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Libya's rebels have advanced on the town of Brega, a strategically important oil port in eastern Libya that has been held by Qaddafi's forces since March. While reports conflict on whether they now have complete control of the town, the offensive is seen as one of their most ambitious to date.
According to BBC, one rebel spokesman said that they were in charge of the northeastern section of the town and were staging an offensive in the southwestern section. Agence France-Presse reports that the rebels were engaged in close-range combat within Brega, but that poorly coordinated advances and the resulting losses prompted them to pause their assault in order to regroup for a more organized offensive.
"Some small groups have made it inside, but we do not control the whole (town) yet," rebel spokesman Mohammed Zawi said, according to AFP. "It is now close fighting."
CNN reports that the troops fielded thousands of landmines along the approaches to Brega as well as an intentional fire fed continuously by an oil pipeline, which slowed their advance. An expedition group entered the city ahead of the bulk of the troops and clashed with Qaddafi's forces. According to the CNN report, the troops are now about five miles from the town.
According to Reuters, which reports that the rebels have booted most of Qaddafi's forces from the town, his troops mostly retreated to Ras Lanuf, a town to the west of Brega.
The Guardian reports that the Brega offensive is one of the rebels' most ambitious and has been bolstered by NATO air attacks.
On Friday, Nato jets soon to be bolstered by four extra Tornados from the UK destroyed 14 military vehicles at Brega, compared with 17 destroyed there during the previous six days.
The rebel push on Brega is one of the most ambitious of the war, with newly trained units launching a three-pronged attack. While a central advance is struggling to clear minefields near Brega, other units have enveloped government forces from the north and south. The rebel forces say 10 fighters have died and 170 were wounded. Tripoli has released no casualty figures of its own.
Meanwhile, Russia criticized the United States' decision to recognize the rebel government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, saying the move is a clear sign that the US has taken sides in a civil war, the Guardian reports.
"Supporters of such a decision are supporters of a policy of isolation, in this case the isolation of those forces that represent Tripoli," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Moscow is in contact with both Tripoli and the rebels, he said, and has recognized the NTC as a negotiating partner, but nothing further.
Russia has been wary of foreign intervention in Libya from the outset it abstained, along with China, from voting on the United Nations resolution that authorized a foreign military intervention in Libya and afterward became a vocal critic of the mission.
Mr. Lavrov was careful to emphasize that despite Russia's opposition to intervention and US recognition, Russia would not offer Qaddafi asylum should he choose to step down, RIA Novosti reports.
MISRATA, Libya, July 18 (Reuters) - Rebel forces have routed most of Muammar Gaddafi's troops in the Libyan oil town of Brega in the biggest boost of their campaign in weeks, spokesmen said on Monday. The government denied the claim.
More than 40 people on both sides were reported killed in fighting over the city since late last week.
The rebels have encircled Brega, an oil export terminal with a refinery which for months marked the eastern limit of Gaddafi's control, said spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah.
But its streets were strewn with landmines, making it hard to secure full control of the area.
"The main body (of Gaddafi's forces) retreated to Ras Lanuf," which lies to the west, he said by telephone from the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
However, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said that, "our brave soldiers and volunteer soldiers are in Brega in their thousands and control it completely."
"NATO and the rebels have tried to attack Brega for the last five days," he told foreign journalists in the capital Tripoli. "The only way for them to control Brega is to attack it with nuclear bombs."
He said the government had lost 30 soldiers over five days of fighting, but rebels had lost many times more. Abdulmolah said 12 rebels were killed and some 300 wounded on Saturday and Sunday.
Most rebel forces were now past Brega and heading west towards the towns of Bishr and Ugayla, he said.
MOSCOW UNEASE
While rebel fighters have been making gains in eastern and western Libya in recent days, Russia criticised the United States and other countries for recognising the rebel leadership as the legitimate government of Libya, saying they were taking sides in the insurgents' five-month-old war to oust Gaddafi.
"Those who declare recognition stand fully on the side of one political force in a civil war," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced U.S. recognition of the rebels on Friday, a major diplomatic step that could unblock billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds.
Russia and China have taken a softer line towards Libyan leader Gaddafi, and neither attended an international meeting on the conflict in Turkey on Friday.
Brega, about 750 km (465 miles) east of Tripoli, has a strategic oil terminal. The attack could signal a new rebel push westwards after weeks of stalemate.
It has changed hands several times in the back-and-forth fighting along Libya's Mediterranean coast since the rebellion began in February.
Libyan TV, in a bid to counter the rebel claims, showed what it said was footage taken on Monday in Brega. Students were shown taking an exam, and there were pictures of the port, oil terminal and a worker at a natural gas plant in the city.
Rebels say taking Brega will this time be a tipping point in the conflict on the eastern front.
"It is going to take the revolutionaries at least 10 days to claim full control of Brega," said rebel spokesman Abdelsalam in Misrata.
Gaddafi is refusing to step down despite the five-month-old rebellion against his rule, a campaign of NATO air strikes, and the defections of members of his inner circle.
The slow progress of the rebel military campaign has caused strains within NATO, some member states pressing for a negotiated solution to hasten the end of a conflict some thought would last only a few weeks.
LONDON Abu Sohaib spends most of his time online these days, following the news from his native Libya. He is in constant contact with friends on the ground there, helping them map out strategy to fight the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
I would like to be there myself; I tried to go, he said, pausing to look at the car keys in front of him. But Tunisia and Egypt wouldnt let me in even after their revolution.
Abu Sohaib, his nom de guerre, is on a watch list for suspected terrorists not only in Libya and its neighboring countries, but also in some European countries. He is a senior commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a former militant organization that once was aligned with Al Qaeda. The New York Times is withholding his real name because he said he fears for his safety.
Today, members of the group have renounced Al Qaeda and are part of the mosaic of rebel fighters united under the umbrella of the Transitional National Council, the opposition leadership that the United States formally recognized as Libyas legitimate government on Friday.
American, European and Arab intelligence services acknowledge that they are worried about the influence that the former groups members might exert over Libya after Colonel Qaddafi is gone, and they are trying to assess their influence and any lingering links to Al Qaeda.
The group, whose fighters number more than 500 men, including many with combat experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, was part of the social fabric of eastern Libya, its leaders say. Its members relatives are in Benghazi, the wellhead of opposition to the government in Tripoli. Its fighters opposed Colonel Qaddafi in the 1990s, were captured and died in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. They hid from Qaddafi security forces in the caves in Darnah until the Libyan revolution. In short, many Libyans say, the men are seen not as an alien, pernicious force but as patriots.
Libyans have held positions in the Qaeda ranks in the past, with the most prominent men being Abu Laith al-Libi and Abu Yahya al-Libi. It is easy to change a name and say, We are not part of Al Qaeda, but the question is if they have changed their ideology and I doubt it, said a senior Arab intelligence official.
An American intelligence official who follows North Africa said that dozens of the former groups members trained and fought alongside militants in Pakistans lawless tribal region.
Abu Sohaib insists that he and his brethren have severed ties to Al Qaeda and have warned the terrorist group it is not welcome in Libya. It has been made very clear to them, that it is better for them to stay out of the country, he said.
Here in London, Abu Sohaib and a dozen or so former commanders make up a rear-guard headquarters of sorts, with some members shuttling between London and Benghazi to strategize and share donations collected from the sizable Libyan expatriate community in Britain. We are part of the Libyan people and we just want to help our country, Abu Sohaib said.
The formal American recognition of the rebel leadership allows the rebel government access to $30 billion in Libyan assets held in the United States. Of that, however, only about $3.5 billion is in liquid funds, and the rest in real estate and other Libyan government investments, State Department officials say. It is unclear how and when the money will be distributed to the transitional government, and what oversight mechanism will be placed to monitor it.
In another sign that Colonel Qaddafis days in power may be numbered, White House and State Department officials acknowledged on Monday that Jeffrey D. Feltman, the assistant secretary of state responsible for the Middle East, met with members of the Libyan government on Saturday in Tunis.
PARIS (AP) France's foreign minister suggested Wednesday that a possible way out of Libya's civil war would be to allow Muammar Gaddafi to stay in the country if he relinquishes power.
Gaddafi insists he will neither step down nor flee the country he has led for four decades. With the NATO-led air campaign against Gaddafi's forces entering its fifth month and the fighting in a stalemate, the international community is seeking exit strategies.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy met in Paris on Wednesday with three rebel leaders from the western port city of Misrata who are seeking aid and arms to move toward Tripoli. Sarkozy announced no specific measures in response.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France wants to keep "a very close link" with the rebels "to see how we can help."
Asked whether Gaddafi could stay in Libya under house arrest, for example, Juppe said on LCI television Wednesday: "One of the hypotheses that is envisaged is that he stays in Libya, on one condition ... that he clearly steps aside from Libya's political life. This is what we are waiting for before launching a political process."
The rebels initially insisted that Gaddafi leave the country, but some are not ruling out the possibility that he could stay in Libya if he gives up power. The two sides have been locked in a stalemate with the rebels unable to advance beyond pockets in the west despite a NATO air campaign against Gaddafi's forces.
Rebel military leaders Ramadan Zarmouh and Ahmed Hachem and the Misrata representative of the opposition government, Souleiman Fortia, met with Sarkozy on Wednesday.
"Their message was the following: what we did to liberate our city, we can do it to move forward towards Tripoli," said French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who helped organize the meeting and has championed the Libyan rebel cause.
"If they (the rebels) have the means, they just need a few days to reach the doors of Tripoli. They are expected in the three cities before Tripoli by experienced fighters who are just waiting for them. So a few days will be enough," he said.
He said Sarkozy listened to them but did not say whether any aid or arms were pledged.
France has played a driving role in the NATO-led campaign of airstrikes, mandated by the U.N. to protect civilians from a crackdown by Gaddafi's forces on an uprising against his rule, amid revolts this year around the Arab world.
Last week, more than 30 nations including the United States gave the Libyan rebels a boost by recognizing their National Transitional Council as the country's legitimate government, potentially freeing up billions of dollars in urgently needed cash.
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - A U.N. envoy will seek to persuade warring parties in Libya to accept a plan that envisages a ceasefire and a power-sharing government - but with no role for Muammar Gaddafi, a European diplomat said.
The diplomat said the informal proposals would be canvassed by the special U.N. envoy to Libya, Abdul Elah al-Khatib, who has met both government and rebels several times.
Khatib, a Jordanian senator, told Reuters in Amman he hoped both sides would accept his ideas.
"The U.N. is exerting very serious efforts to create a political process that has two pillars; one is an agreement on a ceasefire and simultaneously an agreement on setting up a mechanism to manage the transitional period," he said.
He did not go into the details of that mechanism.
In public, the Libyan leader remained firm, telling supporters he would never countenance talks with the rebels who rose up in February to try to end his 41-year one-man rule.
"There will be no talks between me and them until Judgment Day," Gaddafi told a crowd of thousands in his home town of Sirte in a remotely delivered audio message on Thursday.
"They need to talk with the Libyan people ... and they will respond to them."
He has, however, said he welcomes talks with Western powers, with no preconditions But Washington and Paris say they have given his officials the same simple message: Gaddafi must go.
Gaddafi has stepped up his defiant rhetoric in frequent speeches as pressure mounts amid persistent reports of talks.
The rebels have this week declared advances on several front lines in the divided country, but seem unlikely to unseat him quickly despite months of backing from NATO air strikes, authorized under a U.N. resolution to protect civilians.
Analysts say the stalemate has led to intensified diplomatic overtures, with France saying for the first time this week that Gaddafi could stay in Libya as long as he gives up power.
The European diplomat, who declined to be named, said talks had yet to start on Khatib's plan, which foresees an immediate transitional authority made up equally of government and rebels.
The authority would appoint a president, run the security forces and supervise a reconciliation process, leading to elections to an assembly which would write a constitution.
Gaddafi and his sons would be excluded from the authority since the rebels would never accept them, but his prime minister, for example, might have a role, the diplomat said.
The Libyan leader would only accept a transition if his own fate was guaranteed, so he would not immediately be handed to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which wants him tried for crimes against humanity allegedly committed by his forces, he added.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Airstrikes hit a southeastern area of the Libyan capital early Sunday.
The sound of a jet plane, followed by an explosion at 1 a.m., sent up a huge cloud of white smoke, not far from the sprawling compound of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at Bab al-Aziziyah
At least two more rumbling blasts could be heard in the east of the city and Libyan television confirmed that an "imperialist Crusader" bombardment had struck the district of Ain Zara, southeast of Tripoli.
A Libyan opposition group, Free Generation Movement, posted online that there were four explosions in the Ain Zara area and speculated the target could have been the External Security headquarters or facilities for storing weapons.
Under a U.N. mandate, NATO warplanes have been carrying out airstrikes on the Libyan government military targets.
Just 24 hours earlier there were a series of at least six explosions in the Bab al-Aziziyah area. NATO later reported a "command and control" facility had been hit.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- The part of Libya under Moammar Gadhafi's control is wracked by shortages in fuel, food and cash despite a veneer of normalcy, according to a U.N. fact-finding mission.
In a statement issued late Monday, the United Nations said its weeklong mission to the country had identified lack of fuel, rising food prices, a strained medical system, and a cash crunch as some of the problems besetting Gadhafi's government.
"Although the mission observed aspects of normalcy in Tripoli, members identified pockets of vulnerability where people need urgent humanitarian assistance," Humanitarian Coordinator Laurence Hart said about the U.N. mission, which concluded Sunday.
A rebellion that erupted against Gadhafi's long time rule in mid-February has descended into a civil war with roughly half the country now outside government hands.
The U.N. has passed sanctions against Gadhafi's regime that make importing fuel and goods difficult, and at least 30 countries have recognized the rebels as the country's legitimate representatives.
The U.N. said the country's medical system is under strain not only because of casualties from the fighting with rebels but the departure of thousands of foreign health workers that kept the system running.
Libya's acute fuel crisis is also a major problem, said the statement, with endless gas lines around petrol stations despite a fuel rationing system.
The U.N. quoted Libyan experts claiming that supplies might run out in two weeks.
Gasoline and other products are currently imported or smuggled through Tunisia and neighboring Algeria. Libya also has working refineries, but not enough capacity to meet daily demand.
The Islamic fasting month of Ramadan is expected to start Monday and will likely add further strain to the country's food supplies.
"There are also concerns over the unsustainable food supply chain for the public distribution systems, especially as Ramadan approaches and the conflict persists," the U.N. said. Following a dawn to dusk fast, families during Ramadan are accustomed to large feasts after sundown.
Banks are also restricting the amount of cash people can withdraw, the U.N. said, after many Libyans withdrew their savings at the start of the crisis.
The battle between the Libyan government and the rebels has descended into a stalemate with little movement on the various fronts across the country, despite a NATO bombing campaign directed against Gadhafi's forces.
TRIPOLI, Libya -- A Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie has attended a rally in Tripoli in support of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's state TV said.
The TV broadcast showed a man wearing a white turban and sitting in a wheelchair during Tuesday's rally and identified him as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Al-Megrahi was convicted in the 1988 downing of the plane that killed 270 people, most of them Americans, over Scotland.
Al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison in 2009 on medical grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome in Libya later that year.
Gadhafi is locked in battle with Libyan rebels who have seized control of the east of the country and pockets in the west. The fighting began after a popular uprising erupted in February and quickly escalated into civil war.
Britain, meanwhile, officially recognized Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government, and on Wednesday expelled all diplomats from Gadhafi's regime.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain is unfreezing 91 million pounds ($150 million) of Libyan oil assets to help the rebels' National Transitional Council, which the U.K. now recognizes as "the sole governmental authority in Libya."
Hague said the council had been invited to send an ambassador to London, adding that "we will deal with the National Transitional Council on the same basis as other governments around the world."
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, Lockerbie Bomber, Appears At Pro-Gaddafi Rally In Libya
TRIPOLI, Libya -- A Libyan man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am plane over the Scottish town of Lockerbie has attended a rally in Tripoli in support of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's state TV said.
The TV broadcast showed a man wearing a white turban and sitting in a wheelchair during Tuesday's rally and identified him as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. Al-Megrahi was convicted in the 1988 downing of the plane that killed 270 people, most of them Americans, over Scotland.
Al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison in 2009 on medical grounds after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Al-Megrahi returned to a hero's welcome in Libya later that year.
Gadhafi is locked in battle with Libyan rebels who have seized control of the east of the country and pockets in the west. The fighting began after a popular uprising erupted in February and quickly escalated into civil war.
Britain, meanwhile, officially recognized Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government, and on Wednesday expelled all diplomats from Gadhafi's regime.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said Britain is unfreezing 91 million pounds ($150 million) of Libyan oil assets to help the rebels' National Transitional Council, which the U.K. now recognizes as "the sole governmental authority in Libya."
Hague said the council had been invited to send an ambassador to London, adding that "we will deal with the National Transitional Council on the same basis as other governments around the world."
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, Lockerbie Bomber, Appears At Pro-Gaddafi Rally In Libya
NALUT, Libya (Reuters) Rebels in Libya's Western Mountains launched an offensive on Thursday against Muammar Gaddafi's troops, one day after Britain granted diplomatic recognition to the opposition.
With prospects of a negotiated settlement fading, both sides appear to be preparing for the five-month-old war to grind on into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in August.
"We have started attacking Ghezaia with rockets and tanks," rebel spokesman Mohammed Maylud said.
Ghezaia is a town near the Tunisian border which has been in government hands since the conflict began.
At a checkpoint outside the nearby rebel-held town of Nalut, they sounded optimistic as the fighting began.
"We are confident we can beat Gaddafi now, we have captured more weapons from the Libyan army, mostly AK-47s," said Mohammed Ahmed, 20, a market trader turned fighter.
Basim Ahmed, a fighter coming back from the front, said rebels had taken control of parts of three villages and many government troops had fled, but this was not possible to verify.
As sustained bombardments could be heard in the distance, an ambulance raced to Nalut hospital. A rebel with a gunshot wound to the shoulder was brought into the emergency room, where he lay semi-conscious.
Minutes later a commotion could be heard in the parking lot. A government soldier who had been captured was led to a hospital bed a few feet away from the rebel. He was missing a hand and was barefoot.
The soldier, who gave his name as Hassan, told Reuters that the army was losing the will to fight.
"We don't want to keep fighting. Everybody is against us." he said, speaking from his hospital cot.
Blood seeped through the bandage bound around the stump of his missing hand but a rebel nonetheless tried to interrogate him, asking him his unit and where he was from.
Eight wounded combatants lay in the hospital in total -- four rebels and four Gaddafi soldiers. Six other Gaddafi soldiers had been taken prisoner, witnesses said.
Rebels have taken large swathes of Libya since rising up to end Gaddafi's 41-year rule.
They hold much of the Western Mountains range, northeast Libya including their stronghold Benghazi, and the western city of Misrata.
Yet they remain poorly armed and are often disorganized. Despite the backing of NATO air strikes, they have failed to reach the capital Tripoli and appear unlikely to do so soon.
Ghezaia is of local strategic importance, a base from which government troops attack rebels in the mountains, but if it fell this would not bring the opposition nearer to Tripoli.
Gaddafi has scoffed at the rebels' efforts to end his rule and has weathered a rebel advance and NATO air raids on his forces and military infrastructure.
A recent flurry of diplomatic activity has yielded little, with the rebels insisting Gaddafi step down as a first step and his government saying his role is non-negotiable.
United Nations envoy Abdel Elah al-Khatib visited both sides this week with plans for a ceasefire and a power-sharing government that excludes Gaddafi, but won no visible result.
Asked about Khatib's proposal, rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said: "We were surprised the day before yesterday that we are taking 10 steps back... and he says to share power with Muammar Gaddafi's regime. This is laughable."
Gaddafi also appeared defiant on Wednesday, urging rebels to lay down their arms or suffer an ugly death.
"We all lead this battle, until victory, until martyrdom," he said in a message aired at a pro-Gaddafi rally in Zaltan, 140 km (90 miles) west of the capital Tripoli.
(Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's camp has vowed to push on with its war against rebels whether or not NATO stops its bombing campaign, leaving little room for diplomacy to end the five-month conflict.
The rebels and their Western backers kept up the pressure on the veteran leader as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began, with NATO bombing military targets and dropping leaflets over the capital calling on loyalists to give up.
The rebels, who have seized about half the country but frequently lose ground to counter-attacks by better armed and trained Gaddafi forces and remain dogged by their own internal divisions, consolidated gains around Zlitan, a key town 160 km (100 miles) east of Tripoli.
A war that some thought might be over in weeks once NATO forces, backed by a United Nations mandate to protect civilians, started to bomb Gaddafi's military installations in March is instead dragging on into the hot summer and a month of fasting.
"No one should think that after all the sacrifices we have made, and the martyrdom of our sons, brothers and friends, we will stop fighting. Forget it," state television showed Saif al-Islam, the leader's son, saying to families displaced from the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
"Regardless of whether NATO leaves or not, the fighting will continue until all of Libya is liberated," he added, in comments that were made on Sunday but broadcast on Monday evening.
Saif al-Islam has not been seen speaking in public for several weeks.
A United Nations peace envoy was dispatched to Libya last week and Gaddafi's government had previously said that it would only start talks if NATO stopped its bombing raids.
However, after talks with both sides, the envoy Abdel Elah al-Khatib left without making any visible progress and the world body said the two camps were far apart.
Gaddafi may also sense an opportunity to exploit divisions caused by the slaying last week of the top rebel military commander in as yet unexplained circumstances.
The rebels control most of the east of the country and have launched an offensive in the Western Mountains, near Tunisia.
From Misrata -- Libya's third largest city some 210 km (130 miles) east of the capital which the rebels clung onto after weeks of street-to-street fighting -- they hope to march west.
"Fasting has only increased our determination and resolve to defeat the brigades of the tyrant (Gaddafi) to liberate Zlitan entirely, God willing, and make our way to our capital Tripoli, God willing," said frontline rebel commander Husam Hussein.
TRIPOLI, Libya — After six months battling a rebellion that his family portrayed as an Islamist conspiracy, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s son and one-time heir apparent said Wednesday that he was reversing course to forge a behind-the-scenes alliance with radical Islamist elements among the Libyan rebels to drive out their more liberal-minded confederates.
“The liberals will escape or be killed,” the son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, vowed in an hourlong interview that stretched past midnight. “We will do it together,” he added, wearing a newly grown beard and fingering Islamic prayer beads as he reclined on a love seat in a spare office tucked in a nearly deserted downtown hotel. “Libya will look like Saudi Arabia, like Iran. So what?”
The leading Islamist whom Mr. Qaddafi identified as his main counterpart in the talks, Ali Sallabi, acknowledged their conversations but dismissed any suggestion of an alliance. He said the Libyan Islamists supported the rebel leaders’ calls for a pluralistic democracy without the Qaddafis.
But the interview nonetheless offered a rare glimpse into the defiant, some say delusional, mentality of the Qaddafi family at a time when they have all but completely retreated from public view under the threat of a NATO bombing campaign, now five months old, and a six-month rebellion.
On one level, Mr. Qaddafi’s avowed embrace of the Islamists represents a sharp personal reversal for a man who had long styled himself as a cosmopolitan, Anglophile advocate of Western-style liberal democracy. He continues to refer to the Islamists as “terrorists” and “bloody men,” and says, “We don’t trust them, but we have to deal with them.”
But it may also be simply a twist on an old theme, a new version of the Qaddafi argument that by assisting the rebels the Western intervention could usher in a radical Islamist takeover. In a further taunt to the West, he suggested that the Qaddafis would even help the Islamists stamp out the liberals.
“You want us to make a compromise. O.K. You want us to share the pot. O.K., But with who?” he said in imagined dialogue with the Western powers. The Islamists, he said, answering his own questions, “are the real force on the ground.”
“Everybody is taking off the mask, and now you have to face the reality,” he said. “I know they are terrorists. They are bloody. They are not nice. But you have to accept them.” He seemed to enjoy repeating the notion that Western capitals would be forced to welcome the ambassadors or defense minister of a new Islamist Libya.
“It is a funny story,” he said, though he insisted in all seriousness that he and the Islamists would announce a joint communiqué within days, from both Tripoli and the rebels’ provisional capital of Benghazi, Libya. “We will have peace during Ramadan,” he said, referring to the current Islamic holy month.
Less than a week after the mysterious killing of the rebels’ top military commander, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, by rebel gunmen, Mr. Qaddafi also seemed to be trying to capitalize on potential divisions within their ranks. There have been suggestions that the general was killed by an Islamist faction, perhaps in retaliation for his actions in his former role as Colonel Qaddafi’s interior minister, charged with the detention and torture of radical Islamists.
“They decided to get rid of those people — the ex-military people like Abdul Fattah and the liberals — to take control of the whole operation,” Mr. Qaddafi said. “In other words, to take off the mask.”
He said that the rebel-held eastern city of Darna, long known as a hotbed of Islamist activism, had already come to resemble the lawless regions of Pakistan. “It is Waziristan on the Mediterranean,” he said, adding that he had reached an agreement with local Islamists to allow them to make it “an Islamic zone, like Mecca.”
His comments also conveyed a new disdain for peace talks — with either the rebels’ governing council or its NATO backers — which Qaddafi spokesmen still call for almost every day. Mr. Qaddafi attributed recognition by the United States and other countries of the rebels’ governing council to “a lot of idiot people around the world.” As for the rebels themselves, Mr. Qaddafi called them “rats” and their council “a fake,” “a joke” and “a puppet.”
BENGHAZI, Libya -- Libya's rebels said Friday they have reports that Moammar Gadhafi's youngest son, who commands one of the regime's strongest military brigades, was killed in a NATO airstrike in the western town of Zlitan.
NATO said in a statement that it was aware of the reports that Khamis Gadhafi had been killed, but it did not confirm his death. It said alliance strikes on Thursday night hit an ammunition depot and military police facility in Zlitan, which is the main front of fighting between rebels and Gadhafi's troops, 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli.
Mohammed al-Rajali, a spokesman for the rebel leadership in the eastern stronghold of Benghazi said there were unconfirmed reports Khamis was among 32 troops killed when NATO hit a government operations center early Friday.
"We want to capture all of these criminals and try them and bring them to justice but if killing them this way will stop the bloodshed I think it is another option," al-Rajali told The Associated Press.
Libyan government officials could also not be reached for comment.
The death of the 27-year-old Khamis Gadhafi would be a significant blow to the regime's efforts to fight off the rebels. He commands the 32nd Brigade, also known simply as the Khamis Brigade, one of the best trained and equipped units in the Libyan military.
Khamis' troops have been fighting rebels in and around the western town of Zlitan for months. The town is a major obstacle in the path of rebels from the nearby city of Misrata trying to make their way to the capital, Tripoli. The civil war has largely devolved into a stalemate both at Zlitan and further east, around the oil port of Brega.
This isn't the first time Khamis has been reported dead by rebel forces.
In late March, rumors circulated that he was killed in an airstrike, only to be shown days later on state television attending a celebration in his honor at his father's Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli.
Gadhafi's sons and a daughter have all played roles in their father's regime, some in diplomatic or business roles. His sons Mutassim, Khamis and al-Saadi all head military brigades.
A third son, Seif al-Islam, has become the Western face of the regime and before the uprising began in February was put forth as the reformer, heading a variety of youth organizations.
In May, Libyan officials announced on state TV that another of Gadhafi's seven biological sons, Seif al-Arab, was killed along with three of Moammar Gadhafi's grandchildren in a NATO airstrike against his house in the Tripoli neighborhood of Ghargour. The Libyan leader and his wife were inside but escaped unharmed, according to Libyan officials.
Khamis was injured in U.S. bombing raids in 1986 shortly after Libya was blamed for masterminding a bombing in West Berlin that killed an American soldier and woman. He would have been 2 or 3 years old at the time.
In February, eight days before the Libyan uprising began, Khamis Gadhafi was given a VIP tour of the Air Force Academy in Colorado during a U.S. tour. After he returned home, he led forces loyal to his father in an assault on the rebel-held city of Zawiya, where civilian protests against his father were crushed.
After American planes bombed Tripoli on April 14, 1986, the Libyan Ministry of Information declared that an adopted daughter of Muammar Gaddafi, Hana, less than a year old, had died in the attack. The news was announced on Libyan radio, TV and print media.
Up until then, no one had heard of the existence of the child -- Aisha, who was born in 1977, was thought to be Gaddafis only daughter.
The story of the adopted child killed by the Americans has persisted, although some doubted from the outset that Hana really existed and, if she did, that she died. An American journalist at the time was shown the body of a baby girl -- but was she a Gaddafi daughter or a victim being passed off as such for propaganda reasons?
Whatever the truth, the Libyan state propaganda machine kept milking the story, and on the 20th anniversary of the attack, organized the Hana Festival of Freedom and Peace.
Then in February 2011, Welt am Sonntag, the Sunday Edition of Die Welt, obtained a copy of a document related to the case that came to light in Switzerland after fighting broke out in Libya, and the Swiss government ordered Gaddafi assets in Switzerland frozen. The document lists 23 members of the Gaddafi clan. Seventh on the list: Hana Gaddafi. An official government spokesperson in Bern told Welt am Sonntag: There are reasons why the name is on the list, which we are not revealing publicly. Hana Gaddafis date of birth is listed as Nov. 11, 1985. At the time of the U.S. bombing, she would have been six months old.
There were some previous clues in the case. On June 6, 1999, the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported that Gaddafis wife, Safia Farkash al-Barassi, and Gaddafi daughters Aisha and Hana had had lunch with then-South African President Nelson Mandela. Indeed, photographs show a young girl with Mrs. Gaddafi and Aisha.
In recent information received by "Welt am Sonntag," sources say Hana Gaddafi is alive, has spent considerable time in London as a teenger, and speaks good English. Contacted by Welt am Sonntag, the British Foreign Office said it would not release information about Gaddafis family, and the MI5 intelligence agency would neither confirm nor deny Hana Gaddafis existence.
In Libya, its an open secret that a Hana Gaddafi studied medicine in Tripoli. The young woman was apparently protected by bodyguards. When I asked who she was, I was told she was Hana Gaddafi, Gaddafis adopted daughter who was supposedly killed in 1986, says an anonymous Internet commentator who claimed to have studied medicine at the university at the same time.
Libyan sources say Hana Gaddafi became a doctor, that she still lives in Libya, and holds an important position in the Libyan Ministry of Health. Diplomatic circles in Tripoli have known about Hana Gaddafis existence for several years.
Theories continue to swirl around the story. However, recent developments in Libya indicate that Colonel Gaddafi doesnt shy away from using the supposed death of family members at the hands of Western aggressors to win sympathy from his people.
ZINTAN, Libya -- Rebels in the western mountains of Libya spent weeks meticulously organizing in the town of Zintan for what has now become the opposition's most successful advance in months against Moammar Gadhafi's forces.
Hundreds of regime opponents filtered in from the coastal city of Zawiya and other parts of the Gadhafi-controlled western heartland along the Mediterranean. They formed fighting units in hopes of "liberating" their home towns.
This town of 40,000 on the plateau of the Nafusa Mountains overlooking the coastal plain has become the nerve center of what is now the most promising front in the rebel campaign to oust Gadhafi: an attempt to flank the grinding deadlock in the center of the country with an assault from the far west.
Already, the rebels have managed to push northward, threatening Gadhafi's main supply line linking the capital of Tripoli with the Tunisian border to the west.
Virtually everyone in Zintan, from policemen to hospital cooks and dentists, has either picked up a gun or works at the home front without pay.
Volunteers distribute food, fuel and supplies trucked in from nearby Tunisia to Zintan's residents to get them through shortages while the town and its neighbors focus on the battle.
Once or twice a week, a small transport plane touches down on an unpaved landing strip, loaded with cash and medical supplies from the rebel capital of Benghazi hundreds of miles away in the east, a vital lifeline for this mountain town that has entirely geared up to fight Gadhafi.
"We are looking for freedom," said Mustafa al-Fakhal, 35.
Al-Fakhal is an engineering teacher, but his current job is welding anti-aircraft weapons and machine guns into the beds of pickup trucks. Such gun-trucks are the workhorses of the rebel fighters, and he and his co-workers have churned them out at a rate of around one a day for the past three months. His volunteer team of six includes three experienced welders, but also a former math teacher with a knack for fixing machines.
Gadhafi's troops are still better equipped, trained and financed, though weakened by five months of NATO airstrikes. Earlier on in the uprising that began in February, regime loyalists managed to repel every advance by the eastern rebels out of the Benghazi and they could still push back the western mountain rebels.
For now, the offensive has brought the biggest successes for the rebels in months. On Saturday, rebels fought their way into one of their key targets, the strategic city of Zawiya, only 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Tripoli, battling Gadhafi forces in the streets as many residents joined the rebel ranks.
The rebels are pushing down from Zintan and other towns in the Nafusa Mountains into the coastal plain and they hope on to the capital, Tripoli.
The fighters, though poorly trained, say they have learned to avoid mistakes that plagued their efforts on the eastern front. In the east, fighters would charge ahead in furious advances, then retreat pell-mell when hit by Gadhafi's artillery and rockets.
The eastern and western rebels appear to coordinate their moves only loosely, hampered by the distance and difficulties of contact and communications with Gadhafi forces holding the middle ground between them.
The western rebels are trying to move more cautiously than the eastern rebels did. As they advanced the past week, they set up rear defensive positions, erecting earth walls and deploying tanks, to fall back to if necessary.
"If we go step by step, slowly, it is better than if we hurry and return back," said Col. Jumma Ibrahim, a rebel spokesman in the mountains.
Still, old habits die hard. Some of the rebels who advanced to Zawiya's edge Saturday charged into the center of the city, vowing to liberate it, only to be ambushed by Gadhafi forces. However, by Sunday, the rebels had consolidated positions in Zawiya.
The people of the Nafusa Mountains, many of them from Libya's long-oppressed ethnic Berber minority, were quick to rise up against Gadhafi when anti-regime protests spread across the country in February. Aided by topography the plateau towers over the Mediterranean coastal plain rebels were able to push back regime troops from the string of towns tucked into the mountain after months of shelling and siege.
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 significant advance that brought them within 30 miles of Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital Tripoli.
Abdel-Elah al-Khatib, Jordan's former foreign minister, arrived in the Tunisian capital Tunis on 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. A Tunisian security official said al-Khatib might also meet with a representative of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. That envoy has been on the Tunisian isle of Djerba for the past days.
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 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.
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 Tuesday in an artillery strike, including a woman and a child.
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.
ZAWIYA, Libya Rebels battled Moammar Gadhafi loyalists for control over Libya's only functioning oil refinery in the western city of Zawiya Wednesday, as the opposition tried to cut off fuel supplies to the regime's stronghold of Tripoli.
Rebel fighter Ramadan Keshada said his forces control parts of the refinery complex in the city's north on the Mediterranean coast, while some regime troops and civilian workers remain inside. He said rebels and regime forces clashed there on Tuesday, then the opposition fighters pulled out at nightfall and made a new push in the daylight.
An Associated Press photographer entered the refinery with the rebels and heard sniper fire.
The Libyan rebels made a dramatic advance over the weekend out of their bases in the western mountains near the border with Tunisia into Zawiya, just 30 miles from the capital Tripoli. They took control of parts of the city but have been fighting fierce battles with Gadhafi's forces to hold their ground and take more territory.
The rebel advance is tightening the noose around Tripoli. The fighters are closing in on the capital from the west and the south, while NATO controls the seas off Tripoli, which sits on the Mediterranean coast. Hundreds of miles away from the capital, the opposition is in control of most of the eastern half of the country, and have a transitional leadership council in their de facto capital of Benghazi.
Osama Arousi, a rebel spokesman in Zawiya, told the AP the gas pipeline from Zawiya to Tripoli has been cut off by the rebels. The rebels claimed to have cut the pipelines earlier in the week as well.
He said Gadhafi's forces have shut the gate of the residential compound for refinery workers and their families. Many of the workers were evacuated early in the civil war that started in February.
An Associated Press reporter in Zawiya saw three pickup tricks loaded with fighters speeding toward the refinery.
The capture of the 120,000 barrel per day refinery in Zawiya is more a symbolic coup for the rebels than one that has a major impact on Gadhafi's ability to secure fuel, analysts said.
The flow of crude to the refinery from fields in the southwest of Libya had largely been halted since midsummer and the refinery was believed to be running at about one-third of its normal capacity, drawing mainly on crude oil that was in its storage tanks. But Zawiya mostly produced fuel oil, versus gasoline, which Gadhafi was trucking in mainly from Tunisia and, to a lesser extent, Algeria.
"In that sense, it's more significant that they (the rebels) have got control of the roads than the refinery," said John Hamilton, a Libya energy expert with Cross-Border Information and a contributing editor of Africa Energy. "Strategically, that's a more important gain for the rebels. Having control of the roads makes it much harder for Gadhafi to get the petrol he needs."
Embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi may be preparing to flee the country within days, according to NBC News.
U.S. officials told NBC that intelligence reports suggest Gaddafi is in the process of making plans to evacuate from Libya with his family. The reports indicate he may be headed to Tunisia, where it is possible he will be granted exile.
At least seven loud blasts were heard in Tripoli early Friday morning as bombs fell in the vicinity of Gaddafi's main headquarters of Bab al-Aziziya.
On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Libyan leader's days appeared to be numbered. "Gaddafi's forces are weakened," he said.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon offered sharp criticism of the situation in Libya, saying he was "deeply concerned by reports of the unacceptably large number of civilian casualties."
TRIPOLI, Libya -- Euphoric Libyan rebels took control of most of Tripoli in a lightning advance Sunday, celebrating the victory in Green Square, the symbolic heart of Moammar Gadhafi's regime. Gadhafi's defenders quickly melted away as his 42-year rule crumbled, but the leader's whereabouts were unknown and pockets of resistance remained.
State TV broadcast Gadhafi's bitter pleas for Libyans to defend his regime. Opposition fighters captured his son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, who along with his father faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Another son was under house arrest.
"It's over, frizz-head," chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Gadhafi. The revelers fired shots in the air, clapped and waved the rebels' tricolor flag. Some set fire to the green flag of Gadhafi's regime and shot holes in a poster with the leader's image.
The startling rebel breakthrough, after a long deadlock in Libya's 6-month-old civil war, was the culmination of a closely coordinated plan by rebels, NATO and anti-Gadhafi residents inside Tripoli, rebel leaders said. Rebel fighters from the west swept over 20 miles (30 kilometers) in a matter of hours Sunday, taking town after town and overwhelming a major military base as residents poured out to cheer them. At the same time, Tripoli residents secretly armed by rebels rose up.
When rebels reached the gates of Tripoli, the special battalion entrusted by Gadhafi with guarding the capital promptly surrendered. The reason: Its commander, whose brother had been executed by Gadhafi years ago, was secretly loyal to the rebellion, a senior rebel official Fathi al-Baja told The Associated Press.
Al-Baja, the head of the rebels' political committee, said the opposition's National Transitional Council had been working on the offensive for the past three months, coordinating with NATO and rebels within Tripoli. Sleeper cells were set up in the capital, armed by rebel smugglers. On Thursday and Friday, NATO intensified strikes inside the capital, and on Saturday, the sleeper cells began to rise up.
President Barack Obama said Libya is "slipping from the grasp of a tyrant" and urged Gadhafi to relinquish power to prevent more bloodshed.
"The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people," Obama said in a statement from Martha's Vineyard, where he's vacationing. He promised to work closely with rebels.
By the early hours of Monday, opposition fighters controlled most of the capital. The seizure of Green Square held profound symbolic value - the plaza was the scene of pro-Gadhafi rallies organized by the regime almost every night, and Gadhafi delivered speeches to his loyalists from the historic Red Fort that overlooks the square. Rebels and Tripoli residents set up checkpoints around the city, though pockets of pro-Gadhafi fighters remained. In one area, AP reporters with the rebels were stopped and told to take a different route because of regime snipers nearby.
Abdel-Hakim Shugafa, a 26-year-old rebel fighter, said he was stunned by how easy it was. He saw only about 20 minutes of gunbattles as he and his fellow fighters pushed into the capital at nightfall.
"I expect Libya to be better," said Shugafa, part of a team guarding the National Bank near Green Square. "He (Gadhafi) oppressed everything in the country - health and education. Now we can build a better Libya."
In a series of angry and defiant audio messages broadcast on state television, Gadhafi called on his supporters to march in the streets of the capital and "purify it" of "the rats." He was not shown in the messages.
His defiance raised the possibility of a last-ditch fight over the capital, home to 2 million people. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim claimed the regime has "thousands and thousands of fighters" and vowed: "We will fight. We have whole cities on our sides. They are coming en masse to protect Tripoli to join the fight."
But it seemed that significant parts of Gadhafi's regime and military were abandoning him. His prime minister, Al-Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi, fled to a hotel in the Tunisian city of Djerba, said Guma el-Gamaty, a London-based rebel spokesman.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Gadhafi's regime was "clearly crumbling" and that the time to create a new democratic Libya has arrived.
It was a stunning reversal for Gadhafi, who earlier this month had seemed to have a firm grip on his stronghold in the western part of Libya, despite months of NATO airstrikes on his military. Rebels had been unable to make any advances for weeks, bogged down on the main fronts with regime troops in the east and center of the country.
