Libyan rebels pushed back towards the contested oil port of Brega today, regaining mostly desert territory lost to Muammar Gadafy's army the day before.
At the tiny outpost of al-Arbaeen, half way between Brega and rebel stronghold Ajdabiyah, on the Mediterranean coastal road, rebels returning from the front reported rockets being fired by both sides close to the port.
The rebels had clearly made ground after retreating at least 40km yesterday but it was impossible to verify accounts that they were back close to sparsely populated Brega, which sprawls across about 25km.
The conflict in the east has reached stalemate with Western air power preventing Gadafy landing a knockout blow and the rebels' rag-tag army unable to push closer towards Tripoli.
Rebel army leader Abdel Fattah Younes has accused Nato of being too slow to order air strikes, saying Gaddafi's forces have been allowed to slaughter civilians in the besieged and isolated western city of Misrata.
Nato denies the pace of air strikes has abated since it took over from a coalition led by the United States, Britain and France on March 31.
Nato dismissed rebel complaints that its air strike campaign was slackening off, saying relieving the siege of Misrata, a rebel enclave in the west, remained the priority but conceding that Col Gadafy's army was proving a resourceful, elusive target.
"The situation on the ground is constantly evolving. Col Gadafy's forces are changing tactics, using civilian vehicles, hiding tanks in cities such as Misrata and using human shields to hide behind," spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels.
Western air power has fashioned a rough military balance in Libya, preventing Col Gadafy's troops from overrunning the rebel force dominating the east - but not forceful enough for the insurgents to advance solidly hundreds of kilometres along the Mediterranean coast to the capital Tripoli in the west.
Today's pullback "wasn't a full withdrawal, it's back and forth," said Hossam Ahmed, a defector from Col Gadafy's army as pick-ups loaded with machineguns and rocket launchers rolled westwards while several families fleeing the fighting in cars packed with their belongings passed in the opposite direction.
Journalists were banned today from heading west from Ajdabiyah, making it difficult to assess the fighting.
Like other rebels, Mr Ahmed expressed frustration at what he called Nato's hesitant approach. "There have been no air strikes. We hear the sound, but they don't bomb anything."
French foreign minister Alain Juppe said Nato operations were at risk of getting "bogged down" due to the fact that Col Gadafy's forces were frequently deploying close to civilians as tactical protection against air strikes.
He told France Info radio that he would address the issue shortly with the head of Nato, adding that Misrata's ordeal "cannot go on" but that "the situation is unclear".
Admiral Edouard Guillaud, France's armed forces chief, told Europe 1 radio: "I would like things to go faster but ... protecting civilians means not firing anywhere near them. That is precisely the difficulty."
Abdel Fattah Younes, head of Libya's rebel army accused Nato of being too slow to order air strikes to shield civilians, allowing Gaddafi's forces to slaughter the people of Misrata.
"Nato blesses us every now and then with a bombardment here and there, and is letting the people of Misrata die every day. Nato has disappointed us," he told reporters in the insurgents eastern stronghold city of Benghazi yesterday.
The conflict in the oil-producing North African state ignited in February when Col Gadafy tried to crush pro-democracy rallies against his 41-year rule inspired by uprisings that have toppled or endangered other autocrats across the Arab world.
Nato has denied rebel assertions hat the pace of air strikes has abated since it took over the task from a smaller big power coalition of the United States, Britain and France on March 31st.
"The assessment is that we have taken out 30 per cent of the military capacity of Col Gadafy," brigadier general Mark van Uhm, a senior Nato staff officer, said in Brussels yesterday.
Mr Younes said rebels were considering referring what he said was slow decision-making by Nato to the UN Security Council. "Nato has become our problem," he said, and in the meantime "Misrata is being subjected to a full extermination."
A US envoy has arrived in Benghazi to get to know the opposition and discuss possible financial and humanitarian assistance, a US official said. The visit by Chris Stevens, former deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Tripoli, reflects a US effort to deepen contacts with the insurgents.
Turkey, whose status as a secular Muslim state positioned between Europe and the Middle East gives it unusual mediating potential, also sent a special envoy to Benghazi for talks with the opposition, its foreign minister said.
Reuters