"We are putting pressure on Qadhafi's ground forces that are threatening cities," Rear Admiral Gerard Hueber, US chief of staff for the Libya mission, told journalists. Asked if that meant air strikes, he replied: "Yes." However, there was no immediate sign of coalition assistance at two flashpoints where rebels are battling Qadhafi's forces, Ajdabiya, south of the rebel capital of Benghazi, and Misrata, Libya's third city 214 kilometres (132 miles) east of Tripoli. Residents fleeing Ajdabiya, a strategic eastern town, described shelling, gunfire and burning houses, while an AFP reporter said a pall of smoke hung over the town and explosions were heard intermittently. A man driving a car with his panicked family car told AFP, at a point about 15 kilometres north along the coast outside Ajdabiya that they were too scared to stay there.
"We left because of the fighting. We were very scared; we cannot stay," said the man, who declined to give his name. Hamed al-Qabaili, also fleeing Ajdabiya, called the situation "very bad."
"They are firing Grad missiles at the houses," he said. Muftah al-Sheikh, travelling in a car with Qabaili, said he was too scared to stay in the town.
"We left because we are afraid," he said.
"There are very few people left. There is no electricity and no gas." Rebels also said they had been under intense attack in their Misrata enclave, which has been besieged by Qadhafi forces for weeks, with a doctor saying 17 people were killed on Tuesday by snipers and shelling.
Early on Wednesday, CNN reported coalition air strikes launched overnight near Misrata. Coalition forces are acting under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorising "all necessary means" to protect civilians fighting to topple Qadhafi, including enforcing a no-fly zone.
In Berlin, Beverly Mock, spokeswoman for the coalition, said 97 sorties were carried across Libya in the course of the 24 hours ending 1200 GMT on Wednesday. No cruise missiles were fired in the period but air strikes targeted tanks, anti-aircraft batteries "and command centres," Mock said, without elaborating.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in Cairo that there was no "timeline" for when UN-backed military operations in Libya would end.
"The no-fly zone is not time limited by the Security Council resolution. So I think that there is no current timeline in terms of when it might end," Gates told reporters. Since the start of the operation on Saturday, the US and British navies had fired 162 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 112 on Saturday alone. In Paris, an envoy from the rebels' transitional council said their objective was a regime that would be "democratic and secular." Mansour Saif al-Nasr also predicted that Qadhafi would fall quickly, opening the way for a rebuilding of society.
"The Libyan people are a moderate people, and the state will not be led by clerics," Nasr told a gathering late on Tuesday. The interim council has 31 members, but the identities of only eight have been revealed because most still live in zones held by forces loyal to Qadhafi.
"They are mainly lawyers and professors. All regions of Libya are represented, and there are members from all the tribes," including Qadhafi's, Nasr said. NATO nations on Wednesday offered an armada of ships and submarines to enforce an arms embargo against Qadhafi, as the West moved to settle a row over who should run the entire Libya campaign. There is coordination but no unified command, and moves to hand over control of the operation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have divided the alliance. Six nations agreed to contribute up to 16 vessels to prevent Qadhafi from bringing in weapons from the Mediterranean, with Turkey offering five warships and a submarine despite its reservations about the military action.
"NATO warships and aircraft have started patrolling the approaches to Libya's coast as part of Operation Unified Protector," NATO said on its website. In the meantime, the 28-nation alliance appeared to move closer to deciding NATO's place in a no-fly zone that has been enforced by an international coalition led by the United States, France and Britain. France wants political authority to rest in the hands of a committee made up of countries taking part in the international campaign, including Arab states, while leaving planning and operational military duties to NATO. The body will hold its first meeting in London on Tuesday, along with the African Union, the Arab League and any other European country that wants to participate, said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe. Juppe, who has warned that running the operation under the NATO flag could alienate Arab allies, said it was important to "make clear that the political leadership is not NATO, but the contact group." World oil prices advanced on Wednesday over the escalating unrest in Libya and the Middle East, traders said as they awaited energy inventory data from the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer. Brent North Sea crude for delivery in May climbed 49 cents to $116.19 a barrel in London trade. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for May, gained 54 cents to $105.51 per barrel. Meanwhile, three journalists including two Agence France-Presse employees held by Qadhafi's forces since the weekend were released in Tripoli early on Wednesday. Dave Clark, Roberto Schmidt, and Getty photographer Joe Raedle were arrested on Saturday.