Kadhafi offered way out, heritage site 'shelled'

TRIPOLI: Turkey said it has offered Moamer Kadhafi guarantees to leave Libya but has yet to receive a reply, as rebels on Saturday accused his forces of shelling a UNESCO world heritage site.

Fresh NATO-led strikes send up plumes of smoke on a daily basis in Tripoli, but US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that the air war on the strongman's forces could be in peril because of military shortcomings.

On Saturday, two blasts shook Tripoli in the afternoon, witnesses said, in apparent air strikes targeting the Salaheddin and Ain Zara districts. Residents said several waves of blasts also rocked the city on Friday.

In a military update on Friday's strikes, the British defence ministry said its fighters had destroyed four tanks "hidden in an orchard" near the town of Al-Aziziyah, southwest of Tripoli.

Tornado and Typhoon jets also bombed a military base at Al-Mayah on the western outskirts of the capital, it said.

NATO said a tank and a rocket launcher were also targeted on Friday near the rebel-held city of Misrata.

The rebels said pro-Kadhafi forces were shelling the western city of Ghadames some 600 kilometres (370 miles) southwest of Tripoli, close to the borders with Tunisia and Algeria, on Saturday.

Known as the "pearl of the desert," the oasis boasts a UNESCO World Heritage site and is famous for its Roman-era ruins. "The people of Ghadames appeal to UNESCO and international organisations to protect the ancient city," rebels said in a statement.

The National Transitional Council in Benghazi reported anti-regime protests in Sabha, a bastion of Kadhafi support in the desert some 450 kilometres south of Tripoli.

In a statement, the NTC said there were protests on Friday and Saturday in Sabha, a city of around 100,000 people and site of an important military base.

"Major protests began on Friday in the Mansheya district... with young people acclaiming the revolution of February 17, raising the flag of independence and demanding Kadhafi's departure," the statement said.

"Kadhafi loyalists, some in plain clothes, opened fire with live ammunition and two protesters were hit. They were taken to hospital where they were detained by Kadhafi's men," it added.

The statement said fighters of the Awlad Suleiman tribe, a rival to the Kadhafis, "liberated several streets," and that Kadhafi forces opened fire, killing one man.

Rebels also reported clashes on Friday and Saturday at Kekla and Bir al-Ghanem in the mountainous Jebel Nafussa region where there has been weeks of fighting. They also said pro-Kadhafi forces had tried to enter the town of Yafran in the same area, and that there had been "fierce clashes."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government had offered exit "guarantees" to the embattled Libyan leader, whom rebels have been trying to oust since February following a bloody crackdown on pro-reform protests.

Kadhafi "has no other option than to leave Libya -- with a guarantee to be given to him," Erdogan said on NTV television. "We have given him this guarantee. We have told him we will help him to be sent wherever he wants to go," he added, without elaborating. "We have received no reply so far."

His comments came after a day of deadly fighting near the port city of Misrata, the rebels' most significant enclave in western Libya, some 200 kilometres from Tripoli. Twenty people were killed as Kadhafi's forces had bombarded the Dafnia area with Grad rockets, heavy artillery and tank shells, a rebel said on Friday.

Dafnia was again under fire on Saturday, rebels said. (AFP)