Humanitarian Aid

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is already deployed in Libya's rebel-held eastern territory, where it has supplied hospitals, distributed food and visited government soldiers captured during the conflict.

Speaking in Tripoli alongside a government spokesman, its regional head Jean-Michel Monod said his team had been officially invited to the capital.

"Now we will officially be here open for business," he told reporters. "Of course it was high time as a neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian organisation that the ICRC would come here as well to conduct discussions with the authorities."

Libyan Social Affairs Minister Ibrahim Zarouk al-Sharif said some aid operations had been used as a cover to supply rebels.

"If humanitarian aid is brought through humanitarian organisations who specialise in this kind of work then we would welcome it. But if it comes with a military face then we won't accept it, it's basically a declaration of war and might lead to a much bigger conflict."

At talks in Luxembourg, Italy quarrelled with other European Union governments on how to handle thousands of migrants fleeing the turmoil in Libya and elsewhere in north Africa, while the EU executive urged the bloc to do more for the refugees.

NATO attacks outside Ajdabiyah on Sunday helped break the biggest assault by Gadhafi's forces on the eastern front for at least a week. The town is the gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi 150 km (90 miles) north up the Mediterranean coast.

Opposition fighters have been overwhelmed by Gadhafi's firepower in western Libya, close to his base of Tripoli, but are increasingly using guerrilla tactics to weaken his hold.

Tripoli residents said there had been several attacks on army checkpoints and a police station in the last week and gunfire can be heard at night.

Gadhafi's former foreign minister Moussa Koussa, speaking in Britain where he fled last month, called on "everybody, all the parties, to work to avoid taking Libya into a civil war".

"This will lead to bloodshed and make Libya a new Somalia," he told the BBC. "More than that we refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any solution and any settlement in Libya."