Libyan rebels pushed westwards in hot pursuit of Muammar Gaddafi's forces today, winning back control of the key Ras Lanuf oil site and pressing on towards Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, a central coastal city.
Along the way they captured Bin Jawad, a hamlet 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Ras Lanuf, AFP correspondents reported.
The rebels, on the verge of losing their eastern stronghold city of Benghazi before the air strikes began on March 19, yesterday seized back Ajdabiya and Brega, 160 and 240 kilometres (100 and 150 miles) to the west.
Spurred on by the air war, the ragtag rebel band thrust another 100 kilometres past Brega to win back Ras Lanuf, routing Gaddafi loyalists.
Jubilant rebels stuck up a poster of Gaddafi in Bin Jawad and took potshots at it with automatic rifles as a green Libyan flag burned and a group of about 100 chanted: "Muammar, you're a dog",
"Gaddafi's forces are now scared rats," Mohammed Ali el-Atwish, a bearded 42-year-old fighter, told AFP.
"They are dropping their weapons and uniforms and dressing as civilians. We are no longer concerned about Gaddafi's forces at all."
The rebel fighters marked the takeover of Ras Lanuf with celebratory gunfire and fired a rocket propelled-grenade in sign of victory.
One of them, Attia Hamad, 34, said insurgents were in full control of the town.
"All of it is in our hands," Hamad said of Ras Lanuf, whichGaddafi 's forces had overrun on March 12. Loyalists were "retreating so quickly, they are leaving some fighters behind," he added.
In Tripoli, government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said overnight that the Western-led air strikes were killing soldiers and civilians between the strategic town of Ajdabiya and Sirte.
"Tonight the air strikes against our nation continue with full power," he said.
"We are losing many lives, military and civilians," Ibrahim added while repeating a call for a ceasefire and an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council, which approved military action to stop the Libyan regime's attacks on civilians.
Pope Benedict XVI called for the international community to begin immediate dialogue in Libya to bring about a ceasefire.
Speaking to pilgrims at the Vatican, the Pope said: "I launch a heartfelt appeal to international organisations and those with political and military responsibilities to immediately launch a dialogue that will suspend the use of arms.
"Faced with the ever more dramatic news coming from Libya, my concern over the safety and security of the civilian population is growing, as is my fear for how the situation is developing with the use of arms."
NATO was poised to agree today to take command of military operations against Gaddafi's regime at a meeting in Brussels after days of fraught talks over objections raised by France and Turkey.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini set out the broad outlines of a diplomatic plan to resolve the crisis in Libya that could include exile for Gaddafi.
"We cannot envisage a solution in which he would stay in power," Frattini told La Repubblica daily, adding that "clearly exile for Gaddafi would be different."
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, in an interview accused Gaddafi's forces of planting bodies "of the people he's killed" at target sites to make it look as they were civilian victims.
President Barack Obama, under pressure to explain his strategy to Americans, said the international mission had saved countless innocents from a "bloodbath" threatened by Gaddafi.
The Pentagon said the strikes had continued apace last night with 160 missions flown, compared to 153 a day earlier.
In Libya's west, French fighter jets destroyed at least five warplanes and two helicopters of the pro-Gaddafi forces in the Zintan and Misrata regions yesterday, said a statement on the French armed forces website.
British warplanes destroyed five Libyan armoured vehicles in air strikes on Ajdabiya and Misrata on Friday, the defence ministry in London said.