Turkey offers Gathafi way out

Turkey said it has offered Moamer Gathafi guarantees to leave Libya but has yet to receive a reply, as rebels on

US Defence Secretary warns air war on Libyan leader forces could be in peril due to military shortcomings.

By Imed Lamloum - TRIPOLI

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-Gathafi 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 Gathafi 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 Gathafi's departure," the statement said.

"Gathafi 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 Gathafi's men," it added.

The statement said fighters of the Awlad Suleiman tribe, a rival to the Gathafis, "liberated several streets," and that Gathafi 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-Gathafi 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.

Gathafi "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 Gathafi'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.

Tripoli has this week seen the most intense NATO air raids since the international military campaign began on March 19 under a UN mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's special envoy Mikhail Margelov said he would visit Tripoli to try to find a solution to the conflict, having met the opposition in their Benghazi stronghold.

Gates, the Pentagon chief, expressed concern on Friday with half of the countries in the 28-member NATO alliance not participating in the campaign, saying many simply did not have the wherewithal.

Italy's coastguard officials, meanwhile, said seven boats carrying more than 1,500 African refugees from Libya including 135 women and 22 children arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Saturday.

Almost 900,000 people have fled Libya since the outbreak of the conflict, which has cost thousands of lives, according to UN agencies.

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