Libyan rebels defend oil installation from Gaddafi forces

Rebels have strengthened their hold on the strategic oil installation at Brega after repelling an attempt by loyalists of Muammar Gaddafi to retake it.

International pressure on the Libyan leader increased as an international court began investigating whether to charge him and his inner circle with crimes against humanity.

Army units allied with the rebels fanned out in the oil facilities and port at Brega, armed with machine guns and rocket launchers.

Government warplanes launched a new air strike on the town in the morning, according to witnesses. It was not clear what they targeted, but it was likely an airstrip that belongs to the huge oil complex on the Mediterranean coast.

But there were no reports of casualties, and pro-Gaddafi forces had withdrawn to another oil port, Ras Lanouf, 80 miles west along the coast after their defeat a day earlier.

"We are in a position to control the area and we are deploying our forces," a rebel army officer in Brega told The Associated Press.

In the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, east of the oil port, hundreds of mourners chanted "Down with Gaddafi" as they buried three of the at least 14 rebel fighters killed in Wednesday's battle.

"Our message to Gaddafi is we are coming and we will make Libya free," said one man in the crowd, Sami Mosur. "He is a criminal we are coming from to him from Benghazi, we are coming from everywhere. He is a killer."

The fighting at Brega halted for now the regime's first counteroffensive on the opposition-held eastern half of the country. It also underlined the deadlock that Libya appears to have fallen into more than two weeks into its upheaval.

Gaddafi's forces seem unable to bring significant strength to dislodge rebels from the territory they hold.

But the opposition does not have the capability to go on the offensive against Gaddafi's strongholds in the west, including the capital.

Gaddafi's regime has unleashed the bloodiest crackdown of any Arab nation to the wave of anti-government protests in the region. Hundreds are known to have been killed, and some estimates top 1,000.

In the Netherlands, the top prosecutor at the Hague-based International Criminal Court said he would investigate Gaddafi and his inner circle, including some of his sons, for possible crimes against humanity in the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Gaddafi and several commanders and regime officials had formal or de facto control over forces that attacked protesters. There will be "no impunity in Libya," he vowed.

Opposition leaders are pleading for foreign powers to launch air strikes to help them oust Gaddafi as the United States moves military forces closer to Libyan shores to put military muscle behind Washington's calls for Gaddafi to give up power immediately.

But the Pentagon tried to play down the idea of using military force in Libya, including a "no-fly zone" that Defence Secretary Robert Gates said would first require attacking Gaddafi's government.

"Let's just call a spade a spade: A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences," Gates told lawmakers. He added that the operation would require more warplanes than are on a single US aircraft carrier.

Italy's foreign minister ruled out any military action by his country, citing Italy's history as a colonial occupier of Libya.

Gaddafi on Wednesday warned the US and other Western powers not to intervene.

"Thousands of Libyans will die" if the West does so. "We will distribute arms to two or three millions and we will turn Libya into another Vietnam."

There have been stirrings of a diplomatic effort. Gaddafi's ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed that his country and a bloc of "friendly" nations mediate between the Libyan leader and the opposition.

Oil prices eased below 102 dollars a barrel on profit taking and hopes that the conflict might be resolved by international mediation.

But so far there's been no response from Gaddafi or the rebels to the mediation idea. The head of the Cairo-based Arab League - also contacted by Chavez on the proposal - seemed cool on the offer.

At Brega, army units that have joined the opposition moved in to keep security after Wednesday's battle, waged by citizen militias from nearby towns and cities. Despite having little central organisation or command, the rag-tag anti-Gaddafi fighters - armed with automatic weapons and some heavy machine guns and rocket launchers - was able to repel a force of several hundred regime troops that attacked after dawn.

In the nearby rebel-held town of Ajdabiya, which sent fighters to the battle, morgue officials said the death toll from the Brega fighting rose to 14 from at least 10 a day earlier.

Brega is the second-largest petroleum and natural gas facility in OPEC-member Libya and has been held by the opposition since last week.

Amid the chaos sweeping the country, exports from the country with Africa's largest proven oil reserves have all but stopped. Crude production in the south-eastern oil fields that feed the facility at Brega has been scaled back because storage facilities there are filling up.

Overall, Libyan crude production has dropped from 1.6 million barrels per day, nearly 2% of world consumption, to as little as 600,000 barrels per day.

The turmoil in Libya has set off a massive exodus of 180,000 people - mostly foreign workers in Libya - who have fled to the borders, said UN refugee agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.