Fighting intensifies near Tripoli

BBC:

Rebels have been engaged in fierce firefights with government forces in mountain plains about 80km (50 miles) south-west of Tripoli.

A BBC correspondent who was with the rebels was told by a volunteer medic two of them had died in the battle.

The rebels said government forces suffered far greater casualties, although that cannot be confirmed.

Meanwhile, Col Muammar Gaddafi has agreed to stay out of talks on ending the conflict, African leaders said.

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The BBC's Mark Doyle, who is in the village of Bir Ayad, a strategic point on the road to the capital, Tripoli, says Sunday's fighting began when government forces tried to cut off the rebels by attacking from behind.

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The rebels came down into the plains from the Nafusa mountains in early June, adds our correspondent, and say they are approaching the gates of Tripoli. But they have met strong resistance from Col Gaddafi's forces.

He says that although it is a shifting front line, the rebels appear to be gradually consolidating their position in the western mountains.

The front line is now thought to have moved just north of Bir Ayad to near the town of Bir al-Ghanam.

An AFP correspondent nearby heard heavy fire from rockets and machine-guns.

Guma el-Gamaty, a spokesman for the rebels' National Transitional Council, told AP news agency Bir al-Ghanam was important as it was barely 30km south of Zawiya, a western gateway to Tripoli.

Opposition fighters seized Zawiya in March before government troops drove the rebels out of the oil-refinery city. Fighting again broke out there this month.

The minister of defence for Libya's rebels, Jalal al-Dgheli, told the BBC that because their weapons were so limited, most of them were focused on the push from the western mountains towards Tripoli.

But in the near future there could be an advance from the east near Brega towards Tripoli, he told the BBC's Bridget Kendall in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

He added: "What we're learning from defectors is that Gaddafi's supporters are getting fewer, people who are close to him are abandoning him, and his inner circle is getting smaller by the day."

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Qaddafi has had difficulty rallying fighters to join his forces and that situation is deteriorating with the attrition for his forces and his supporters.  The rebels still have not been able to break his will.  They have not been able to persuade Qaddafi that his cause is hopeless at this point.  That will be critical to getting rid of the old despot.