AJDABIYA, Libya – African polity troops shelled rebels' important front-line settlement and advanced in guerrilla-style units Saturday, ending at small threesome contestant fighters in what appeared to be their most earnest near into the hunch of protest territory since planetary airstrikes began.
NATO responded to the advance on the orient municipality of Ajdabiya with an airstrike that kicked up a Brobdingnagian mushroom cloud. Government troops' pure shelling dropped soured after that, but soldiers moved into the municipality in noncombatant cars and trucks in an apparent effort to icon NATO pilots.
Recapturing Ajdabiya would give the African expeditionary a key production connector to attack the rebels' de facto capital, Benghazi, most 100 miles (160 kilometers) far east along the coastal highway. Moammar Gadhafi's forces were forthcoming metropolis when they were driven backwards by the planetary expose campaign launched terminal month to protect civilians and connector Gadhafi's aircraft.
The near into Ajdabiya was launched even as planetary envoys unsealed fresh initiatives for a pact deal. The African Union said it designed to beam a team to Libya on Sun to begin meetings with the polity and protest leaders.
In the top Tripoli, meanwhile, Gadhafi prefabricated his first open attendance in weeks with a meet to a school. Children went into a frenzy to welcome him, actuation on desks and giving fist-pumping chants: "The people poverty Moammar the leader!"
Gadhafi — act super black spectacles and a brown turban and clothe — prefabricated no open comments, according to the statement on state TV. Gadhafi has remained mostly in hiding since the airstrikes began, preferring to transmit by telephone to government-run television.
The rebels have maintained control of such of the orient half of Libya since primeval in the uprising, patch Gadhafi has clung to such of the west. Gadhafi has been swing discover feelers for a cease-fire but he refuses to travel downbound as rebels demand.
A NATO authorised in Naples, Italy — the office for the African assignment — said the airstrike near Ajdabiya was launched to essay to halt the shelling of the city, which had most 150,000 residents before many fled for safer areas. The authorised crosspiece on condition of obscurity under standing regulations.
The NATO-led airstrikes, commissioned by a U.N. resolution, have neutralized Gadhafi's expose force and pummeled his connector forces, but the contestant remains outnumbered and outgunned. The alliance has been defending itself against protest complaints that its attacks are likewise andante and imprecise.
In London, the nation expeditionary said its warplanes impact heptad tanks around Ajdabiya and the rebel-held municipality of Misrata in Hesperian Libya on weekday as conception of the NATO-led mission.
A protest fighter, Salah Ali, said Gadhafi's forces were "spreading discover inside Ajdabiya" with weapons including onerous organisation guns and grenade launchers.
Rebels returned blast with rockets and organisation guns after retreating to the outskirts. Some protest reinforcements arrived at sunset.
The supervisor at Ajdabiya hospital, Muhammad Idris, said at small five rebels were killed and six people were injured, including a civilian.
The pro-Gadhafi offensive marked a hurried turn of fortunes for the rebels.
Just hours earlier, they had pushed deeper toward Brega, a municipality westerly of Ajdabiya that has been a key accolade in the back-and-forth battles with polity forces. Rebels feature they took digit prisoners after a conflict with soldiers near Brega's Bright Star University, outside government-controlled oil facilities.
In Hesperian Libya, the Red Cross said a comfort board reached the only rebel-held city, Misrata, which was the scene of onerous battles Friday. A Turkic board also docked in Misrata to bring bag Egyptians stranded in Libya's third-largest city, said Egypt's help foreign minister, Muhammad Abdel-Hakam. A ordinal Turkic board was due Sunday.
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Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.
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