BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Libyan rebels broke the government siege of two western mountain towns, a rebel commander said Friday, and NATO pounded ten targets across the country.
The heavy bombing and rebel victory, plus the first publicized diplomatic contact between China and the rebel leadership, reflect the continued erosion of Moammar Gadhafi’s power since the eruption in mid-February of uprisings to end his 42-year rule.
A rebel military leader said Friday his troops had broken the siege of two towns in the western Nafusa mountain range, Yefren and Shakshuk.
The latter holds an important power station that feeds a number of local towns.
Ending the siege likely will bring relief to local residents.
Gadhafi’s troops had cut their supply lines and subjected them to random shelling since April, local Col. Jumaa Ibrahim of the region’s rebel military council said via Skype.
Ibrahim said rebel forces freed the towns on Thursday then moved north to clash with Gadhafi forces in the village of Bir Ayyad.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
"Our aim is the capital," he said, though it remains unlikely that the area’s fighters will pose a serious threat to Gadhafi’s hold on Tripoli, 45 miles (70 kilometers) northwest.
The victories could help the small bands of rebels in the Nafusa mountains coordinate by opening a key road between their hilltop towns and villages.
Still, their numbers remain small compared the those in the large rebel-held territories in east Libya.
Also Friday, at least 10 NATO airstrikes hit the capital and elsewhere in Libya.
It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.
Four early morning blasts shook central Tripoli, targeting a barracks near the sprawling compound where Gadhafi sometimes lives, said a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
Six earlier strikes targeted a police station and a military base outside the capital, the official said.
A NATO spokeswoman, speaking by phone from Naples, said the alliance hit a storage facility for military vehicles in Gadhafi’s compound.
In a statement, NATO said it also targeted surface-to-air missile launchers and armored personnel carriers near Tripoli, as well as other targets elsewhere.
Also Friday, a U.N. official said the world body’s refugee agency would meet with a Libyan woman who claimed she was gang-raped by Gadhafi’s troops.
She was deported Thursday from Qatar where she had sought refuge and was flown against her will to Benghazi, the official said.
Benghazi is the Libyan rebels’ de facto capital.
Speaking in Geneva, the official, Adrian Edwards, said his agency was with Iman el-Obeidi when she was taken from her Qatar hotel against her will.
He said she is a recognized refugee, and her deportation violated international law.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters in Washington that the U.S. was "monitoring the situation" to ensure al-Obeidi’s safety and make sure she finds "appropriate asylum."
In March, al-Obeidi rushed into Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel where all foreign correspondents are forced to stay while covering the part of Libya under Gadhafi’s control, and shouted out her story of being stopped at a a checkpoint, dragged away and gang-raped by soldiers.
As she spoke emotionally and as photographers and reporters recorded her words, government minders, whose job is to escort reporters around the area, jumped her and dragged her away.
She disappeared for several days, then turned up in Tunisia and later Qatar.
She was heard from little until Thursday, when she was suddenly expelled from Qatar and ended up in Benghazi, the Libyan rebels’ de facto capital. No explanation was forthcoming from Qatar.
Rebel spokesman Jalal el-Gallal said al-Obeidi arrived in Benghazi by plane. "She’s welcome to stay, this is her country," el-Gallal told The Associated Press.
Libyan authorities have alternately labeled al-Obeidi a drunk, a prostitute and a thief.
Al-Obeidi says she was targeted by Gadhafi’s troops because she is from Benghazi, the rebel stronghold.
Her rape claim could not be independently verified. The Associated Press identifies only rape victims who volunteer their names.
Human rights violations are one aspect of the rebels’ complaints against the Gadhafi regime.
This week a report by a U.N. body said it found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Gadhafi’s government, and also charged that the rebels have committed abuses.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday that China’s ambassador to Qatar recently met with the head of Libya’s rebel council, the first known meeting between the two sides.
China abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote authorizing NATO military action in Libya.
The conflict in Libya is nearly four months along, but the situation on the ground appears mostly stalemated.
NATO airstrikes have kept the outgunned rebels from being overrun, but the rebels have been unable to mount an effective offensive against Gadhafi’s better equipped armed forces.
Gadhafi’s regime has been slowly crumbling from within.
A significant number of army officers and several Cabinet ministers have defected, and most have expressed support for the opposition, but Gadhafi’s hold on power shows little sign of loosening.
Gadhafi has been seen in public rarely and heard even less frequently since a NATO airstrike on his compound killed one of his sons on April 30.
Questions are arising about the physical and mental state of the 69-year-old dictator, who has ruled Libya since 1969.
Rebels have turned down initiatives calling for cease-fires, insisting that Gadhafi and his sons must relinquish power and leave the country.
