SIGNS EMERGED yesterday that both Muammar Gadafy’s regime and Libyan rebel leaders may be exploring avenues to end the fighting as fierce battles continued in the east of the country.
Contacts between Tripoli and western capitals were confirmed by the Libyan government, with reports emerging of a meeting in London between Mohammed Ismail, an aide to Col Gadafy’s son Saif al-Islam, and British officials.
Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa defected earlier this week and there have been unconfirmed reports that more senior Libyans have abandoned the regime.
Al-Jazeera said the intelligence minister, deputy foreign minister and General People’s Congress speaker were awaiting flights in Tunisia, but oil minister Shukri Ghanim denied reports he was planning to leave Libya.
Former prime minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi confirmed Tripoli had sought to open lines of communication with the coalition in the hope of bringing the conflict to an end. “We are trying to talk to the British, the French and the Americans to stop the killing of people. We are trying to find a mutual solution,” he said.
News of those initiatives came as a rebel leader offered a ceasefire on condition Col Gadafy leaves Libya and his forces withdraw from cities under government control. With the front lines having shifted little in recent days and signs suggesting western air strikes alone may not bring about the collapse of Col Gadafy’s regime, rebel National Council head Mustafa Abdel Jalil discussed prospects for a ceasefire after meeting UN special envoy Abdelilah al-Khatib in Benghazi.
“We have no objection to a ceasefire but on condition that Libyans in western cities have full freedom in expressing their views . . . Our main demand is the departure of Muammar Gadafy and his sons from Libya. This is a demand we will not go back on,” he said.
Heavy fighting continued on the front lines, meanwhile, with reports from Misurata – the rebels’ last western enclave – of an intense artillery bombardment by Col Gadafy’s forces.
After weeks of shelling and encirclement, government forces appeared to be gradually loosening the rebels’ hold on Misurata, despite western air strikes on pro-Gadafy targets there.
Accounts from Misurata, Libya’s third biggest city, could not be confirmed because Libyan authorities have not allowed journalists to report freely from it. The rebels said they still controlled the city centre and the port but Col Gadafy’s forces had pushed into the centre along Tripoli Street, the main thoroughfare.
Western military aircraft have attacked an airbase south of Misurata where pro-Gadafy forces have their main base, and residents reported at least one warship belonging to the coalition was at anchor off the coast.
In the east, rebels moved heavier weaponry towards government forces at the oil town of Brega and sought to marshal rag-tag units into a more disciplined force to fend off Col Gadafy’s army and turn the tide of recent events.
Rebels said neither side could claim control of Brega, one of a string of oil towns along the Mediterranean coast that have been taken and retaken by both sides in recent weeks.
In Tripoli, heavy gunfire was reported near Col Gadafy’s compound for about 20 minutes before dawn and residents said they saw snipers on rooftops.