Gaddafi's forces suffer barrage of airstrikes

International airstrikes forced Muammar Gaddafi's tanks to roll back from the western city of Misrata overnight (NZ time), giving respite to civilians who have endured more than a week of attacks and a punishing blockade.

NATO ships patrolled off Libya's coast as the Obama administration said the US was prepared to relinquish leadership of the campaign by the end of the week.

Gaddafi's forces appeared to weaken in the western region that has been his stronghold, and diplomats neared agreement to let NATO assume responsibility for the no-fly zone. Both the UN-backed force and rebels, who took tentative steps toward forming an administration in the east on Wednesday, appeared to be preparing for a long battle.

But the US made clear that others would have to lead the way, as Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the US could turn over control of the operation as soon as Saturday.

He had no answer when asked about a possible stalemate that could occur if Gaddafi hunkers down, and the coalition has no UN authorization to target him.

Speaking from the US command ship in the Mediterranean, Rear Adm. Gerard Hueber said the coalition was targeting Gaddafi's mechanized forces, his artillery and mobile missile sites as well as ammunition and other military supplies. He said coalition forces have moved west to try to protect Ajdabiya and Misrata.

A doctor in Misrata said the tanks fled after the airstrikes began around midnight, giving a much-needed reprieve to the city, which is inaccessible to human rights monitors or journalists. He said the airstrikes, which Canada said were from its pilots, struck the aviation academy and a vacant lot outside the central hospital.

"Today, for the first time in a week, the bakeries opened their doors," the doctor said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals if Gaddafi's forces take the city.

He said the situation was still dangerous, with pro-Gaddafi snipers shooting at people from rooftops.

"We fear the tanks that fled will return if the airstrikes stop," he said.

Gaddafi made his first public appearance in a week yesterday, hours after explosions sounded in Tripoli. State TV said he spoke from his Bab Al-Aziziya residential compound, the same one hit by a cruise missile Sunday night. "In the short term, we'll beat them, in the long term, we'll beat them," he said.

The withdrawal of the tanks from Misrata was a rare success for the rebels. The disorganized opposition holds much of the east but has struggled to take advantage of the international air campaign that saved them from the brink of defeat.

President Barack Obama told the Spanish-language network Univision that a land invasion was "absolutely" out of the question.

Asked what the exit strategy is, he didn't lay out a vision for ending the international action, but rather said: "The exit strategy will be executed this week in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment."

Neither the rebels nor Gaddafi has mustered the force for an outright victory, raising concerns of a prolonged conflict in the cities were they are locked in combat, such as Misrata and Zintan in the west and Ajdabiya, a city of 140,000 that is the gateway to the east.

In Zintan, a resident said Gaddafi's forces were at the base of a nearby mountain and were shelling in that area, but rebels forced their retreat from all but one side of the city. After five days of fighting, resident Ali al-Azhari said, rebel fighters captured or destroyed several tanks, and seized trucks loaded with 1,200 Grad missiles and fuel tanks. They captured five Gaddafi troops.

Al-Azhari, who spoke to The Associated Press by phone from the city, said one officer told rebels he had order "to turn Zintan to a desert to be smashed and flattened." Resentment against Gaddafi runs high in Zintan, a city of 100,000 about 120km south of Tripoli, because it was the hometown of many of the detained army officers who took part in a failed coup in 1993.

Pro-Gaddafi troops who have besieged Ajdabiya attacked a few hundred rebels on the outskirts Wednesday. The rebels fired back with Katyusha rockets but have found themselves outgunned. Plumes of smoke rose over the city, which is 150km south of the de-facto rebel capital of Benghazi.

People fleeing the violence said the rebels controlled the city center while Gaddafi's forces were holding the outskirts.

"The pro-Gaddafi forces are just shooting everywhere. There is no electricity, the centre of the city has been totally destroyed, even the hospital has been hit," 28-year-old Hafez Boughara said as he drove a white van filled with women and children on a desert road to avoid the main highway.

In Benghazi, the de facto capital of the uprising, the rebel council created a governing body in a new effort to organize the often-chaotic movement.

Rebel spokeswoman Iman Bughaigis said the leader of the governing body would be Mahmoud Jibril, a US-educated planning expert who defected from the Gaddafi regime as the uprising gained momentum.

Bughaigis said the move reflected the rebel realization that they needed better organization.

"At the beginning, we thought it would just take a week or two weeks" to depose Gaddafi, she said. "Now we know it will take time. We need a government to liberate the eastern territories. It was just because there was a vacuum. We don't have political experience. We are learning as the days go by. Now there is an understanding that we need a structure."

Gaddafi was defiant in his first public appearance in a week late Tuesday, promising enthusiastic supporters at his residential compound in Tripoli, Libyan state TV broadcast what it said was live coverage of him standing on a balcony as he denounced the coalition bombings.

"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.

Heavy anti-aircraft fire and loud explosions sounded in Tripoli after nightfall, possibly a new attack in the international air campaign. Two explosions were heard in the city before daybreak Wednesday.

Libyan state TV showed footage of a house that was demolished and burning. Weeping women slapped their faces and heads in grief while men carried a barefoot girl covered in blood on a stretcher to an ambulance. A man screamed "a whole family was killed." The TV labeled the footage as "the crusader imperialism bombs civilians."

Gaddafi's regime has alleged that dozens of civilians have been killed in the international bombardment. The Pentagon said there was no evidence of that.

- AP