By Khaled al-Ramahi

Reuters

MISRATA, Libya: Thousands of troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi advanced on the rebel-held western city of Misrata Wednesday, shelling it from three sides in attacks that killed at least 12 rebels, a rebel spokesman said.

The military offensive followed a lull in NATO bombing of Tripoli Wednesday, after 24 hours of some of the heaviest bombardments of the Libyan capital since airstrikes began in March.
NATO defense ministers met in Brussels Wednesday, but there were few signs of willingness to intensify their Libya mission, which has so far failed to oust Gadhafi.

“Misrata is under very heavy shelling … Gadhafi’s forces are relentlessly shelling Misrata from three sides: east, west and south,” rebel spokesman Hassan al-Misrati said from inside the besieged town.
“Gadhafi has sent thousands of troops from all sides and they are trying to enter the city. They are still outside, though.” Doctors at the Hekmah hospital in central Misrata said at least 11 people had been killed and 35 wounded, many seriously.

There was no immediate comment from Gadhafi’s government.
A rebel fighter, who declined to be identified, vowed revenge. “One day soon, God willing, we will be at Bab al-Aziziya [Gadhafi’s compound] and we will find Gadhafi and his military forces and we will kill him,” he said.
With officials like British Foreign Secretary William Hague talking explicitly of Gadhafi being forced out, critics say NATO has gone beyond its U.N. mandate to protect civilians.

Western powers are lining up behind the rebels. Spain’s Foreign Minister on a visit to Benghazi Wednesday said his country now only recognized their National Transitional Council as the representative of the Libyan people.
Rebel spokesman Kalefa Ali in the Western mountain town of Nalut said the towns of Yafran and Kalaa, which fell to rebels earlier this week, had been shelled by Gadhafi forces.

“Rebels fear that Gadhafi’s forces will launch a wide-scale offensive in the western mountains as he is doing in Misrata today,” said Ali.
Juma Ibrahim, a rebel spokesman in Zintan, said Gadhafi’s forces were holding residents in the old city of Gadamis, some 600 kilometers southwest of the capital on the Tunisia and Algerian border, after anti-government protests.
Accounts from the mountains and Gadamis could not be independently verified because access for reporters is limited.

Gadhafi troops and the rebels have been deadlocked for weeks, with neither side able to hold territory on a road between Ajdabiyah in the east, which Gadhafi forces shelled Monday, and the Gadhafi-held oil town of Brega further west.
NATO sought broader support for the Western bombing campaign in Libya Wednesday, given that the alliance’s air power has been stretched by the latest strikes on Tripoli.
“We want to see increased urgency in some quarters in terms of Libya,” British Defense Minister Liam Fox told reporters in Brussels.

But some NATO allies that have not taken part in the bombing said they would not alter their stance, and Sweden, a non-NATO participant, said it would scale down its role.
Of the 28 NATO allies, only eight, led by Britain and France, have been conducting air strikes on Gadhafi’s forces, and a senior U.S. official warned this week that fatigue was beginning to set in among the aircrews already committed.
Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a round table event for journalists in Cairo said Wednesday that Gadhafi must quit.