Gaddafi forces increase bombardment as Nato moves closer to involvement

Muammar Gaddafi’s forces increased their shelling of rebels outside a strategic eastern city today as they attempted to stop them from taking advantage of the international air campaign.

Western diplomats, meanwhile, said an agreement was emerging about Nato taking control of the Libyan no-fly zone after the United States, which has effectively commanded the operation until now, repeated that it was committed to the transition.

In what has become a common pattern, pro-Gaddafi troops who have besieged Ajdabiya – a city of 140,000 that is the gateway to the east – attacked a few hundred rebels gathered on the outskirts. The rebels fired back with Katyusha rockets but have found themselves outgunned by the Libyan government’s force.

“The weapons they have are heavy weapons and what we have are light weapons,” said Fawzi Hamid, a 33-year-old who joined the Libyan military when he was younger but is now on the rebels’ side. “The Gaddafi forces are more powerful than us so we are depending on airstrikes.”

The rebels and Gaddafi’s forces have been locked in a stand-off over Ajdabiya for more than a week, with neither side able to muster enough force to take the city outright.

Gaddafi was defiant in his first public appearance in a week late last night, promising enthusiastic supporters at his residential compound in Tripoli, “In the short term, we’ll beat them, in the long term, we’ll beat them.”

Libyan state TV broadcast what it said was live coverage of Gaddafi’s less-than-five-minute statement. Standing on a balcony, he denounced the coalition bombing attacks on his forces.

“O great Libyan people, you have to live now, this time of glory, this is a time of glory that we are living,” he said.

State TV said Gaddafi was speaking from his Bab Al-Aziziya residential compound, the same one hit by a cruise missile on Sunday night.

Heavy anti-aircraft fire and loud explosions sounded in Tripoli after nightfall, possibly a new attack in the international air campaign that so far has focused on military targets. Two explosions were heard in the city before dawn.

Most of eastern Libya is in rebel hands but the force – with more enthusiasm than discipline – has struggled to take advantage of the gains from the international air campaign, which appears to have hobbled Gaddafi’s air defences and artillery and rescued the rebels from impending defeat.

Qatar was expected to start flying air patrols over Libya by this weekend, becoming the first member of the Arab League to participate directly in the military mission.

The Obama administration is eager to relinquish leadership of the hurriedly assembled coalition, but divisions have emerged over who would take over.

A compromise proposal would see Nato take a key role in the military operation guided by a political committee of foreign ministers from the West and the Arab world. Officials said the North Atlantic Council – Nato’s top decision-making body which already has approved military plans for enforcing the no-fly zone - may decide to start them today.