Libya rebels advance, vow to topple Gaddafi

AL-UQAYLA, Libya, (Reuters) – Libyan rebels vowing  “victory or death” advanced towards a major oil terminal today, calling for foreign air strikes to set up a “no-fly”  zone after three days of attacks by Muammar Gaddafi’s warplanes.
Eastern-based rebels told Reuters they were open to talks  only on Gaddafi’s exile or resignation following attacks on  civilians that have provoked international condemnation, a raft  of arms and economic sanctions and a war crimes probe.
In Tripoli, opponents of Gaddafi prepared to march in the  capital after prayers, but the authorities were preventing  foreign media from reporting independently on the protests.
“Victory or death … We will not stop until we liberate all  this country,” Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel National  Libyan Council told supporters of a two-week-old uprising that  has shaken Gaddafi’s grip on the North African oil producer.
Ahmed Jabreel, an aide to Abdel Jalil, said if there was any  negotiation “it will be on one single thing — how Gaddafi is  going to leave the country or step down so we can save lives.  There is nothing else to negotiate”.
Rebel volunteers defending the opposition’s expanding grip  on a key coast road said a rocket attack by a government  warplane just missed a rebel-held eastern military base which  houses a big ammunition store in the town of Ajdabiyah.
“We’re going to take it all, Ras Lanuf, Tripoli,” Magdi  Mohammed, an army defector, fingering the pin of a grenade, told  Reuters at the rebels’ front-line checkpoint.
Western nations have called for Gaddafi to go and are  considering various options including the imposition of a no-fly  zone, but are wary about any offensive military involvement to  stabilise the world’s 12th-largest oil exporter.
The air attacks have failed to stop the rebels using the  coast road to push their front line west of Brega, an oil  terminal town 800 km (500 miles) east of Tripoli. They said they  had driven back troops loyal to Gaddafi to Ras Lanuf, site of  another major oil terminal, 600 km (400 miles) east of Tripoli.
Amid growing international concern about dwindling food and  medical supplies in some rebel-held areas, diplomatic efforts  are accelerating to end a conflict that the West fears could  stir a mass refugee exodus across the Mediterranean to Europe.
U.S. President Barack Obama said he was concerned a bloody  stalemate could develop between Gaddafi and rebel forces but  gave no sign of a willingness to intervene militarily.
“Muammar Gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead and he must  leave,” Obama said, the first time he has called in public for  Gaddafi to leave Libya, although he has urged his exit in  written statements by the White House.
The popular uprising against Gaddafi’s 41-year rule, the  bloodiest yet against a long-serving ruler in the Middle East or  North Africa, has knocked out nearly 50 percent of the  OPEC-member’s 1.6 million barrels of oil per day output, the  bedrock of its economy.
The upheaval is causing a humanitarian crisis, especially on  the Tunisian border where tens of thousands of foreign workers  have fled to safety. But an organised international airlift  started to relieve the human flood from Libya as word spread to  refugees that planes were taking them home.