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