Libyan rebels brought up short, Sirte blasted by NATO jets

The rebels came under heavy fire at the village of Harawa, some 60 kilometres (35 miles) short of Kadhafi\'s birthplace.

French journalists at the scene, who escaped unhurt, reported at least two casualties and several rebel pick-up trucks destroyed in the assault.

Artillery fire continued for half-an-hour, the journalists said, halting the rebels\' progress.

After their rapid progress on Sunday, helped by overnight coalition air raids, Monday proved something of a sticking point and earlier in the day, their advance westwards towards Tripoli was halted about 140 kilometres (85 miles) east of Sirte but later resumed.

Ahead of an international conference in London on Tuesday, Britain and France called for supporters of the Libyan leader to abandon him "before it\'s too late" and insisted the rebel National Transitional Council and civil society leaders should help a Libyan transition towards democracy, saying Kadhafi must go immediately.

US President Barack Obama was due to address the nation on the conflict later in the day and was expected to tell Americans that the assault on Libya averted a humanitarian "catastrophe".

Libyan forces loyal to Moamer Kadhafi have ended their onslaught on rebel-held Misrata and "calm" has been restored, the foreign ministry announced, without clearly indicating whether the town is now back under loyalist control.

Opposition representatives in Benghazi, meanwhile, were trying to form a government-in-waiting.

At present, the official voice of Libya\'s opposition rests with the so-called Provisional Transitional National Council (PTNC), a group of 31 members representing the country\'s major cities and towns.

Life returned to something like normal in Benghazi but the insurgents say it will not become the capital of a rebel state -- their aim is to take Tripoli and rule over a unified, post-Kadhafi Libya.

On Sunday, the rebels had seized Bin Jawad after retaking the key oil town of Ras Lanuf as they advanced with the support of coalition air strikes on Kadhafi\'s forces.

But on Monday they came under heavy machine-gun fire from regime loyalists in pick-up trucks on the road from Bin Jawad to Nofilia.

The insurgents pulled back into Bin Jawad and opened up with heavy artillery.

Pick-ups flying the green flag of Tripoli and mounted with heavy machine guns opened up on the rebels who replied with multiple rocket launchers and cannon fire.

A 10-minute incoming artillery barrage panicked the thousand or so rebels along the road outside Bin Jawad, sending them fleeing in disorder.

"It won\'t be as easy as we thought to take Sirte and then march on Tripoli," said 20-year-old rebel fighter Ahmad al-Badri, wearing incomplete battledress and clutching an old Kalashnikov.

"But we won\'t stop -- we\'ll advance. They can\'t hold us up for long," Badri added.

All of the rebels who spoke to AFP expressed confidence that coalition warplanes would reopen the road to Sirte for them, but none had heard of NATO\'s decision to strike only when civilians were threatened by Kadhafi\'s army.

Later in the day, the advance continued cautiously as the rebels searched houses along the road and appeared to encounter diminishing resistance from Kadhafi loyalists.

An AFP reporter said nine powerful explosions rocked Sirte early on Monday, as warplanes flew overhead and the coalition operation to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya entered its ninth day.

The explosions, between 0420 GMT and 0435 GMT, followed two loud blasts on Sunday evening blamed by state television on an air raid by coalition forces.

British jets bombed ammunition bunkers in the south early on Monday after weekend strikes took out a score of tanks and armoured vehicles near the towns of Ajdabiya and Misrata, the defence ministry said in London.

Tornado GR4s flying from Britain and refuelled mid-air conducted strike missions against ammunition bunkers in Kadhafi\'s southern stronghold of Sebha.

NATO has finally taken over enforcing a no-fly zone and flew its first enforcement mission over Libya on Sunday in the operation codenamed "Unified Protector".

Officials cautioned, however, that the transfer of command would take 48 to 72 hours.

"Our goal is to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack from the Kadhafi regime," said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

"NATO will implement all aspects of the UN resolution. Nothing more, nothing less," he said.

The command transfer came as Tripoli also came under attack by what state television called "the colonial aggressor".

UN Security Council Resolution 1973, adopted earlier this month, authorised military action to protect Libyan civilians

Witnesses in the capital said the strikes targeted the road to the airport 10 kilometres (six miles) outside the city, as well as the Ain Zara neighbourhood on its eastern outskirts.

State news agency JANA reported that coalition warplanes had also launched a dawn air raid on residential areas of Kadhafi\'s southern stronghold of Sebha.

"Crusader forces bombed residential districts of Sebha at dawn, damaging homes and causing several casualties," the news agency said, without giving a toll.

Qatar on Monday became the second nation, after France, to recognise the PTNC as the "sole legitimate representative" of the Libyan people, the Gulf state\'s QNA state news agency said.

Of the 31 PTNC members, the names of only 13 have been publicly revealed. Council spokesmen say it is still too dangerous to identify members in areas still controlled by Kadhafi.

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