BENGHAZI: The U.N. envoy to Libya and the Benghazi-based rebel council discussed ideas Monday for ending the civil war, but said a firm initiative had yet to take shape. With a diplomatic push to end the conflict gathering steam, envoy Abdul Elah al-Khatib told Reuters after the meeting that he would head to Tripoli Tuesday to canvas government views.
“We did not put a plan in front of them. We discussed the views and ideas on how we can trigger a political process … to achieve a political solution,” Khatib said.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is clinging to power despite a four-month NATO air campaign and five months of fighting with rebels who have seized large parts of the North African country.
NATO has continued to hammer Gadhafi’s forces around Libya, striking twice in central Tripoli Monday, and Britain has said there would be no let up during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in August. But hopes have grown for a negotiated end to a war that has dragged on longer than many initially expected.

Speaking to Reuters after the meeting, senior rebel official Mahmoud Jibreel said he had made clear his side would reject any initiative that did not involve the removal of Gadhafi from power as a first step to peace.
That appears to be a tacit rejection of U.N. ideas floated informally by a diplomat last week, which envisaged a cease-fire followed by a power-sharing government without Gadhafi.
Khatib, a senior Jordanian politician, told Reuters in Amman last week that his ideas involved an agreement on a cease-fire and, simultaneously, a deal on setting up a mechanism to manage the transitional period.

“So far, there is no initiative. He is trying to propose some general ideas, see what is acceptable and what is not acceptable, and on the basis of that he can propose an initiative,” Jibreel said. “We are not committed to anything unless we have something written.”
Khatib’s visit comes a day after Gadhafi’s foreign minister, Abdelati Obeidi, ended three days of talks in Cairo to seek a negotiated end to the war.

Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Friday that senior Libyan officials had a “productive dialogue” with U.S. counterparts earlier this month in a rare meeting that followed U.S. recognition of the rebel government.
Hopes for a negotiated settlement have grown, however, since France said for the first time last week that Gadhafi could stay in Libya as long as he gives up power.

The rebel leaders have given conflicting signals in recent weeks over whether they would allow Gadhafi and his family to stay in Libya as part of a deal, providing he gave up power. In the latest comment on the issue, opposition leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil told the Wall Street Journal that such an arrangement would be acceptable.
“Gadhafi can stay in Libya but it will have conditions,” he said. “We will decide where he stays and who watches him. The same conditions will apply to his family.”

The poorly armed rebels seem unlikely to unseat Gadhafi quickly. Rebels announced they had almost taken the oil town of Brega, but later said that minefields had slowed their advance. Libyan state TV showed images of empty streets and oil storage facilities in Brega that it said were taken Monday.

Rebels fighting on the western front near Misrata, say they have pushed closer to Zlitan, on the Mediterranean coast 160 km east of Tripoli.
But the front near Zlitan was relatively quiet Monday. Twenty casualties were taken to hospital in the nearby rebel-held city of Misrata and to a field hospital, but doctors said most had only light shrapnel wounds.

Zlitan is the largest city between rebel-held Misrata and Tripoli, and remains in Gadhafi’s control. Were the rebels to take Zlitan, attention would turn to Khums, the next large town on the coastal road to the capital.
Britain said its warplanes on patrol near Zlitan successfully struck four buildings Saturday, which NATO surveillance had identified as command and control centers and staging posts, as well as successfully destroying an ammunition stockpile.