African Union delegates meet Gaddafi amid Nato air strikes

African Union mediators met Col. Gaddafi in Tripoli yesterday in a bid to broker a truce between the Libyan leader and rebels fighting to oust him from power, an AFP reporter said.

The African leaders joined embattled Col. Gaddafi for a photocall outside his Bedouin tent in his Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capital.

The high-ranking African Union delegation arrived in Libya yesterday. The AU team was due to fly to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi yesterday, 1,000 kilometres east of Tripoli, in its effort to broker a truce in the deadly conflict.

The opposition has already said it rejects any ceasefire that would mean Col. Gaddafi or his sons remain in power.

The peace mission came as Nato warplanes were in action against Gaddafi loyalists in the stricken port city of Misurata after regime forces killed at least 12 people there over the weekend, rebels said.

And in Brussels, an alliance official confirmed to AFP that Nato warplanes had destroyed 11 regime tanks on the road to the eastern Libyan town of Ajdabiya and another 14 tanks near Misurata.

Rebels said they had captured 15 Algerian mercenaries and killed another three during fierce fighting in Ajdabiya the previous day.

Medics also said at least 12 rebels were killed in and around Ajdabiya over the weekend.

Officials at Benghazi’s Jala hospital said it had received nine “martyrs” from the fighting and 14 wounded people, and a doctor at the Al-Hawwara hospital said it had received three dead and three wounded.

The air strikes on Misurata started yesterday morning, a rebel spokesman in the besieged town said, describing the raids as “a marked improvement in Nato intervention.”

“They began the raids yesterday on the Gaddafi forces in the northwest of the town and near the centre of Misurata,” the spokesman added.

“In the morning, there were new raids but we are not able to verify the targets,” he said, adding that eight rebels were killed by pro-Gaddafi forces and 22 others were wounded on Saturday.

A doctor at Misurata hospital gave AFP the same death toll for Saturday, saying they included civilians, while putting the number of wounded at 25.

Meanwhile, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair cautioned yesterday that Col. Gaddafi is well-skilled at holding onto power and dismissed the notion that the Libyan leader is 'delusional”.