locked down, saying many people were staying at home, shops were closed and hundreds of cars were lining up for hours at gas stations as people hoard supplies.

The U.S. was to have stopped flying strike missions in Libya as of Sunday after it passed control of the air operation to NATO last week. But alliance spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said the U.S. approved a request to extend that role until Monday because of “poor weather conditions over the last few days.” She did not elaborate.

World Powers Seek Possible Deal for Gadhafi Exit.

LONDON — International leaders were gathering in London on Tuesday seeking to plot out an endgame for Moammar Gadhafi’s tottering regime and to strike agreement on plans for Libya’s future.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Arab League and as many as 40 global foreign ministers were joining the talks - seeking to ratchet up pressure on Gadhafi to quit.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said several nations planned to table a joint deal aimed at swiftly ending the conflict, setting out proposals for a cease-fire, exile for Gadhafi and a framework for talks on Libya’s future between tribal leaders and opposition figures.

Britain and the United States signaled ahead of the talks that they could accept a plan under which Gadhafi quickly leaves Libya and in return escapes a war crimes trial, despite a previous insistence that he must face the International Criminal Court.

“There are some African countries that could offer him hospitality. I hope that the African Union can come up with a valid proposal,” Frattini said Monday.

African Union chairman Jean Ping will attend the talks at London’s Lancaster House alongside delegates who include Qatar’s emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani and foreign ministers from Morocco, the UAE, Jordan and Iraq.

Gadhafi “must understand that it would be a gesture of courage on his part to say ‘I am leaving’,” Frattini said.

Turkey, which has offered to attempt to mediate a permanent cease-fire, also said the talks would gauge international support for scenarios under which Gadhafi could retreat into exile.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague, who was hosting the summit, said Tuesday that - while the U.K. hoped Gadhafi would face international justice - it was down to Libyans to decide his fate.

“Of course where he goes, if he goes, is up to him and the people of Libya to determine and we will not necessarily be in control of that,” Hague told BBC radio.

International allies were “not going to choose Col. Gadhafi’s retirement home,” he added.

Britain’s ambassador to the U.S., Nigel Sheinwald, said Libyan opposition envoy Mahmoud Jibril would meet Tuesday with ministers and officials in London, but won’t attend the main conference. Jibril was also holding separate talks with Clinton.

A senior U.S. administration official said the U.S. would also soon send diplomat Chris Stevens to Benghazi to meet with rebel leaders.

In a joint statement, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Jibril’s Interim National Transitional Council could play a key role in deciding Libya’s future following Gadhafi’s potential ouster.

The leaders said that the transitional council and “civil society leaders, as well as all those prepared to join the process of transition to democracy,” should begin work to decide how Libya moves toward democratic elections. They said Gadhafi loyalists were facing a final chance to ditch support for the dictator and side with those seeking political reform.

Sarkozy and Cameron discussed the meeting late Monday in a video conference with President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In a speech Monday night at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Obama said the London talks would decide on what political effort would be needed - alongside military action - to increase pressure on Gadhafi.

“While our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives, we continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator, but to its people,” Obama said.

Spain’s foreign minister Trinidad Jimenez was quoted Tuesday as telling El Pais newspaper that said she believed a cease-fire and mediation over exile for Gadhafi was a likely scenario.

“Obama put it very well, (the fall of) Gadhafi is not the military objective, but it is a political one. Each country must go along with that process but the protagonists have to be the Libyan people themselves,” she added.

Libya’s deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim told a news conference in Tripoli that foreign leaders had no right to attempt to impose a new political system on the country.

“Libya is an independent country with full sovereignty,” he told reporters. “The Libyan people are the only ones that have the right decide the country’s future, and planting division of Libya or imposing a foreign political system is not accepted.”

Kaim called on nations attending the London talks to agree on a peace deal.

“We call upon Obama and the Western leaders to be peacemakers not war mongers, and not to push Libyans towards a civil war and more death and destruction,” he said.

The London meeting - which will also be attended by NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen - was also expected to discuss disputes over the scope of NATO-led coalition airstrikes, and to more clearly define the extent of cooperation between Libya’s rebel groups and international military commanders.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov - who will not attend the talks - has said the international air campaign which began March 19 has breached the terms of the U.N. resolution which authorized the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya.

Cameron insisted that the coalition had not gone beyond its remit, but acknowledged the impact had been to force Gadhafi’s military into a retreat from a number of key towns.

“We should do everything we can to protect people and actually - as a result - that is actually driving back the Gadhafi regime,” Cameron said.

Sarkozy and Cameron said in their joint statement that the military action would end only when civilians were free from the threat of attack.

Cruise Missile Slams Gadhafi’s Compound Near Tent.

TRIPOLI, Libya — A cruise missile blasted Moammar Gadhafi’s residential compound in an attack that carried as much symbolism as military effect, and fighter jets destroyed a line of tanks moving on the rebel capital. The U.S. said the international assault would hit any government forces attacking the opposition.

Oil prices jumped to near $103 a barrel Monday in Asia after the Libyan leader vowed a “long war” amid a second night of allied strikes in the OPEC nation.

It was not known where Gadhafi was when the missile hit near his iconic tent late Sunday, but it seemed to show that while the allies trade nuances over whether the Libyan leader’s fall is a goal of their campaign - he is not safe.Half of the round, three-story administration building was knocked down, smoke was rising from it and pieces of the missile were scattered around, according to Associated Press photographer escorted to the scene by the Libyan government. About 300 Gadhafi supporters were in the compound at the time. It was not known if any were hurt.The U.S. military said the bombardment so far - a rain of Tomahawk cruise missiles and precision bombs from American and European aircraft, including long-range stealth B-2 bombers - had hobbled Gadhafi’s air defenses.

In addition to targeting anti-aircaft sites, U.S., British and French planes also went after tanks headed toward Benghazi, in the opposition-held eastern half of the country. On Sunday, at least seven demolished tanks smoldered in a field 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Benghazi, many of them with their turrets and treads blown off, alongside charred armored personnel carriers, jeeps and SUVs of the kind used by Gadhafi fighters.

“I feel like in two days max we will destroy Gadhafi,” said Ezzeldin Helwani, 35, a rebel standing next to the smoldering wreckage of an armored personnel carrier, the air thick with smoke and the pungent smell of burning rubber. In a grisly sort of battle trophy, celebrating fighters hung a severed goat’s head with a cigarette in its mouth from the turret of one of the gutted tanks.The strikes that began early Sunday gave respite to Benghazi, which the day before had been under a heavy attack that killed at least 120 people. The calm highlighted the dramatic turnaround that the allied strikes bring to Libya’s month-old upheaval: For the past 10 days, Gadhafi’s forces had been on a triumphant offensive against the rebel-held east, driving opposition fighters back with the overwhelming firepower of tanks, artillery, warplanes and warships.

Now Gadhafi’s forces are potential targets for U.S. and European strikes. The U.N. resolution authorizing international military action in Libya not only sets up a no-fly zone but allows “all necessary measures” to prevent attacks on civilians.

But the U.S. military, for now at the lead of the international campaign, is trying to walk a fine line over the end game of the assault. It is avoiding for now any appearance that it aims to take out Gadhafi or help the rebels oust him, instead limiting its stated goals to protecting civilians.

At the Pentagon, Navy Vice Adm. William E. Gortney underlined that strikes are not specifically targeting the Libyan leader or his residence in Tripoli. He said that any of Gadhafi’s ground forces advancing on the rebels were open targets.

“If they are moving on opposition forces … yes, we will take them under attack,” he told reporters.

“We judge these strikes to have been very effective in significantly degrading the regime’s air defense capability,” Gortney said. “We believe his forces are under significant stress and suffering from both isolation and a good deal of confusion.”

A military official said Air Force B-2 stealth bombers flew 25 hours in a round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and dropped 45 2,000-pound bombs.

What happens if rebel forces eventually go on the offensive against Gadhafi’s troops remains unclear. Gortney would not say whether strikes would hit Libyan troops fighting back against rebel assaults.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said late Sunday that the U.S. expects turn over control of the operation to a coalition headed by France, Britain or NATO “in a matter of days,” reflecting concern that the U.S. military was stretched thin by its current missions. Turkey was blocking NATO action, which requires agreement by all 28 members of the alliance.

Sunday night, heavy anti-aircraft fire erupted repeatedly in the capital, Tripoli, with arcs of red tracer bullets and exploding shells in the dark sky - marking the start of a second night of international strikes. Gadhafi supporters in the streets shot automatic weapons in the air in a show of defiance. It was not immediately known what was being targeted in the new strikes.

Libyan army spokesman Col. Milad al-Fokhi said Libyan army units had been ordered to cease fire at 9 p.m. local time, but the hour passed with no letup in military activity.

Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In a phone call to Libyan state television Sunday, he said he would not let up on Benghazi and said the government had opened up weapons depots to all Libyans, who were now armed with “automatic weapons, mortars and bombs.” State television said Gadhafi’s supporters were converging on airports as human shields.

“We promise you a long war,” he said.

Throughout the day Sunday, Libyan TV showed a stream of what it said were popular demonstrations in support of Gadhafi in Tripoli and other towns and cities. It showed cars with horns blaring, women ululating, young men waving green flags and holding up pictures of the Libyan leader. Women and children chanted, “God, Moammar and Libya, that’s it!”

“Our blood is green, not red,” one unidentified woman told the broadcaster, referring to the signature color of Gadhafi’s regime. “He is our father, we will be with him to the last drop of blood. Our blood is green with our love for him.”

Gadhafi Calls UN Resolution ‘Invalid’ in Warning Against Intervention.

BENGHAZI,Libya — Moammar Gadhafi warned international forces they would “regret” intervening in Libya and his troops attacked the heart of the 5-week-old uprising on Saturday, swarming the first city seized by the rebels with shells, gunfire and warplanes.

“Where is France, where is NATO?” cried a 50-year-old woman in Benghazi. “It’s too late.”

Leaders from the Arab world, Africa, the United States and other Western powers were holding urgent talks in Paris on Saturday over possible military action after the Libyan government, apparently hoping to outflank the effort, declared a cease-fire.

On Saturday, a warplane was shot down over the outskirts of the key rebel-held city of Benghazi, sending up a massive black cloud of smoke. An Associated Press reporter saw the plane go down in flames and heard the sound of artillery and crackling gunfire in the distance.

Before the plane went down, journalists could hear what appeared to be airstrikes from it. Rebels cheered and celebrated at the crash, though the government denied a plane had gone down - or that any towns were shelled on Saturday.

The fighting galvanized the people of Benghazi, with young men collecting bottles to make gasoline bombs. Some residents dragged bed frames and metal scraps into the streets to make roadblocks.At a news conference in the capital, Tripoli, the government spokesman read letters from Gadhafi to President Barack Obama as well as others involved in the international effort.

“Libya is not yours. Libya is for the Libyans. The Security Council resolution is invalid,” he said in the letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. “You will regret it if you dare to intervene in our country.”

To Obama, the Libyan leader was slightly more conciliatory: “If you had found them taking over American cities with armed force, tell me what you would do.”

Government spokesman Ibrahim Musa said the rebels are the ones breaking the cease fire by attacking military forces.”Our armed forces continue to retreat and hide, but the rebels keep shelling us and provoking us,” Musa told The Associated Press.

In a joint statement to Gadhafi late Friday, the United States, Britain and France — backed by unspecified Arab countries — called on Gadhafi to end his troops’ advance toward Benghazi and pull them out of the cities of Misrata, Ajdabiya and Zawiya. It also called for the restoration of water, electricity and gas services in all areas. It said Libyans must be able to receive humanitarian aid or the “international community will make him suffer the consequences” with military action.

Parts of eastern Libya, where the once-confident rebels this week found their hold slipping, erupted into celebration at the passage of the U.N. resolution. But the timing and consequences of any international military action remained unclear.

Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city and the last held by rebels in the west, came under sustained assault well after the cease-fire announcement, according to rebels and a doctor there. The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals, said Gadhafi’s snipers were on rooftops and his forces were searching homes for rebels.

“The shelling is continuing, and they are using flashlights to perform surgery. We don’t have anesthetic to put our patients down,” said the doctor, who counted 25 deaths since Friday morning.

Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, denied late Friday that government forces had violated the cease-fire and invited four nations to send observers to monitor compliance: Germany, China, Turkey and Malta.

“The cease-fire for us means no military operations whatsoever, big or small,” he told reporters in Tripoli.

He said military forces were positioned outside Benghazi but that the government had no intention of sending them into the city.

Rebels Retreat From Libyan Oil Port Amid Barrage.

RAS LANOUF, Libya — With fierce barrages of tank and artillery fire, Moammar Gadhafi’s loyalists threw rebels into a frantic retreat from a strategic oil port Thursday in a counteroffensive that reversed the opposition’s advance toward the capital of Tripoli and now threatens its positions in the east.

Hundreds of rebels in cars and trucks mounted with machine guns sped eastward on the Mediterranean coastal road in a seemingly disorganized flight from Ras Lanouf as an overwhelming force of rockets and shells pounded a hospital, mosque and other buildings in the oil complex. Doctors and staff at the hospital were hastily evacuated along with wounded from fighting from the past week.The rout came even as the opposition made diplomatic gains. France became the first country to recognize the rebels’ eastern-based governing council, and an ally of President Nicolas Sarkozy said his government was planning “targeted operations” to defend civilians if the international community approves. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she would meet with opposition leaders in the U.S., Egypt and Tunisia.In Tripoli, Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam vowed to retake the eastern half of the country, which has been in opposition hands since early in the 3-week-old uprising.

“I have two words to our brothers and sisters in the east: We’re coming,” he told a cheering crowd of young supporters. The son depicted Libyans in the east as being held “hostage” by terrorists.

Gadhafi’s government sent a text message to Tripoli residents, warning imams at mosques against allowing protests after Friday prayers. The message quoted Saudi cleric Sheik Saleh Fawzan, a member of the Saudi Supreme Scholars Council, as saying it was “unacceptable” for any imam “who incites people (or) causes disturbances of the society in any mosque.”

There were demonstrations after prayers for the past two Fridays, and militiamen used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the crowds who had gathered in mosques. There were an undetermined number of deaths after the Feb. 25 demonstrations.

The retreat was a heavy blow for the ragtag rebel forces of armed civilians and mutinous army units that only days before had confidently charged west, boasting they would march the hundreds of miles (kilometers) to “liberate” Tripoli.

There were no concrete signs of Western moves toward military assistance that the opposition has been pleading for. A rebel spokesman went beyond repeated calls for a no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi’s air force from harrying opposition fighters and said the West should carry out direct strikes against regime troops.

“We have requested for all steps to be taken to protect the Libyan people. We believe the U.N. can do that. The bombardment of mercenaries and Gadhafi troop camps are among our demands,” Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, a spokesman of the governing council, told reporters in the opposition’s eastern bastion of Benghazi.

The rebel capture of Ras Lanouf a week ago had been a major victory as they pushed along Libya’s long Mediterranean coastline toward Tripoli, in the far west of Libya. A day after seizing it, their forces charged farther ahead, reaching the outskirts of Sirte, Gadhafi’s hometown and a stronghold in the center of the country.

They were met there by a heavy counterattack that in the past week steadily pushed them back toward Ras Lanouf, 380 miles (615 kilometers) east of Tripoli, even as the rebels tried to build supply lines to keep up momentum.

The regime’s offensive appeared to build in force. On Thursday morning, rebels were bringing in heavier weapons such as multiple-rocket launcher trucks and small tanks to the front lines just west of Ras Lanouf. But they came under a powerful barrage of shelling that pushed them back along the flat, desert scrubland into the tiny oil port.

A torrent of artillery and tank shells pounded around the facilities and the adjacent residential areas - long deserted amid the fighting.

Akram al-Zwei, an opposition leader in nearby Ajdabiya, said gunboats off shore joined the bombardment, though that could not be independently confirmed. He said four battalions of pro-Gadhafi troops were involved in the assault, battling the opposition’s civilian militias and an eastern-based special commando unit, the Saiqa 36 Battalion, that had joined the rebellion.

Rebels fought back with rocket fire and anti-aircraft guns. But the fighters, mostly armed with assault rifles, appeared outgunned. “We don’t have any heavy weapons,” shouted one fighter, named Ali.

By the afternoon, many rebels were speeding east from Ras Lanouf in a frantic evacuation, most converging on the opposition-held oil port of Brega and Ajdabiya, 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. “Everyone just started leaving. It’s not organized,” said one retreating fighter. “The weapons we have just don’t reach them.”

Ras Lanouf’s main hospital was hit by artillery or an airstrike, and the rebels pulled their staff out and evacuated patients to Brega and Ajdabiya, said Gebril Hewada, a doctor on the opposition’s health committee in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city.

At least four rebel fighters were killed, 35 wounded and 65 missing in the fighting, according to doctors in Brega.

It was not clear whether government forces completely held Ras Lanouf. Al-Zwei and Ghoga, the opposition spokesman, claimed it remained in rebel hands.

A rebel fighter who fled the city after nightfall said it still had not fallen.

“They are still bombing it from the air, the sea and with rockets, but the ground forces have not come in,” said Mohammed el-Gheriani, carrying a Kalashnikov rifle.

But it appeared that Brega, 70 miles (116 kilometers) farther east, could also be under threat. During the day, a warplane struck an empty area in Brega, which has also largely been evacuated of residents and personnel.

“We need help from the international community, but we just hear promises,” said Mohammed Ali al-Zwei, a 48-year-old rebel fighter. “They are doing nothing.”

Taking back Ras Lanouf would be a major victory for Gadhafi, pushing his zone of control farther along the coast. His regime has also claimed a victory in the west, saying Wednesday it recaptured Zawiya, the closest rebel-held city to the capital, after a six-day siege. Western journalists in Tripoli were taken late Wednesday to a stadium on the outskirts of Zawiya that was filled with Gadhafi loyalists waving green flags and launching fireworks. But the journalists were not allowed to visit Zawiya’s main square, and the extent of government control was not known in the city, located on Tripoli’s western doorstep.

Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Qaid reiterated the government’s claim Thursday, reading a military statement that Zawiya had been recaptured at 11 a.m. Wednesday and journalists would be taken Friday to visit the city.

“Now the forces are cleaning the city of the extremist armed militants,” Qaid told reporters. He said “the security forces and civilians” had seized weapons and ammunition, including anti-aircraft guns, mortar shells and anti-tank missiles.

Western countries appeared to be growing more open in their embrace of the rebel movement. But they were struggling with how to translate that into concrete support.

France said it planned to exchange ambassadors with the rebels’ Interim Governing Council after Sarkozy met with two representatives from the group, based in Benghazi.

“It breaks the ice,” said Mustafa Gheriani, an opposition spokesman. “We expect Italy to do it, and we expect England to do it.”

French activist-intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy sat in the meeting and said France was planning “targeted operations” to defend civilians if the interim council demands them and the international community approves. Henri-Levy did not elaborate and the French government declined to comment, so it was not clear if he was describing a new, more aggressive plan for intervention.

NATO has said it is drawing up plans for a no-fly zone but would only act with the approval of the U.N. Security Council. Britain and France have backed the rebels’ calls for a no-fly zone.

But the U.S. showed caution, warning against a go-it-alone approach.

“Absent international authorization, the United States acting alone would be stepping into a situation whose consequences are unforeseeable,” Clinton said. “We’re looking to see whether there is any willingness in the international community to provide any authorization for further steps.”

Speaking at a House budget hearing, Clinton said the U.S. was suspending its relationship with Libya’s remaining envoys to the country, although the move falls short of severing diplomatic relations. She said she would meet with Libyan opposition figures when she travels to Egypt and Tunisia next week, marking the highest level contact between the U.S. and the anti-Gadhafi elements.

NATO said it had started round-the-clock surveillance of Libyan airspace, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said a meeting of EU foreign ministers would discuss how to isolate the regime.

At the United Nations, Libya’s deputy ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbashi, who has demanded Gadhafi’s ouster, urged the international community to impose a no-fly zone over Libya immediately to stop the aerial attacks and to recognize the Provisional National Council as the provisional government.

U.N. Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt expressed serious concern about the more than 1 million Egyptians still in Libya, “and we are afraid that the tragic events that happened in Iraq using human shields to protect air defense systems on the ground would be repeated.” He added that he had “no concrete information” about whether that was happening.

Germany said it froze billions in assets of the Libyan Central Bank and other state-run agencies. The U.S., Britain, Switzerland, Austria and other countries have also frozen Gadhafi’s assets.

“The brutal suppression of the Libyan freedom movement can now no longer be financed from funds that are in German banks,” Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said.

The Libyan government tried to stave off tough action, sending envoys to Egypt, Portugal and Greece.-

President Obama to Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi: ‘The Violence Must Stop’.

Global condemnation of the increasingly violent regime of Moammar Gadhafi gives the United States a green light to intervene against the Libyan dictator, and President Obama Wednesday asked his top national security staff to draw up a list of options.

They could range from armed U.S. combat air patrols to shut down Gadhafi’s military operations to freezing Gadhafi’s bank accounts and other punitive sanctions.

In his first public response to the Libyan crisis since Friday, Obama said the “suffering and bloodshed is outrageous and is unacceptable.” And echoing past commanders-in-chief who have issued ultimatums before taking action, Obama declared in a brief statement at the White House Wednesday evening: “This violence must stop.”It showed no sign of stopping. In the Libyan capital of Tripoli, armed pro-Gadhafi thugs and mercenaries attacked demonstrators Wednesday in violence that has killed as many as 1,000 people and injured many more across the country, according to accounts gathered by Human Rights Watch and other organizations.

But Gadhafi’s military continued to crumble. The two-man crew of an SU-22 strike fighter sent to bomb demonstrators in the eastern city of Benghazi Wednesday flew over the city and ejected safely, according to accounts from Libyan newspapers taken over by demonstrators.

Benghazi, along with Tobruk and other eastern Libyan cities, were reported to be controlled by demonstrators along with defecting units of the Libyan security forces. The western Libyan city of Misurata was taken over by anti-Gadhafi demonstrators, and army officers stationed there issued a statement pledging “total support for the protesters,” al Jazeera reported Wednesday.
White House officials said Obama had been reluctant to intervene publicly as the Libyan crisis intensified for fear of jeopardizing the safety of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Europeans and Asians stuck in Libya. “We are doing everything we can to protect American citizens,” Obama said Wednesday. “That is my highest priority.” A huge ferry sent to evacuate Americans from Tripoli was held up there temporarily Wednesday night because of bad weather. Tripoli’s international airport was virtually shut down, authorities said.British Foreign Secretary William Hague said many Europeans were stranded in Tripoli with no way to leave. He described the security situation there as “worsening” and said there were “many indications of the structure of the state collapsing.”

Even as crowds of American families waited to be carried to safety, Obama was said to be encouraged by the strong positions against Gadhafi taken by the U.N. Security Council, the European Union, the Arab League, the African Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and other international organizations.

“The world is watching,” Obama declared. He said the Libyan government “must be held accountable” for violating international norms and “every standard of common decency.”

Human rights, including the right to free speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to determine one’s own destiny, “are not negotiable,” the president said.

To back up his strong words, Obama said he has asked his staff “to prepare the full range of options that we have to respond to this crisis,” including both unilateral operations and actions that could be taken in concert with others or through international organizations such as the United Nations.

U.S. air combat patrols over Libya could be flown by squadrons based in Europe. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise is in the north Arabian Sea and would require a transit through the Suez Canal. The U.S. mounted similar operations over Iraq, in Operation Southern Watch, for 12 years before the 2003 invasion, flying continuously to deter Saddam Hussein and to degrade Iraq’s air defenses.

The Su-22 jets flown by Libya’s air force are more than four decades old and are no match for American aircraft. Two Su-22s were shot down by Navy F-14s in a confrontation over Libya’s Gulf of Sidra in 1981.

Some analysts suggested that Gadhafi might attempt to sabotage the Libyan oil fields in a final act of fury. One option for the United States would be to assist an international, or Arab, security and operations force to protect the oil facilities.

It also seemed likely that the United States, acting under U.N. Security Council authority, would enact economic sanctions and banking restrictions on Gadhafi and members of his family and immediate entourage.