Muammar Gaddafi’s tottering regime yesterday called for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and said a peaceful solution was possible, as rebels claimed control of a key oil refinery and warned of a bloodbath in the fight for Tripoli.
Rebels have been seeking to sever Tripoli’s supply lines from Tunisia to the west and to Col Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte in the east in a move they hope will cut off the capital, prompt defections and spark an uprising inside Tripoli.
Opposition forces said yesterday they had seized the refinery in the western town of Zawiyah, a key source of fuel supplies to the capital, and the last major barrier before they advance on Tripoli.
Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi hotly dis-puted the claim, saying the refinery was “without doubt” still in loyalists’ hands.
Mr Mahmudi told journalists in Tripoli that “the time has arrived for an immediate ceasefire.
“We are ready to begin a dialogue to put an end to the crisis immediately,” Mr Mahmudi added, saying there had been contact in recent days to find a political solution soon.
“If you are in favour of a peaceful solution, you will get some good news in the coming days,” he added.
A member of the rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC), Wahid Bourchan, said on Wednesday that “discussions” and not negotiations had taken place this week between some embattled regime members and its rebel challengers in Tunisia.
Former French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, meanwhile, told daily Le Parisien he had travelled to the Tunisian resort of Djerba for discussions with unnamed Libyan figures.
“I was indeed there, but I really can’t make any comment, as this might compromise the chances of these discussions being successful or useful,” he told the newspaper.
Mr Mahmudi said no negotiations would touch on the fate of Col Gaddafi, while rebel chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil was quoted as renewing his side’s rejection of any talks that do not envisage the departure from power of the strongman and his sons.
Abdel Jalil was speaking in an interview published in pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in which he said the rebel campaign to cut off Tripoli was proceeding apace and that he feared a “veritable bloodbath” in a battle for the capital.
“Gaddafi will not go quietly; he will go amid a catastrophe that will touch him and his family,” he told the newspaper from his eastern bastion of Benghazi.
The Libyan leader, who has ruled the oil-rich North African nation for four decades, has consistently refused to step down and continues to rally his supporters to repel the enemy.
Abdel Jalil said he hoped to celebrate in Tripoli – a city of more than one million inhabitants – the feast of Eid al-Fitr, which will cap the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan at the end of August.
In Zawiyah, rebels claimed they were in control of “most” of the strategically vital port and had “managed to gain control” of its oil refinery by late on Wednesday.
Field commander Mohammed Khalifa was more cautious, saying “freedom fighters” now controlled “most of the city (Zawiyah) except for the eastern part”, from which snipers and mortar fire harried the rebels.
The refinery, the only one in western Libya, is vital to the Gaddafi regime, as it supplies fuel to Tripoli.
Another rebel commander, Col Ahmed Omar Bani, said that further west rebels were pushing toward the Tunisian border, an apparent bid to further strangle what limited supply lines remain for Col Gaddafi’s regime.
“Zabrata and Sorman are now entirely under our control,” he said on Wednesday, referring to two towns west of Zawiyah.
East of Tripoli, rebels moved toward a town that links the capital and Sirte – Col Gaddafi’s hometown and a stronghold for his military.
Yesterday, the rebels said they had advanced some 80 kilometres south of Misurata on the road to Sirte.
And insurgent fighters claimed to have captured Murzuq, a key communications hub in the desert region of Sabha province, 500 kilometres south of the capital.