Moammar Gadhafi's troops fired Grad rockets over the border into Tunisia Tuesday, witnesses said. The Libyan leader's troops also bombarded opposition forces controlling a key border crossing with the neighboring country, a rebel commander said.
The rockets caused no damage or injuries, witnesses said.
Tunisia responded by flying an F-5 warplane and a reconnaissance helicopter along its border with Libya on Tuesday, witnesses and a police source said.
"An F-5 plane and a helicopter were patrolling at the border with Libya to survey the situation after the rockets fell on the region of Mrabeh," a police source in the area told Reuters by telephone.
Two witnesses in the border region also said they saw the aircraft circling in the sky overhead.
The last time Libyan forces fired rockets into Tunisia, on May 17, the Tunisian government threatened to report Libya to the U.N. Security Council for committing "enemy actions."
"At least five rockets fell on Tunisian soil today in the Mrabeh. It was a heavy bombardment from Gadhafi's side of the mountains," said resident Mohammed Nagez, a local trader.
Another local trader, who could only be identified by his first name, Morad, said there had been a "heavy bombardment that started last night and still hasn't stopped."
A local police officer, who could not be named, said Tunisian security forces feared the rockets might hit the main border crossing at Wazen, where thousands of people are often gathered at any one time.
Omar Hussein, a spokesman for rebels in the western Nafusa mountains, said government forces in the al-Ghazaya area on Tuesday were targeting rebels holding the road that leads toward the Dehiba border crossing.
Dehiba is a key supply point for the rebels who wrested control of a string of Nafusa mountain towns from Gadhafi's forces earlier this month.
Hussein said the rebels control the high ground, giving them a strategic edge over Gadhafi's forces in the battle for the Nafusa mountains.
He also said rebels and government troops engage in daily clashes in the mountain towns of Zintan and Reyanna.
Meanwhile NATO told CNN Tuesday that it could not confirm reports Gadhafi was hiding rocket launchers at UNESCO World Heritage site Leptis Magna — ruins of a Roman city between Misrata and Tripoli — and refused to rule out bombing it if it was a relevant target.
"We will strike military vehicles, military forces, military equipment or military infrastructure that threaten Libyan civilians as necessary," a NATO official, who did not give his name, told CNN.