Libya's ex-interior minister Abdel Fatah Yunes who defected to the rebel camp denied a state media report that he has returned to the Gaddafi camp, in remarks to Al-Arabiya television today.

"We are still in the battlefield, fighting with what we've got in our hands and if we receive reinforcements, all the better," he told the Dubai-based satellite news channel.

Yunis thanked France whose warplanes he said were already carrying out reconnaissance flights over Libya. "Welcome to them and thanks, although I had wished there were Arab warplanes," he said.

Libyan state television reported earlier today that Yunes, who defected to the rebels at the start of March, had returned to post with the regime of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Several high-ranking Libyans -- ministers, diplomats and military officers -- have deserted Gaddafi, denouncing his 41-year-old regime's bloody crackdown on the opposition since mid-February.