TRIPOLI/DEHIBA, Tunisia - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi overran a rebel outpost on the Tunisian border on Thursday, but the opposition disputed a state TV report that they had also taken a remote desert town.

Fighting spilled onto Tunisian territory at the Dehiba-Wazin border crossing, in what appeared to be part of a broader government move to root out rebel outposts beyond their eastern heartland. But Gadhafi's soldiers apologised to their Tunisian counterparts for the incursion and returned to their posts.

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Rebels said the western mountain town of Zintan also came under fire from multiple-launch Grad rockets seen as especially hazardous to civilian areas because of their inaccuracy.

Libyan rebels captured the Dehiba-Wazin border crossing into Tunisia a week ago and expanded their control to about 10 km (six miles) inside Libya. The counter-attack began with shelling of retreating rebels.

"Fighting broke out on Tunisian territory, in Dehiba, after Gadhafi's forces attacked the border crossing," said Ali, a Tunisian involved in helping Libyans arriving in Dehiba. "The rebels have withdrawn and are now inside Tunisia."

Seizing the border crossing cut off rebels in the Western Mountains from their only road to the outside world, making them rely on tracks for supplies of food, fuel and medicine.

Libyan soldiers hoisted their flag at the border, tearing down a pre-Gadhafi era flag that had fluttered for a few days. There was no official word from Tunis on the incursion.

Libyan state television said some rebels had been killed and others taken prisoner in the recapture of the border post.

After weeks of advances and retreats by rebel and government forces along the Mediterranean coast, fighting has settled into a pattern of clashes and skirmishes, with Gadhafi seeking to root out rebel outposts as he fights to prolong his more than four-decade rule over the oil-producing nation.