Gaddafi 'may leave' bombed capital

Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Gaddafi is reportedly mulling leaving Tripoli after blistering NATO air raids, as the rebels hinted they may let him stay in Libya if he quits and the warring factions Friday began exchanging displaced persons.
The Wall Street Journal quoted a senior US national security official as saying American intelligence shows Gaddafi "doesn't feel safe anymore" in the capital where he has ruled for more than four decades.
However, officials told the paper they did not see the move as imminent and did not believe Gaddafi would leave Libya, a key demand of rebels battling his forces.
Gaddafi is believed to have numerous safe houses and other facilities both within and outside Tripoli where he could go.
Rebel spokesman Mahmud Shamam told French daily Le Figaro the insurgents were in indirect contact with the regime and may be prepared to allow Gaddafi to stay in the country, but that he and his family must agree to leave power.
"Our conditions remain the same. It is totally excluded that Gaddafi or members of his family take part in a future government. We are discussing with them the mechanism for Gaddafi's departure," he said.
In the rebel capital Benghazi, however, National Transitional Council deputy chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga told AFP: "There is no contact, direct or indirect, with the Gaddafi regime."
Another rebel leader, Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani, on Thursday pleaded for foreign allies to provide the weapons, training and communications systems needed to defeat Gaddafi.
"It is so urgent," he said, "we will fight, just support us, just give us the equipment."
Bani said the rebels were up against vastly superior firepower. Much of their arsenal comprises Soviet-era tanks and artillery up to 50 years old.
The mostly volunteer force has, with the help of NATO air strikes, kept Gaddafi's forces at bay on several fronts, but has made limited progress toward Tripoli -- allowing loyalist forces to dig in.
Rights group Amnesty International said on Friday Gaddafi's forces were using rockets packed with ball bearings to bombard civilians in rebel-held Misrata in the west.
At least three civilians -- two women and a 14-year-old boy -- were killed recently when Grad rockets hit a residential neighbourhood of the port city, it said in a statement.
"These rockets are indiscriminate weapons which cannot be directed at a particular target and their use may amount to war crimes," Amnesty said.
A senior US commander, meanwhile, said that NATO and Libya's African allies had not adequately planned for the aftermath of Gaddafi's possible fall.
"We, the international community, could be in post-conflict Libya tomorrow and there isn't a plan, there is not a good plan," the senior US commander in Africa, General Carter Ham, told the Wall Street Journal.
He predicted that Gaddafi could fall quickly, and said there may be a need for substantial ground forces in Libya to preserve order.
Despite the intensive NATO bombing, stalemate on the battlefield and a wave of defections of regime officials and soldiers, Gaddafi remains defiant.
"We will resist and the battle will continue to the beyond, until you're wiped out. But we will not be finished," he said in an audio message on Libyan television late on Wednesday.
Around 300 people, including 51 freed detainees, arrived in Benghazi on Friday aboard the Ionis, chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross, after a 22-hour journey from Tripoli, an AFP correspondent said.
Families who had been separated for weeks were reunited.
"These civilians have been cut off from their relatives for four months now, unable to cross front lines because of the fighting," said Paul Castella, head of the ICRC delegation in Tripoli.
The ICRC said the arrival of the group was part of a broader exchange negotiated between Libya's two warring factions.
Some 110 people will now travel in the other direction.
The developed countries took the near unprecedented step on Thursday of drawing down their oil reserves to make good the loss of Libyan supply, aiming to keep prices in check.
The 28-member International Energy Agency said that 60 million barrels would be taken from reserves over the next month to cover lost Libyan output.
The price of crude dived on Thursday but steadied on Friday.
New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in August, edged up 30 cents to $91.32 a barrel after plummeting $4.39, or 4.6 percent on Thursday.
In London midday trade on Friday, Brent North Sea crude for August fell 56 cents to $106.70, one day after plunging by $6.95, or 6.0 percent in value.