NATO warplanes have dramatically stepped up their bombing campaign in Libya, alliance data showed on Monday, as rebels said they would move to retake a key gateway to Tripoli.

NATO flew 71 strike sorties in 24 hours, nearly double the daily tempo seen in past weeks, pounding targets on the eastern front at Brega and around Tripoli overnight Sunday.

Seventeen strikes hit armoured vehicles, command and control nodes, military storage facilities and a tank in Brega, 150 kilometres (240 kilometres) from the rebel capital Benghazi.

Strikes also hit targets to the west, east and south of Tripoli, including at Gharyan in the Nafusa Mountains, where most of the heavy fighting has taken place in past weeks.

The strikes came as Libyan rebels on Saturday announced their intention to advance out of their hilltop enclave in the mountain range, which lies south of Tripoli, within 48 hours.

"In the next two days the (revolutionaries) will come up with answers, things will change on the frontline," spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said.

The rebels had pulled back last week from around the plains town of Bir al-Ghanam, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Tripoli, in the face of loyalist bombardment.

But France last week made a series of controversial weapons drops to rebel fighters in the Nafusa Mountains and NATO has bombarded loyalist positions around Bir al-Ghanam and elsewhere on the frontline around the rebel enclave.

Tweet

Related Links