Powerful explosions rocked Tripoli on Tuesday as Nato launched its heaviest bombardment yet of the capital, while France and Britain piled pressure on Muammar Gaddafi by bringing attack helicopters into the Libya fray.

NATO said on Friday its warplanes hit eight vessels of Muammar Gaddafi's navy, after US President Barack Obama predicted the Libyan strongman would 'inevitably' leave or be forced from power.

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Attempts to secure a ceasefire in Libya have failed and the humanitarian crisis is worsening, UN chief Ban Ki-moon told AFP, while Muammar Gaddafi's embattled regime freed four foreign journalists.

Muammar Gaddafi has declared in an audio message that he was beyond the reach of Nato bombs, following a government denial of an Italian claim that the Libyan leader was wounded and on the run.

Libyan state TV on Wednesday showed footage of strongman Muammar Gaddafi in a meeting, the first time he has appeared on television since an air strike that the regime termed an attempt on his life.

Jets screamed in low over Tripoli early on Tuesday, carrying out a series of strikes in quick succession, after witnesses reported two others near state media offices a few hours before.

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Libyan rebels fought a fierce battle with forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi near the airport at the western city of Misrata on Sunday as NATO planes targeted government ammunition stores on another fron

Muammar Gaddafi's government was mulling extending on Wednesday a deadline for rebels in Libya's third city Misrata to lay down their arms after the deputy foreign minister said scores had surrendered.

Angry mobs attacked Western embassies and a U.N. office in Tripoli Sunday after NATO bombed Muammar Gaddafi's family compound in an attack officials said killed the leader's second youngest son and th

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said.

The stri