CAIRO; Libyan rebels called Saturday for help from the Arab League as it met for key talks on the conflict, including recognition for their council and backing for a no-fly zone to help their battered forces.
On the front line, rebel fighters had pulled back from the town of Ras Lanuf, where an oil refinery was still in flames and Libyan leader Moamer Qadhafi's forces appeared to be in control, AFP reporters said.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa also called for a no-fly zone and said he wants the pan-Arab organisation to play a role in imposing it, in an interview published Saturday.
"The United Nations, the Arab League, the African Union, the Europeans everyone should participate," Mussa told German weekly Der Spiegel
"I am talking about a humanitarian action. It consists, with a no fly zone, of supporting the Libyan people in their fight for freedom against a regime that is more and more disdainful."
An opposition member, Slimane Mbarek, said on Saturday rebel delegates had handed Mussa a letter urging the Arab League "to end the bloodletting through a decision to impose an air-exclusion zone on Libya and recognising the transitional national council as the representative of Libya."
Hisham Yousuef, Mussa's chief of staff, said earlier that two envoys from Tripoli would be barred from the meeting in line with the March 2 decision of the 22-member bloc to suspend Libya.
The meeting of foreign ministers and other representatives would discuss "the developments of the situation in Libya to find ways to end the bloodshed in Libya," Yousuf said.
EU leaders agreed at an emergency summit Friday to talk to Qadhafi's opponents and protect Libyan civilians "by all necessary means" while stopping short of an outright military threat.
They demanded Qadhafi "relinquish power immediately" and deemed the opposition council based in the eastern city of Benghazi "a political interlocutor."
However, there was no mention of calls from Britain and France for a no-fly zone, and strident demands from French President Nicolas Sarkozy for "targeted action" against Qadhafi went unheeded.
Four rebels in the village of Uqayla, on the east-west coastal road between Brega and Ras Lanuf, said they had pulled out of Ras Lanuf after fierce fighting since government forces stormed the town on Thursday.
AFP journalists advanced 15 kilometres (nine miles) further west towards Ras Lanuf and could see heavy smoke rising from an oil refinery that was hit in a Friday air strike, but no sign of either rebel or regime forces.
The fall of Ras Lanuf followed that of the western city of Zawiya, where Qadhafi's troops fired in the air Friday to celebrate the capture of the rebel stronghold, which put up a fierce two-week resistance.
The country's oil chief Shukri Ghanem told AFP operations had resumed at a key refinery in Zawiya which supplies the capital and western Libya.
In eastern, rebel-held Benghazi, up to 10,000 people poured into the streets on Friday in a carnival-like atmosphere, calling for Qadhafi to go and praying for victory.
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