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Rebels, with NATO taking out tanks, halt advance of pro-Gadhafi troops.
Libyan rebel fighters fire rockets in the desert Saturday halfway between Ajdabiya and Brega.
AP photo
AJDABIYA, Libya — NATO airstrikes battered Moammar Gadhafi’s tanks Sunday, helping Libyan rebels push back government troops advancing quickly toward the opposition’s eastern stronghold.
In the capital Tripoli, African leaders met with Gadhafi to try to negotiate an end to the fighting and planned to press their efforts with the rebels in a separate meeting today.
Through the rebels have improved discipline and organization, they remain a far less powerful force than Gadhafi’s troops. Members of the international community have grown doubtful that the opposition can overthrow Gadhafi even with air support, and some are weighing options such as arming the fighters while they press for a diplomatic solution.
A rebel battlefield commander said four airstrikes Sunday largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya — a critical gateway to the opposition’s de facto capital of Benghazi. NATO’s leader of the operation said the airstrikes destroyed 11 tanks near Ajdabiya and another 14 near Misrata, the only city rebels still hold in the western half of Libya.
The fighting in Ajdabiya on Sunday killed 23 people, 20 of them pro-Gadhafi forces, said Mohammed Idris, the supervisor of a hospital in the city. A total of 38 people were killed in fighting over the weekend, including 11 rebels and seven civilians, Idris said.
In a new diplomatic push to halt the fighting that began in February, South African President Jacob Zuma and the heads of Mali and Mauritania arrived in Tripoli to try to broker a cease-fire. Gadhafi has ignored the cease-fire he announced after western airstrikes were authorized last month.
Gadhafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the African Union, so it is not clear whether rebels would accept the AU as a fair broker.
The rebels, the U.S. and its European allies are insisting Gadhafi relinquish power immediately.