Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte was targeted by Nato warplanes yesterday, the official Jana news agency reported.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama said the 'noose is tightening' on Col Gaddafi, but the US will not increase its military role in Libya.

In an interview with Associated Press, he conceded there was a 'stalemate' on the ground but insisted the White House never expected Col Gaddafi to step down immediately.

'Gaddafi is getting squeezed in all different kinds of ways,' he argued, suggesting the leader was running out of money and supplies due to targeted economic sanctions and an arms embargo.

Earlier yesterday, the European Union and Nato deepened their coordination for a potential EU military mission to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to Misurata, which has been besieged for more than a month.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met Nato foreign ministers in Berlin to discuss ties between the two organisations and the situation in Libya, diplomats said.

Heavy gunfire and shelling in the besieged Libyan rebel city of Misurata intensified also late yesterday, with sustained exchanges heard near the centre before nightfall, an AFP photographer reported. Loud explosions which had been heard since the morning were spaced closer together, the photographer said from his location in the city’s hospital.

Rebel checkpoints were seen around a now-abandoned residential area where nests of snipers loyal to Col Gaddafi were suspected to be active. Other reports by rights groups and Libyan rebels of the banned cluster bombs used by pro-regime forces in Misurata flowed in. In the meantime, about 1,200 migrants who were stranded in besieged Misurata have been evacuated and are on their way to Benghazi in eastern Libya, the International Organisation for Migration confirmed to AFP yesterday.