Gaddafi force using 'cluster bombs'

Loud explosions yesterday rocked the besieged rebel-held western Libyan city of Misrata, where the death toll mounted, as a rights watchdog said Muammar Gaddafi's forces were using cluster bombs.
In the east, heavy fighting was reported as rebel fighters, bolstered by Nato air strikes, pushed on from the crossroads town of Ajdabiya towards the strategic oil town of Brega.
And even further west, Nato air strikes targeted Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, state news agency JANA reported, without giving details.
The blasts in Misrata were accompanied by bursts of gunfire heard coming from the city centre, an AFP correspondent said.
Officials at Misrata's main Hikma hospital said overnight it had received five dead bodies and 31 wounded.
US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its researchers reported the use of internationally banned cluster munitions against rebels in Misrata, the rebels' last major bastion in western Libya.
Cluster bombs explode in the air and scatter deadly, armour-piercing submunitions over a wide area.
"Last night it was like rain," said Hazam Abu Zaid, a local resident who has taken up arms to defend his neighbourhood, describing the cluster bombings.
The use of the munitions was first reported by The New York Times. A reporting team for the daily photographed MAT-120 mortar rounds which it said were produced in Spain.
"It's appalling that Libya is using this weapon, especially in a residential area," said Steve Goose, HRW's arms division director.
A spokesman for the Libyan regime denied the accusations.
"Absolutely no. We can't do this. Morally, legally we can't do this," Mussa Ibrahim told journalists. "We never do it. We challenge them to prove it."
In Paris, aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had evacuated 99 people, including 64 war-wounded, by boat from Misrata on Friday to Tunisia.
Speaking of the dire conditions in the city, under siege for weeks, MSF Doctor Morten Rostrup said in a statement that "health structures have been struggling to cope with the influx of patients".
Libya said a Red Cross team had arrived in Misrata to assess the situation.
Tens of thousands of migrants have already fled Libya since the rebellion broke out in mid-February.
Meanwhile, an AFP reporter stopped at a rebel checkpoint west of Ajdabiya heard explosions from several shells in the distance as rebels pushed forward to confront government forces hit by Nato air strikes.
The insurgents' goal is to retake Brega about 80 kilometres away. Some reports said they were already on the outskirts of the oil town.
Yesterday afternoon, an AFP correspondent reported heavy fighting in the area, including rocket, mortar and small arms fire.
Meanwhile, doctors in Ajdabiya said one person was killed and seven wounded by gunfire Friday along the road to Brega. Their identity was not known.
In the far west of the country, witnesses on Friday reported Nato air strikes on Gaddafi armour in the Zintan region, amid clashes with rebels who hold several areas and rebel reports Gaddafi troops were trying to cut the road to nearby Yafran.
On the diplomatic front, the leaders of Britain, France and the United States said on Friday that a Libyan future including Gaddafi is "unthinkable," while Russia charged that Nato was exceeding its UN mandate in Libya.
French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said the United States, Britain and France were thinking beyond UN Security Council Resolution 1973 -- which authorises action to protect Libyan civilians -- and now seek regime change.
He admitted that the statement by the three leaders went beyond the terms of the current UN mandate.
But Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen denied the air strikes were beyond the scope of the UN resolution.
"I have to stress that in the conduct of that operation, we do not go beyond the text or the spirit" of the resolution, he said.
The Washington Post reported late Friday that Nato is running short of precision bombs and other munitions in Libya, citing unnamed senior Nato and US officials. The scope of the problem was not mentioned.