TRIPOLI/DAFNIYAH: Fighting between forces loyal to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to close in on his territory killed at least eight rebels near the northwestern city of Nalut, an insurgent source said. The gun battles in the village of Takut, just outside Nalut, on Saturday followed exchanges of heavy artillery fire near the city of Zlitan as the insurgents tried to take government-held territory east of the capital Tripoli. The rebels are seeking to seal off Tripoli from the east and west but their advances have been slow and weeks of NATO strikes pounding Gaddafi's compound and other targets have failed to bring an end to his 41-year-old rule. “The battles started yesterday and are continuing today in Takut,” the fighter, Abou Saa, told Reuters from Nalut, in arid hills some 200 km southwest of Tripoli. “The revolutionaries destroyed six armoured vehicles and killed more than 45 enemy soldiers. The rebels surrounded Gaddafi's forces, who are holed up in a compound (in Takut).” He added that 13 rebels were wounded in the fighting. On the other side of Tripoli, Zlitan, 160 km to the east, is the next major town on the Mediterranean coastal road to the capital from the rebel stronghold of Misrata. Capturing it would greatly advance the rebels' strategy of cutting off Tripoli from all sides. NATO planes resumed bombardments of Tripoli Friday. Six explosions sent columns of black smoke into the sky. Gaddafi vowed to defeat NATO nonetheless. Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi told a late night news conference that Libya would appeal to the UN Security Council for a halt to NATO's aerial bombings. Meanwhile, the Libyan government dismissed rebel denials that the two sides have been holding talks and hit out at NATO's air war as Moamer Kadhafi defiantly vowed the alliance was doomed to defeat. NATO accidentally hit rebels NATO aircraft accidentally hit a column of Libyan rebel forces in the area of Brega on June 16, the alliance said Saturday. The alliance said in a statement that after looking into reports that an airstrike hit opposition forces in the Brega region on Thursday, “NATO can now confirm that the vehicles hit were part of an opposition patrol.” “This incident occurred in an area of conflict between (Muammar) Gaddafi forces and opposition forces,” the statement added.
