Libya rebels claim gains, up pressure on Qaddafi

ZAWIYA, Libya - With opposition fighters steadily gaining ground in the six-month-old civil war, there are signs that Muammar Qaddafi's 42-year-old rule may be unraveling.

Rebels seized Libya's last functioning oil refinery Thursday and claimed to have captured most of the city of Zawiya, just 30 miles west of the capital along the Mediterranean coast.

A rebel victory here could leave Qaddafi nearly cornered in his increasingly isolated stronghold of Tripoli.

Rebel fighters said they widened their control over Zawiya after engaging in street fighting with Qaddafi loyalists. The loyalists were firing from snipers' nests and pounding the city with rockets and mortars.

A rebel commander, Col. Ali Ahrash, said that on Thursday opposition forces seized the sprawling oil refinery complex west of Zawiya and now control all of the city except for two main streets and the central hospital.

Reporting Friday for "The Early Show," SKY News correspondent Alex Crawford said the impression from the ground in Zawiya is a very different to the one presented by government authorities in Tripoli.

Crawford reports the rebels have brought in reinforcements in terms of people, armory, weaponry and ammunition, and are digging in to what appears to be their last stand to try and take the city's over Martyrs' Square.

"Certainly the impression we got when we were right in the heart of it was that they appear to have the upper hand, and it was the Qaddafi soldiers, a few snipers who were holed up in a number of buildings in Martyrs' Square having to defend themselves and trying to push back the rebels, but it seemed to us very much then that the people of Zawiya - bolstered by extra fighters from Zintan and the Nafusa Mountains - appeared to be advancing on the Qaddafi fighters, and they appeared to have the upper hand.

"They were very confident that they were making inroads," said Crawford, "and they were almost celebrating whilst we were there, many of them showing "V" signs and really feeling they had pushed back the army."

Explosions rock Tripoli; Rebels make gains

Rebel fighters are now closing in on the capital from the west and the south, while NATO controls the seas to the north. The opposition is in charge of most of the eastern half of the country.

"We know he (Qaddafi) is finished," said Mohammed Said, a 50-year-old school teacher who fled Tripoli on Tuesday. "We just don't know when."

NBC News, citing intelligence sources, says that Qaddafi is planning to depart Libya, possibly for exile in Tunisia.

The Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reports that Qaddafi has sent a close advisor to Mali and the Tunisian island of Djerba to meet with British and French officials to discuss "securing a safe exit for Gaddafi and his family from Libya."

Libyan dissident Abdel Monem al-Houni told the paper that Qaddafi is seeking a safe haven " in the case that Tripoli falls into the hands of the revolutionaries."

Meanwhile a NATO spokesman said that on Wednesday coalition warplanes targeted a small boat carrying Qaddafi troops off the coast of Zawiya. The spokesman said the boat was struck because the government troops were "threatening civilians."

The NATO officials said on Friday that after the boat was hit, NATO aircraft detected several people swimming toward a nearby buoy. NATO raised the alarm and initiated a rescue of the individuals.

NATO also says its planes took out five tanks in Zawiya on Thursday.

Meanwhile in Triopoli, at least seven loud blasts were heard early Friday morning as bombs fell in the vicinity of Muammar Qaddafi's main compound of Bab al-Aziziya.

An Associated Press correspondent staying in a hotel in the capital said he heard the explosions and saw flames in the air as bombs struck the ground. NATO jets were heard circling the sky above.

A rebel victory in Zawiya could leave Qaddafi nearly cornered in his increasingly isolated stronghold of Tripoli, the capital, just 30 miles to the east along the Mediterranean coast.