Wars, Libyan War | featured news

As street battles raged on Friday just a half-hour’s drive from the Libyan capital, there were new signs in Tripoli that worried foreigners were urgently trying to leave.

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.

BENGHAZI, Libya — The rebel government here has dismissed its entire cabinet in the wake of the unsolved killing of a powerful military leader, who was slain almost two weeks ago after he was ordered to appear before a board of inquiry about his handling of the war effort.

NATO warplanes bombed three Libyan state TV satellite transmitters in Tripoli overnight, targeting facilities that have been used to incite violence and threaten civilians, the military alliance said Saturday. A series of loud explosions echoed across the capital before dawn. There was no immediate comment from Libyan officials on what had been hit, but state TV was still on the air in Tripoli as of Saturday morning.

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.

The battle for the Libyan oil town of Brega switched from the desert to intense street-to-street fighting on Sunday, as rebel forces said they punched into a residential area in the town's northeast.

Tripoli was rocked by a series of airstrikes by NATO forces in the early hours of the morning Sunday.

The United States and other nations on Friday formally recognized Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government until a new interim authority is created.

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."