Fresh airstrikes hit Libya's besieged Ajdabiya

Coalition warplanes pounded Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's forces Friday in the strategic eastern town of Ajdabiya, boosting rebel efforts to launch new offensives.Plumes of smoke filled the sky as the pace of coalition air strikes escalated, forcing terrified residents to flee the coastal city of Ajdabiya, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
"We entered the town," Colonel Mohammed Ehsayer, who defected from the army to join the rebellion against Kadhafi, told AFP at a rebel outpost a few kilometres east of the city."Soon the eastern and western gates (entry roads) will fall," he said in reference to positions still in the hands of loyalist forces.
"We will hunt them down."Ehsayer said rebels "are attacking the eastern gate. There are about 15 tanks and 50 men stationed there. They have no other choice but to go."Witnesses east of the city told AFP the rebels were launching offensives in a bid to regain control of Ajdabiya, bolstered by the coalition air strikes.
One group, wearing motley uniforms and brandishing weapons, many were clearly unfamiliar with, crouched behind dunes on a road just seven kilometers (four miles) from the city, waiting for a chance to advance.
Regime tanks fired occasional shells towards them. One shell whistled low over the heads of fighters and a handful of reporters, landing just 20 meters (yards) away in a splash of sand but not producing a blast.
"There are two tanks. They are dug in and hidden in the sand. There are also snipers who can shoot up to three kilometers away," one of the rebels, Ahmed Garghoum, told AFP.