Gaddafi launches first major counter-attack on rebels

grenade launchers. They set up two large rocket launchers and an anti-aircraft gun in the road.

Ahmed Dawas, an opposition fighter at a checkpoint outside Brega, said a large force of pro-Gaddafi fighters in about fifty SUVs descended on Brega shortly after sunrise and swept over the facility, taking the airstrip as warplanes struck nearby targets. But later, he said, anti-regime fighters from Ajdabiya and from Brega’s residents flooded in and took back it back.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

Libyan forces have launched repeated airstrikes during the two-week revolt but all of them have been reported to target facilities that store weapons in areas controlled by the rebellion. Some air forces, however, have said they bailed out because they were ordered to bomb civilians.

A revolutionary council in Libya reportedly debated Tuesday whether to ask the United Nations to execute airstrikes against pro-Gaddafi forces. The council aims to distinguish between help from the UN and foreign intervention, which the rebel forces oppose, according to the New York Times.

Diplomats at NATO and the European Union say some countries are already drawing up plans to prevent Gaddafi’s air force from carrying out air strikes against the rebels.

NATO has said that any such move would require a clear mandate from the UN Security Council. This is unlikely because Russia, which has veto power in the council, has already rejected the idea.

According to diplomats, the plans being considered are modeled on the no-fly zones over the Balkans in the 1990s in case the international community decides to impose an air embargo over Libya.

Witnesses told the AP they saw two warplanes bomb the eastern outskirts of Ajdabiya at 10 a.m. local time.

They also said pro-Gaddafi forces were advancing on the town, some 470 miles east of the capital Tripoli.

“I see two jets bombing now,” said one witness who, like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals. Another witness said rebel forces were rushing to the western side of Ajdabiya to meet the advancing pro-Gaddafi force.

“We are ready to repel their attack,” said the witness.

An exact death toll has been difficult to obtain in the chaos, but a medical committee in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the uprising began on 15 February, said at least 228 people had been killed, including 30 unidentified bodies, and 1,932 wounded.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has cited reports that perhaps 1,000 have died in Libya.

One Libyan human rights group says that 6,000 have died since fighting began.

The Obama administration knows the Libyan opposition wants to be seen as “doing this by themselves on behalf of the Libyan people – that there not be outside intervention by an external force,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday.

On Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered U.S. warships to move closer to the Libyan Coast.

Amphibious assault ships USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce, entered the Suez Canal on their way to the Mediterranean Wednesday morning from the Red Sea. The USS Kearsarge is carrying some 42 helicopters on board, two officials said.