BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebel forces in Libya engaged in intense fighting on two fronts Wednesday, claiming to break through a three-day standoff with government fighters in the town of Bin Jawwad but suffering another day of heavy casualties in the besieged western city of Zawiya.
In Zawiya, government forces were heavily shelling the main square, residents said, with airstrikes, tank and mortar fire, machine guns and artillery.
“We need some international aid here,” said an opposition spokesman identified only as Mohamed. “At least stop them from having airplanes fly over us.”
Zawiya was bombed for a sixth consecutive day by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.
The government said it had won control of Zawiya, but those assertions could not be independently verified. Residents who were interviewed by satellite phone said communication within the city — 27 miles west of Tripoli — is very difficult. All entrances to the city have been closed, Mohamed said, and it is impossible to bring in food or medicine.
In Bin Jawwad, ground fighting resumed in an area that has been pounded by government airstrikes for the past three days. After losing the central coastal town in a bruising artillery battle Sunday, rebel forces made their first concerted effort to regain ground.
A witness close to the front said the anti-government fighters had managed to enter Bin Jawwad amid heavy fighting. When the news reached the opposition’s provisional capital of Benghazi, streets erupted in cheers, honking and celebratory gunfire.
Taking Bin Jawwad, a town where Gadhafi loyalists have made a fierce stand and stalled the rebel march toward Tripoli, would be a welcome boost to the exhausted revolutionaries. Televised scenes of violent clashes in recent days have eroded the optimism many felt last week when rebel fighters racked up a string of victories along the coast.
Meanwhile, rebel leaders in Benghazi said government planes had bombed fuel silos and an oil pipeline near Ras Lanouf. The strike raised fears taht Gadhafi had turned his weapons on petroleum assets in opposition-controlled territory.
“What we worried about has started to happen today,” said Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, spokesman for the temporary governing council in Benghazi. “This could lead to a huge environmental crisis, and one that could also cause global aftershocks in the oil industry.”
Meanwhile, a senior Libyan official flew to Cairo on Wednesday, possibly to deliver a message from Gadhafi to Egypt’s interim military government, wire services said.
An Egyptian army official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that Maj. Gen Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Saiid al-Zawi, the head of Libya’s logistics and supply authority, had arrived from Tripoli and was asking to meet Egypt’s military rulers.
The rebels’ ruling council insisted for a second day that there were no negotiations with the regime in Tripoli.
On Tuesday, a seeming division had emerged in the 32-member rebel council, with leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil seeming to offer Gadhafi a three-day deadline to leave Libya in exchange for immunity. Other members of the council declared that such a deal was unacceptable.
Opposition leaders said the gap has more to do with confusion than any true divergence in strategy. But it illustrates the different styles of the council’s two most prominent leaders.
Abdel Jalil is one of at least three former members of Gadhafi’s government to join the rebel ruling council. The former justice minister is known as an avuncular and soft-spoken man who quit the Cabinet in the early days of the uprising and immediately joined the rebels in Benghazi.
Ghoga, the council’s spokesman, is a human-rights lawyer who used to lead the national lawyers union. He has represented political prisoners and has previously been arrested by the regime.
