Gaddafi's planes attack oil port

Libyan warplanes have struck the rebel-held oil port in the eastern town of Brega.

The area was the site of a fierce battle yesterday between leader Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists, who tried to retake control of the strategic oil installation, and armed rebels who repelled the attack after hours of fighting.

In the nearby town of Ajdabiya, mortuary officials said the death toll from the fighting rose to 14 today.

The target of today’s airstrike was probably an airstrip that belongs to the huge oil complex.

Three marines from the Netherlands are being held by authorities in Libya after they were captured by forces loyal to Gaddafi while trying to rescue Dutch workers.

The three were surrounded by armed men and captured on Sunday after landing near Sirte in a Lynx helicopter on board the navy ship HMS Tromp, which is anchored off the Libyan coast to help evacuations from the conflict torn country.

Two people the marines were trying to rescue also were captured but have since been released and have left Libya.

At least 10 anti-Gaddafi fighters were killed and 18 wounded in yesterday’s battle for Brega, Libya’s second-largest petroleum facility, which the opposition has held since last week.

Citizen militias flowed in from a nearby city and from the opposition stronghold of Benghazi hours away to reinforce the defence.

For the past week, pro-Gaddafi forces have been focusing on the west, securing Tripoli and trying to take back nearby rebel-held cities. But the regime has seemed to struggle to bring an overwhelming force to bear against cities largely defended by local residents using weapons looted from storehouses and backed by allied army units.

Pro-Gaddafi forces succeeded over the weekend in retaking two small towns. But the major western rebel-held cities of Zawiya and Misrata, near Tripoli, have repelled repeated, major attacks – including new forays against Zawiya yesterday.

In Tripoli, Gaddafi warned against US or other Western intervention, vowing to turn Libya into “another Vietnam” and saying any foreign troops coming into his country “will be entering hell and they will drown in blood”.

In a speech to chanting and clapping supporters, Gaddafi vowed to fight on “until the last man and woman. We will defend Libya from the north to the south”.

He lashed out against Europe and the US for its pressure on him to step down, warning that “thousands of Libyans will die” if US and Nato forces intervened in the conflict.

“We will distribute arms to two or three millions and we will turn Libya into another Vietnam,” he said.

In Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and the stronghold of the rebellion in the east, a self-declared “interim government council” formed by the opposition called on nations to carry out air strikes on non-Libyan African mercenaries that Gaddafi has used in his militias to put down the uprising.

Council spokesman Abdel-Hafiz Hoga said the council urged strikes on the “strongholds of the mercenaries .... used against civilians and people”.

Later today, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is scheduled to announce he is opening an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed in Libya.

Meanwhile actress Angelina Jolie issued a humanitarian appeal for the tens of thousands of people affected by the fast-unfolding emergencies in Libya and Ivory Coast.

Jolie, a United Nations refugee agency goodwill ambassador, added her voice to calls by UN agencies to protect civilians displaced by the conflict in Libya, including thousands of refugees and asylum seekers still inside or trying to leave the country for neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia.