Libyan rebels repulsed loyalists who had retaken the desert hamlet of Gualish and pursued their enemy to the outskirts of the strategic town of Asabah, where they were shelling it from surrounding hills, an AFP correspondent said yesterday.

The rebel breakthrough came as an insurgent commander downplayed talk of a political solution, saying strongman Muammar Gaddafi refuses to go.

Dug in on the hills above the town on the highway to Tripoli, the rebels were firing heavy and small arms and loyalist troops were responding with Grad rockets, said the correspondent, embedded with the rebels.

Asabah is 80 kilometres south of the capital and is the last barrier between the rebels and the important garrison town of Gharyan.

Earlier yesterday, Gaddafi troops had caught rebels off guard and attacked Gualish, which the insurgents had captured last week, seizing nearly all of it.

But rebels poured in from surrounding villages and besieged the hamlet from all sides, driving the loyalists out and chasing them up the road toward Asabah, some 17 kilometres away.

As the fighting raged in the Nafusa Mountains area, a rebel commander there said a peace deal was “impossible” because Colonel Gaddafi refuses to step down.

“Up to now it is impossible to get a political solution. Gaddafi wants to stay; the rebels don’t want,” said Colonel Juma Brahim, head of the rebels’ operational command for the region.

“To the last moment Gaddafi is looking for a peace solution because he is weak, all the soldiers and equipment are coming to our side one by one,” Col Brahim said.

On Tuesday, French and Libyan officials talked up the chances of negotiating Col Gaddafi’s withdrawal from power and an end to the conflict still wracking the country after months of military stalemate.

Col Brahim said it was “difficult to understand” the position of France, which has been one of the main players in the Nato-led coalition conducting an air war against Gaddafi’s forces.

French aircraft even carried out controversial arms drops to fighters under the rebel colonel’s command in recent weeks.

“On one side she helps you, on the other side (she is) talking to the regime of Gaddafi,” he said.

“They want not to kill civilian people and to get a solution of peace between Gaddafi and us. That would be okay but up to now it is impossible to get a political solution.

“It is good when everything is on one side – with him or with us.”