A top British officer has declared Muammar Gadaffii's air force effectively destroyed as NATO ships patrol off Libya's coast.
NATO ships patrol off Libya's coast as airstrikes, missiles and energised rebels force Muammar Gaddafi's tanks to roll back from two key western cities.
In the east, civilians flee one strategic city while Libya's opposition takes haphazard steps to form a government.
Confusion emerges about who will lead the international effort to enforce a no-fly zone, with the US vowing to relinquish its lead role on Saturday.
Gaddafi's air force 'effectively destroyed'
A top British officer has declared Muammar Gadaffii's air force effectively destroyed as Gaddafi forces hammer Misrata hospital.
"The situation here is very bad and very serious. The tanks are shelling the hospital and houses," the spokesman said.
Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell of Britain said that Libya's air force has been almost totally destroyed by the air strikes and "no longer exists as a fighting force."
Bagwell told British media at an airbase in southern Italy, from which RAF warplanes are operating, that Libyan ground forces were also being attacked when they threaten civilians.
The US military said Gaddafi's ground troops who are threatening rebel-held cities are now being targeted by coalition air strikes.
"We are putting pressure on Gaddafi'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 Gaddafi's forces -- Ajdabiya, south of the rebel capital of Benghazi, and Misrata, Libya's third city 214 kilometres (132 miles) east of Tripoli.
NATO fails to agree on Libya command
NATO nations failed to agree on giving the Western alliance command of military operations in Libya, a NATO diplomat told AFP.
"There was no agreement and the discussions continue," the diplomat said after a new round of talks among ambassadors of the 28-nation alliance.
The debate will resume Thursday 24th March, the diplomat said.
The ambassadors of the 28-nation alliance have held daily meetings to decide whether NATO should join the no-fly zone over Libya.
France insists that political control should be in the hands of an international coalition, while NATO would be in charge of planning and operations.
Civilians fleeing Ajdabiya
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 under intense attack
Rebels also said they had been under intense attack in their Misrata enclave, which has been besieged by Gaddafi forces for weeks, with a doctor saying 17 people were killed on Tuesday by snipers and shelling.
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 Kadhafi, 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, the US and British navies had fired 162 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
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 Kadhafi 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 March 23..
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 Kadhafi.
"They are mainly lawyers and professors. All regions of Libya are represented, and there are members from all the tribes," including Kadhafi's, Nasr said.
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