NEAR RASLANUF: At least four people were killed on Friday during heavy clashes between loyalists of Libyan ruler Moamer Kadhafi and eastern rebels near an oil compound at Raslanuf, a rebel witness said.
Heavy shelling and bursts of machine gun fire could be heard in the desert 10 kilometres (six miles) east of Raslanuf, a stronghold held by Kadhafi loyalists as truckloads of armed rebels headed in that direction, an AFP reporter said.
Ambulances also hurtled along the highway towards Raslanuf, where dozens of rebels earlier said they would take on Kadhafi's men.
"They are firing Grad rockets. I saw four people killed in front of me. A rocket hit them," said a rebel, who gave his name only as Marai.
"They deployed a helicopter," he said, in reference to pro-Kadhafi forces. Asked why he was driving away from the front he said: "I don't have a weapon."
"We saw people dying everywhere," another rebel volunteer, who gave his name as Abdul Rauf, told AFP on his way back from the front.
Blood stained the back seat of his vehicle.
"That's a friend of mine. He was shot with a 14 (a machine gun). We gave him to an ambulance down the road," the man said.
After an hour, the shelling and gunfire became more intermittent, but there were conflicting reports about how much land the rebels may have captured.
Rebels heading away from the front shouted out of vehicles that there had been air strikes and said that part of Raslanuf had fallen to rebel control, but there was no independent confirmation.
An AFP reporter at the western edge of Ajdabiya, a rebel-held town further east, said rebels were shooting wildly into the air, claiming that Raslanuf had fallen as truck upon truck of armed volunteers sped out towards the front.
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi have regained control of Zawiyah, near Tripoli, from rebel hands, state television reported on Friday.
Channel One said "the people of Zawiyah and the heads of the popular committees have made Zawiyah safe from the armed terrorist forces."
Channel Two said government forces were in control of most of the middle-class dormitory town just 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of Tripoli, and that 31 tanks, 19 troop carriers and other weapons including rocket-launchers and anti-aircraft guns had been seized from the rebels.
The reports said the "leader of the terrorist group" in the town, named as Hussein Darbuk, and his deputy had been killed and other leading rebels captured.
In a speech on February 24 Kadhafi accused residents of Zawiyah, which is home to a number of pro-Kadhafi military officers and the site of the country's largest oil refinery, of siding with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"You in Zawiyah turn to Bin Laden," he said. "They give you drugs."
"It is obvious now that this issue is run by Al-Qaeda," he said, addressing the town's elders. "Those armed youngsters, our children, are incited by people who are wanted by America and the Western world."
He added, "Those inciting are very few in numbers and we have to capture them. Others have to stay at home. They have guns, they feel trigger happy and they shoot especially when they are stoned with drugs."
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