Libya raids hit Gaddafi’s hometown

Rebels advanced towards the birthplace of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Monday, firing  mortars and heavy machineguns in sporadic clashes with loyalist forces.Emboldened by Western-led air strikes against Gaddafi's forces, the rebels took the town of Nawfaliyah and moved towards Sirte, the leader's birthplace and an important military base, in the sixth week of an uprising against his 41-year rule.Diplomatic activity accelerated on the eve of a 35-nation meeting in London on Tuesday to discuss the crisis in the oil-producing North African country.

Libya raids hit Gaddafi’s hometown

 Italy proposed a political deal including a quick ceasefire, exile for Gaddafi and dialogue between rebels and tribal leaders. Russia criticised the Western intervention that has turned the tide in the conflict, saying it amounted to taking sides in a civil war and breached the terms of a United Nations Security Council resolution. The French and British leaders called for supporters of Gaddafi to abandon him and asked Libyans opposing him to join a political process to pave the way for his departure.

"Gaddafi must go immediately," President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister David Cameron said in a joint statement. "We call on all his supporters to drop him before it is too late." In the nine days since the start of the Western-led bombing, the motley volunteer force of rebels has pressed half-way along the coast from its stronghold of Benghazi towards the capital Tripoli, regaining control of all major oil terminals in the east of the OPEC member state. A U.S. Treasury Department official said the rebels cold sell Libyan crude oil without being subject to U.S. sanctions if they conducted transactions outside the National Oil Corp and other sanctioned entities in Gaddafi's administration. 

On Monday the rebels met sporadic resistance as they continued their advance in convoys of pick-up trucks with machineguns mounted on them. Just west of sandy, barren Nawfaliyah, bursts of sustained machinegun fire and the whoosh of several rockets could be heard, and plumes of black smoke rose ahead. "Our guns are trying to get the Gaddafi people," said Faisal Bozgaia, 28, a hospital worker turned rebel fighter. "Those are from our guns," he told Reuters, pointing to the smoke columns. Rebels said occasional ambushes by Gaddafi forces had pushed them back but that they later regained their positions.

"We were fighting here with Gaddafi forces. We are advancing one, two kilometres at a time," rebel Khalif Ali, 22, said in the town of Harawah, west of Nawfaliyah. But the rapid advance is stretching rebel supply lines. "We have a serious problem with petrol," said a volunteer fighter waiting to fill his vehicle in the oil town of Ras Lanuf. 

Western-led air strikes began on March 19, two days after the U.N. Security Council authorised "all necessary measures" to protect civilians from Gaddafi's forces. But since the outset, the mission has faced questions about its scope and aims, including the extent to which it will actively back the rebel side and whether it might target Gaddafi himself.