Good morning. Welcome to live coverage of the continuing battles in Libya. We'll also be keeping you up to date with what's happening elsewhere in the Arab world.
Here's a summary of the latest developments:
• Tanks of pro-Gaddafi forces Are closing in on the rebel-held main square of Zawiyah. A devastating assault by on the key refinery town, 30 miles west of the capital Tripoli, continued into the night, according to residents. One told Reuters of dozens of bodies on the streets after the bombardment. The government claims it has retaken the town but opposition forces appear to be in control of at least part of the town. Foreign reporters have been prevented from entering Zawiyah
• David Cameron and Barack Obama have agreed to draw up "the full spectrum" of military responses to the crisis in Libya. The UK prime minister indicated that Britain has won important US support for a possible no-fly zone over the country. But the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, indicated it was not a decision for the US to take. She said: "We want to see the international community support it (a no-fly zone). I think it's very important that this not be a US-led effort."
• Muammar Gaddafi has accused western powers of planning to seize Libya's oil and wealth, in an interview broadcast on Libyan state TV today. He accused groups from Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria of being behind the uprising in Libya. In another interview he said France wanted "to colonise Libya again".
Here are some more details on the advance of Gaddafi tanks into Zawiyah, reported by Reuters. Interestingly, a rebel fighter claims the bombardment of the oil port was prompted by the death of one of Gaddafi's cousins in fighting there, earlier this week.
"We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere," he told Reuters by phone from inside the city. The fighter, named Ibrahim, said forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were in control of the main road and the suburbs of Zawiyah.
Rebel forces still controlled the square and the enemy was about 1,500m away, he said.
Ibrahim said there were army snipers on top of most of the buildings, shooting whoever dared to leave their homes.He said half the city was destroyed by air attacks. "There are many dead people and they can't even bury them. Zawiyah is deserted. There's nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky," he said.
Rebels had killed a high-ranking cousin of Gaddafi in fighting earlier in the week, and "that's why he bombed the city. They wanted to retrieve the body and they did," Ibrahim said.
He said about 60 rebel fighters had gone to attack an army base on Tuesday about 20kms (12 miles) from Zawiyah. "None of them has returned and we don't know if they're dead or alive. We haven't heard from them," he said.
A resident in Zawiyah has told Reuters by phone:
The situation is not so good. They have surrounded the square with snipers and tanks ... It's very scary. There are a lot of snipers.
More details on the interview with Gaddafi broadcast on Libyan state television this morning (the interview was actually given yesterday), from al-Jazeera. The Libyan leader once more blamed foreigners for the revolt and said several foreign fighters were captured on Monday.
He said:
Yesterday, the mosque that the security forces regained power over, they had in this mosque, they had weapons and alcohol has well. Some of them come from Afghanistan, some of them come from Egypt, some of them come from Algeria, just to misguide our children.
Al Jazeera screengrab
Meanwhile, he told Turkey's state-run TRT Turk television that Libyans would "take up arms and fight" if a no-fly zone was imposed.
Human Rights Watch says at least seven people were wounded in the capital Sana'a last night when security forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at peaceful anti-government protesters:
A field doctor said one demonstrator was in critical condition from a bullet wound to his head and that six others were shot in the arms and legs. The doctor said more than 50 others suffered cramps, brief fainting spells and other physical problems from the tear gas.
Pro-government gangs prevented one ambulance containing wounded from reaching the nearest government hospital, forcing the driver to divert to a private hospital, the field doctor said.
A government statement said police tried to apprehend armed men at a checkpoint outside the protest area. But a witness said the incident began when uniformed members of Yemen's central security forces tried to prevent protesters from using tents near the square, though demonstrators had been sleeping in such tents for days without incident. A few hundred protesters "gathered and started to scream at the government," the witness said. "Suddenly the central security forces attacked the protesters with gunfire and tear gas."
The square was calm several hours later, the doctors and witnesses said.
The oil refinery in Zawiyah has been shut down because of fierce fighting, Reuters reports. An official told the news agency:
Heavy weapons have been fired nearby and we can't run the refinery under these conditions.
The Zawiyah refinery is the biggest provider of gasoline for cars in Libya, and has a total capacity of 120,000 barrels per day. The refinery has been operating at 70% capacity for the past two weeks.
Here's video of Gaddafi's speech, delivered to members of Libya's Zentan tribe, in which he once more blamed foreign elements for the revolt against his leadership:
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Despite Hillary Clinton's expressed concern that the no-fly zone should get international backing, that does not necessarily mean a UN mandate - likely to prove tricky because of Russian and Chinese resistance - according to a report in the Washington Post.
A Nato official told the paper international support could instead come from a regional bloc. The official said:
If you have [support from] the Arab League, the African Union, NATO and potentially the European Union, you have every country within 5,000 miles of Libya. That gives you a certain level of legitimacy.
The global civic advocacy network, Avaaz.org, has a petition on its website for a no-fly zone. It hopes to get one million signatures before the UN security council meeting on Friday. It currently has more than 640,000 signatures.
Avaaz sreengrab
The petition says:
Dear United Nations security council delegates,
We call on you to take immediate steps to impose a no-fly zone under Chapter VII of the UN charter to stop the aerial bombings of civilians in Libya and restore access for humanitarian flights to Libyan air space. Only through robust international action and oversight can the bloodshed in Libya be stopped.
Opposition forces in Ras Lanuf, the oil town in eastern Libya, have evacuated the hospital there because of fears that it could be the target of an attack, either from an airstrike or on the ground, Chris McGreal, the Guardian's correspondent, who is in Benghazi, has just informed me.
Ras Lanuf has repeatedly been a target for Gaddafi's jets over the past few days with at least four airstrikes reported yesterday.
Str/REUTERS
The Greek defence ministry says that Gaddafi's plane has crossed Greece en route to Egypt, al-Arabiya reports.
No further details are available at present but if Gaddafi is aboard one wouldn't imagine he would get a warm reception in Egypt, which only recently ousted its own dictator.
Karl Stagno-Navarra, a journalist in Malta, told al-Jazeera taht three out of five of the Gaddafi family jets are in the air, headed to Vienna, Athens and Cairo respectively.
His sources were air traffic control in Malta and Cyprus.
Chris McGreal, in Benghazi, has been gauging the mood of the opposition forces. He says the bombardment over recent days has convinced the Libyan transitional national council that its forces are in for a protracted battle and of the need for foreign intervention but they are still adamant that they are not engaged in a civil war:
Certainly the euphoria of the early days when the rebels pushed hundreds of km towards Tripoli and they thought that Gaddafi might fall within days, those days have gone. They realise that he's going to fight on if he can and not only has the push towards Tripoli stalled, but it's been reversed. They realise it's going to be a long struggle...
They're looking increasingly to foreign governments to support them with no-fly zones, discussion of whether there will be weapons supplied, recognition of the revolutionary council as the legitimate government.
At the moment the revolutionary council decided that they're not regarding it as a civil war. They say that they see Gaddafi trying to to create a civil war in order to justify bombing cities.
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Despite some excitement on Twitter about the three Gaddafi family jets on the move, it should be pointed out that the planes have been on the move previously since the uprising began so people shouldn't hold out too much hope as to their significance.
The wife of Gaddafi's son Hannibal, who is Lebanese, was reportedly refused permission to land in Lebanon last month, while a day later the dictator's daughter Aisha denied she was trying to flee when a jet was turned back from Malta.
Another flight was reported to Minsk in Belarus.
Al-Jazeera suggest that at least one of the flights might taking a Libyan delegation to negotiate with the Arab League, which is based in Cairo. A meeting of the Arab League is due to take place on Saturday but the league has ruled out any Libyan participation.
The news station's Rawya Rageh has been tweeting that all three planes are now headed to Egypt:
The #Gaddafi family jet that landed in #Egypt had a military official on board who'll be meeting with Egypt's military rulers #Libya #Feb17
The two other #Gaddafi family jets that were initially headed to Europe now re-routed to #Egypt, as well #Libya #Feb17
An update on the Libyan jet that has arrived in Cairo from AP:
An Egyptian airport official says a high-ranking member of the Libyan government has landed in Cairo saying he has a message from Muammar Gaddafi.
The official told The Associated Press that the head of Libya's logistics and supply authority arrived on a private jet Wednesday afternoon. Libyan embassy staff told Egyptian officials that Major Gen Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Saiid al-Zawi was carrying a message from Gaddafi.
A UN special investigator has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Gaddafi's forces since the start of the uprising, reports AP. The UN's special rapporteur for torture, Juan Mendez, told reporters at the UN's European headquarters in Geneva that Gaddafi's use of torture and illegal detention in the past is "very well-documented".
Mendez was asked whether he would investigate media reports that Gaddafi's soldiers have been using ambulances to remove patients from hospitals and execute them but would not elaborate.
A fighter jet has been circling over Ras Lanuf but there have been no major clashes so far, reports Reuters. It says opposition forces have been staging periodic hit-and-run attacks on dug-in troops loyal to Gaddafi in the east of the country and resupplied their own frontline with guns and ammunition.
A warplane circled a rebel checkpoint at the main gate to the rebel-held oil town of Ras Lanuf which has sustained repeated air strikes in the past days. There were six anti-aircraft guns, two mortar launchers and boxes of ammunition at the gate waiting to go forward. One fighter was carefully assembling home-made bombs with small fuses and tins of TNT explosive.
"We're in a defensive position right now because of the heavy artillery ahead. We moved forward another five km (three miles)," rebel Colonel Masoud Mohammed.
The threat of heavy artillery and the defensive position was repeated by Colonel Bashir Abdul Qadr.On Wednesday, there was one rebel army truck mounted with a multiple rocket launcher near the front, which lies along a barren stretch of desert and scrub roughly 550 km (340 miles) east of Tripoli between the towns of Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf.
A Reuters correspondent also saw an armoured personnel carrier travelling away from the front. Another two sources, unarmed rebel volunteers, said there had been minor skirmishes at the front line at dawn, but no major military confrontations.
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There has been fighting near near the east Libyan oil terminal of Es Sider, close to Ras Lanuf, reports Reuters:
"The bombardment is further east from Es Sider, near where the rebels are now. They are firing back with rockets," said Reuters correspondent Mohammed Abbas on the frontline.
He said rebel forces moved out of Es Sider, a town they have controlled, after the bombardment. They have moved out of the town before only to retake it later.
"This is really very heavy bombardment from Gaddafi forces," said Abbas.
Here's a summary of events so far today:
• Gaddafi's tanks have reportedly been moving towards the centre of Zawayiah. The city, 30 miles west of Tripoli, came under fierce attack yesterday and the tanks are believed to be moving towards Zawiyah's opposition-held square. People in the city painted a grim picture of what is happening. A fighter named Ibrahim told Reuters by phone that tanks are "everywhere". "There are many dead people and they can't even bury them. Zawiyah is deserted. There's nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky," he said. A resident said: "The situation is not so good. They have surrounded the square with snipers and tanks ... It's very scary."
• There have been a fresh airstrikes on the eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf, al-Jazeera has just reported.
• Three of Gaddafi's private jets have reportedly headed to Cairo. One has already landed. Al-Jazeera suggested Libya might be sending a delegation to the Arab League, which is due to hold a meeting in the Egyptian capital on Saturday. It also reported that the delegation will be meeting with the ruling Egyptian military. AP said a high-ranking member of the Libyan government was carrying a message from Gaddafi.
• The UN's special rapporteur for torture has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Gaddafi's forces since the beginning of the uprising. Juan Mendez said Gaddafi's use of torture and illegal detention in the past is "very well-documented".
• Gaddafi has accused western powers of trying to get their hands on Libya's oil and wealth. He also accused them of trying to re-colonise the country. The Libyan leader once more blamed foreign intervention for the uprising and said that Libyans would "take up arms and fight" if a no-fly zone was imposed. He said a no-fly zone would be "useful" because it would open the eyes of the Libyan people to the true intentions of the west.
I reported earlier that the hospital in the eastern oil town of Ras Lanuf has been evacuated. Apparently, it has been evacuated because the water to the town was cut by yesterday's bombing and not because of an increased military threat as originally believed.
Forces loyal to Gaddafi hit storage tanks in the oil terminal of Es Sider in east Libya on Wednesday during a heavy bombardment of rebels in the area, rebel fighters told Reuters:
Big, black plumes of smoke rose above the terminal. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm the report that the storage tanks were hit or to ascertain if the cause was the bombardment by Gaddafi's forces or a stray rebel rocket. "We were standing over there in the direction of Es Sider. It was a fierce, random bombardment on us and then it hit the storage tanks," rebel fighter Abdel Salam Mohamed told Reuters.
The Guardian has a gallery of images from the Ras Jidr camp on the Tunisian border with Libya. It provides a glimpse into the conditions that greet the thousands of refugees who have fled Libya.
Another good photo gallery is on the New York Times website, which has more than 200 photos from Libya from the past two weeks.
The home of Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, has been occupied by squatters showing solidarity for the Libyan revolution, according to the local paper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express.
Twitter screengrab
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At least three bombs have been dropped on an oil terminal outside Ras Lanuf has been hit by at least three bombs, al-Jazeera's Jacky Rowland reports. The images on television show a huge plume of smoke coming out of the oil terminal. Rowland says there is "intense fighting" in the oil port.
Al-Jazeera screengrab
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A Tunisian man who crossed the border on the way from Tripoli to Tunis in mid-afternoon said government forces have sealed off the western city of Zawiyah. Bachir al Tunesy told Reuters:
The road was okay until we got close to Zawiyah. They've encircled the city and dug up the road leading to it so nobody can come in or out of Zawiyah.
There has been more fighting in Bin Jawad - the town the government claimed to have retaken over the weekend - according to al-Jazeera. It reports that the fighting is for control of the western parts of the town and a plane has been flying overhead.
@Libyanfsl tweets (translation from Arabic):
February 17 rebels entered the city of heroes Bin Jawad after the arrival of the supply of Libyan troops #Feb17 #Libya
Apparently, Libyan state TV is claiming that al-Qaida bombed the oil terminal near Ras Lanuf, in its latest piece of propoganda. Al-Jazeera reported at least three bombs were dropped on the facility by Gaddafi's forces.
A government spokesman in Tripoli has claimed there are 40 opposition fighters remaining in Zawiyah, at most.
"Maybe 30-40 people, hiding in the streets and in the cemetery. They are desperate," he told Reuters.
But Khaeri Aboshagor, spokesman for the London-based Libyan League for Human Rights, said the town might prove hard to control entirely.
"If they have taken the square, the resistance might diminish - it's a symbolic place, and you could say whoever holds the square holds the town - but they will keep fighting. It's a very spread out town and you can't just hold it with 50 tanks and some pickup trucks."
The opposition movement has claimed it is in back in control of Bin Jawad, which the government claimed to have retaken over the weekend, Reuters reports:
The rebel movement announced via loudspeakers in the centre of Benghazi that rebels now controlled Bin Jawad, a town near the front between rebels and Muammar Gaddafi's forces about 550 km (340 miles) east of Tripoli. Crowds in Benghazi cheered.
A Reuters correspondent at the frontline, who spoke to rebels, said their fighters had moved forward towards Bin Jawad from the town of Ras Lanuf after a heavy exchange of fire. But one rebel back from the front said they had not reached Bin Jawad.
An al-Jazeera video shows footage of one of Gaddafi's fighter planes near Ras Lanuf, as well as the oil terminal that was bombed.
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Libyan government emissaries have flown to Brussels to talk to European and NATO officials ahead of the organisations meetings on Thursday and Friday, the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said today. It seems that Gaddafi is on a diplomatic offensive but what his representatives are putting on the table, if anything, is unclear. From Reuters:
"Two aircraft of the Libyan regime appear to have left Libya for Brussels with the intention of enabling emissaries of Gaddafi to meet representatives taking part in the meetings of the EU and NATO tomorrow and the next day," Frattini said.
He noted that the visits to Cairo and Brussels suggested that the situation was very fluid and he cautioned against taking any action which might be premature. "I don't know what will be said in Cairo, I don't know who will meet whom in Brussels but these movements are a fact that we have to take account of," he said.
Earlier, a Maltese official said Libyan emissaries had arrived on the Mediterranean island on Wednesday for talks with Maltese officials, and then flown to Portugal. There was no immediate confirmation from Lisbon but a source in Brussels said the plane was carrying a moderate member of Gaddafi's government to meet Luis Amado, the Portuguese foreign minister.
A live video stream has been posted of what is said to be a mass anti-demonstration protest in Benghazi, the eastern city that is the heart of the opposition movement and home of the transitional national council.
Hafiz Ghoga, a spokesman for the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council, Hafiz Ghoga, has told a news conference that opposition fighters have come under heavy fire in Bin Jawad. He said:
The revolutionary forces have entered Bin Jawad and are now being subjected to heavy artillery and air attack.
Near the frontline, rebel fighter Alamin Mashesh told Reuters: "I was just in Bin Jawad. We took it and now we are in control ... We just burned five tanks with missiles and rocket propelled grenades."
Another opposition fighter, rebel Abdel Karim Mustafa, gestured to show uncertainty when asked if it was under rebel control. "We just went into Bin Jawad, but there are air strikes," he said.
This section of the today's blog has closed – live-blogging of events in Libya and elsewhere is now continuing here.
Thanks for reading.