Moammar Gadhafi | featured news

Explosions and gunfire rocked Tripoli overnight, after days of battlefield defeats left Muammar Gaddafi's government and troops penned ever more tightly in the besieged capital by a rebel advance.

Libyan rebels said on Monday they had seized a second strategic town near Tripoli within 24 hours, completing the encirclement of the capital in the boldest advances of their six-month-old uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.

Muammar Gaddafi urged Libyans on Monday to free the country from "NATO and traitors," as rebels in the west began to strangle a major lifeline to his capital.

Convinced that their battlefield strategy will work, the rebel forces are refusing France's demands that they negotiate with the Libyan leader to peacefully end their uprising. As the Libyan war grinds on across three fronts and rebel forces find themselves pinned down on their own territory outside two strategic eastern oil cities, the rebels' most resolute European ally, France, is insisting that they negotiate with Moammar Kadafi to peacefully end their 5-month-old uprising.

Moammar Gadhafi vowed Thursday not to buckle to international demands that he cede the power he has held tightly for nearly 42 years as the leader of Libya, and instead said he would remain "until the last drop of my blood."

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is sending fresh signals through emissaries that he is ready to discuss stepping down, Western diplomats said Tuesday, as new intelligence assessments pointed to worsening conditions among his troops. The overtures by aides close to Gaddafi appeared to reflect a deepening pessimism inside a government that is under assault on two fronts and faces shortages of critical supplies, according to U.S. and European analysts and government officials.

The United States and Spain said Saturday they won't let Moammar Gadhafi's threats of retaliatory attacks in Europe deter their mission to protect Libyan civilians.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi threatens attacks in Europe if NATO continues its air campaign against his forces.

The Libyan government on Sunday renewed its offer to hold a vote on whether Muammar Gaddafi should stay in power, a proposal unlikely to interest his opponents but which could widen differences inside NATO.

Relations between Congress and the White House are reaching new lows as the administration refuses to back down on President Obama’s three-month long military campaign against Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi.