Moammar Gadhafi's forces launched a devastating assault on a rebel-held city in western Libya Tuesday, according to several witnesses, with one saying it had been reduced "down to ashes."
Government artillery and tanks pounded Zawiya, the closest rebel-held city to the capital Tripoli, which is about 30 miles away, as trapped residents cowered from the onslaught. A government official claimed Gadhafi loyalists had recaptured the city, but some residents reported that rebels still held the city's main square amid a heavy barrage of residential areas. The city was sealed off and phone lines have been cut, making it impossible to verify the account.
A witness told that it seemed like every building there was being hit by a shower of bullets.
The source in Zawiya also that children as young as five were among the dead.
"I don't know how many are dead — they tore Zawiya down to ashes," the BBC quoted the witness as saying.
Peter Beaumont, a reporter for The Guardian newspaper in the U.K., said in Twitter messages that "all evidence we are hearing sounds like something awful in Zawiya ... My source in Zawiya unreachable since yesterday. Sounds very very grim."
Gadhafi's forces have brought overwhelming force from the air to try to beat back the rebels in the east seeking to march on Tripoli and on the ground to try to retake control of Zawiya, just 30 miles west of Tripoli.
The one thing that seems to hold potential to tip the scales in the rebel's favor is international intervention. The U.S. says it has not ruled out using some type of military force against Gadhafi and with its allies, it is considering imposing a no-fly zone over the North African country to stop air attacks on the rebels.
A Libyan man who lives abroad said he spoke by phone on Tuesday to a friend in Zawiya who described desperate scenes.
"Many buildings are completely destroyed, including hospitals, electricity lines and generators," he said. "People cannot run away, it's cordoned off. They cannot flee. All those who can fight are fighting, including teenagers. Children and women are being hidden."
Tanks were firing everywhere, he said.
The reports could not be verified independently as foreign correspondents have been prevented from entering Zawiya and other cities near the capital without an official escort.
There were conflicting reports about whether the city had actually fallen to Gadhafi's forces.
'City is in ruins'
A witness told The Associated Press that it had been recaptured.
The witness, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal, said Gadhafi's tanks and fighting vehicles were roaming the city and firing randomly at homes.
He said electricity, phone and Internet services have been cut. The witness spoke to the AP after he managed to escape the city through surrounding farmlands and reach a point outside Zawiya where mobile phone coverage was available.
"The city is in ruins," he said. "Some buildings have been entirely destroyed and everyone on the street is shot on sight. There are many wounded but the hospitals are running out of supplies."
However another witness, a Ghanaian worker who fled the city on Tuesday, said the rebels were still in control of the central square and were using loud hailers to urge residents to help defend their positions.
"The rebels are in control but there is an exchange of fire going on," said the Ghanaian. "They are in the square."
Zawiya has been the focus of heavy fighting for days and the exiled opposition group Libyan Human Rights Solidarity said government forces were tightening their encirclement. The offensive on Zawiya is thought to be spearheaded by an elite unit led and named after one of Gadhafi's sons, Khamis.
A government spokesman said troops were now in control but a small group of rebel fighters was still putting up resistance.
"Maybe 30-40 people, hiding in the streets and in the cemetery. They are desperate," he told Reuters in Tripoli.
Meanwhile in the east of Tripoli, Gadhafi's forces launched a barrage of missiles against the oil town of Ras Lanuf, Al-Jazeera reported.
"People are dying out there. Gadhafi's forces have rockets and tanks," shouted Abdel Salem Mohamed, 21, returning to Ras Lanuf from the frontline just to the west.
"You see this? This is no good," he said gesturing to a light machine gun he carried.
Other rebels are armed with heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenade launchers and anti-tank and aircraft weapons, often mounted on 4x4 pick-up trucks.
Airstrike smashes houseOne airstrike smashed a house in a residential area of the town, gouging a big hole in the ground floor.
Mustafa Askat, an oil worker, said one bomb had wrecked a water line and this would affect water supplies to the city.
"We have a hospital inside, we have sick people and they need water urgently," he said.
A Reuters correspondent saw three wounded men in the Ras Lanuf hospital. Staff said they had come from fighting near Bin Jawad, which government forces have recaptured.
No one was immediately able to confirm the total number of wounded who had arrived in the day.
NBC News' Richard Engel, who is in the capital Tripoli, said Gadhafi was expected to make a statement Tuesday.
s, Engel said he and other journalists waiting for the Gadhafi's arrival at a hotel were told "we will be shot" if they tried to film from balconies, hide in bushes or otherwise surprise Gadhafi's security detail.
He also said there were fears that al-Qaida was taking advantage of the chaos in Libya to gather weapons, citing a U.S. official. The official told Engel that Saudi Arabia was arming some rebels to counter al-Qaida's influence.
Apparently undeterred by Gadhafi's renewed show of force, the rebel leadership said that if he stepped down within 72 hours it would not seek to bring him to justice.
"If he leaves Libya immediately, during 72 hours, and stops the bombardment, we as Libyans will step back from pursuing him for crimes," Mustafa Abdel Jalil, an ex-justice minister, told Al Jazeera television by telephone from the rebels' eastern stronghold, Benghazi.
Earlier, the rebels said they rejected an offer from the Libyan leader to negotiate his surrender of power. The government denied any such talks had taken place.
On the international front, foreign governments struggled to agree on a united strategy for dealing with the turmoil in the oil-producing country.
The Arab League and several Gulf states have called for a no-fly zone, important support given suspicions in the Muslim world about Western intentions.
Britain and France led a drive at the United Nations for a no-fly zone over Libya. But Russia and China, who have veto power in the U.N. Security Council, were cool to the idea.
The U.S. government, whose interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan enraged many of the world's Muslims, said it was weighing up what military options could achieve.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said action should be taken only with international backing. The White House said all options were on the table, including arming rebels.
Sen. John McCain renewed his call for imposition of a no-fly zone, saying he did not believe that would lead inevitably to U.S. troops on the ground.
The Arizona Republican told CBS's "The Early Show" that he understood weariness at home over U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, but added that the American people "are not prepared to watch ... one of the two or three worst despots in the world sit and slaughter innocent civilians."
In other developments:
- U.N. aid coordinator Valerie Amos said the fighting across Libya meant that more than a million people fleeing or inside the country needed humanitarian aid.
- A convoy of trucks from the U.N. food agency was expected to reach Libya's rebel-held port of Benghazi Tuesday to deliver the first food aid inside the country since a revolt erupted three weeks ago, the agency said. The World Food Program (WFP) said in a statement a convoy carrying 70 tons of high-energy date bars crossed the Egyptian border overnight on its way to the eastern port.