By Maria Golovnina

TRIPOLI | Mon Apr 11, 2011 7:48pm EDT

TRIPOLI (Reuters) -

An African Union plan to halt Libya's civil war collapsed, and rebels said the increasingly bloody siege of the city of Misrata by Muammar Gaddafi's troops made talk of a ceasefire meaningless.

The Red Cross said it was opening a Tripoli office and would send a team to Misrata to help civilians trapped by fighting, but one of Gaddafi's ministers warned any aid operation involving foreign troops would be seen as a declaration of war.

Rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said after talks with the AU delegation in Benghazi in the rebel-held east on Monday:

"The African Union initiative does not include the departure of Gaddafi and his sons from the Libyan political scene, therefore it is outdated." Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif quickly dismissed the idea of his father stepping down.

"We want new blood, that's what we want for Libya's future. But to talk of (Gaddafi) leaving, that's truly ridiculous," he told French news channel BFM TV.

"If the West wants democracy, a new constitution, elections, well, we agree. We agree on this point but the West must help us to provide a propitious climate. But all these bombings, this support given to rebel groups, all that is counter-productive."

AIR STRIKES

Libyan television said the "colonial and crusader aggressors" hit military and civilian sites in Al Jufrah district in central Libya on Monday.

Rebels in the coastal city of Misrata, under siege for six weeks, scorned reports that Gaddafi had accepted a ceasefire, saying they were fighting house-to-house battles with his forces, who fired rockets into the city.

Western leaders also rejected any deal that did not include Gaddafi's removal, and NATO refused to suspend its bombing of his forces unless there was a credible ceasefire.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a Brussels news briefing that Gaddafi's government had announced ceasefires in the past, but "they did not keep their promises."

"Any future proposal that does not include this, we cannot accept," he said, accusing Gaddafi of bombing, shelling and shooting civilians.

A resident of Misrata told Reuters there was heavy fighting on the eastern approaches and in the center.

Rebels told Reuters that Gaddafi's forces had intensified the assault, for the first time firing truck-mounted, Russian-made Grad rockets into the city, where conditions for civilians are said to be desperate.

Human Rights Watch accused Gaddafi's forces of indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Misrata which violated international law. It said about 250 people had died.

At the front outside the eastern rebel-held town of Ajdabiyah, rebels buried the charred bodies of Gaddafi troops killed in air strikes and said they were advancing westwards.

HUMANITARIAN AID

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is already deployed in Libya's rebel-held eastern territory, where it has supplied hospitals, distributed food and visited government soldiers captured during the conflict.

Speaking in Tripoli alongside a government spokesman, its regional head Jean-Michel Monod said his team had been officially invited to the capital.

"Now we will officially be here open for business," he told reporters. "Of course it was high time as a neutral, impartial and independent humanitarian organization that the ICRC would come here as well to conduct discussions with the authorities."

Libyan Social Affairs Minister Ibrahim Zarouk al-Sharif said some aid operations had been used as a cover to supply rebels.

"If humanitarian aid is brought through humanitarian organizations who specialize in this kind of work then we would welcome it. But if it comes with a military face then we won't accept it, it's basically a declaration of war and might lead to a much bigger conflict."

At talks in Luxembourg, Italy quarreled with other European Union governments on how to handle thousands of migrants fleeing the turmoil in Libya and elsewhere in north Africa, while the EU executive urged the bloc to do more for the refugees.

NATO attacks outside Ajdabiyah on Sunday helped break the biggest assault by Gaddafi's forces on the eastern front for at least a week. The town is the gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi 150 km (90 miles) north up the Mediterranean coast.

Opposition fighters have been overwhelmed by Gaddafi's firepower in western Libya, close to his base of Tripoli, but are increasingly using guerrilla tactics to weaken his hold.

Tripoli residents said there had been several attacks on army checkpoints and a police station in the last week and gunfire can be heard at night.

Gaddafi's former foreign minister Moussa Koussa, speaking in Britain where he fled last month, called on "everybody, all the parties, to work to avoid taking Libya into a civil war."

"This will lead to bloodshed and make Libya a new Somalia," he told the BBC. "More than that we refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any solution and any settlement in Libya."

(Additional reporting by Alex Dziadosz in Ajdabiyah, Michael Georgy in Benghazi and Christian Lowe in Algiers; writing by Andrew Roche; editing by Michael Roddy)

Libyan rebels refuse AU-brokered ceasefire plan

BENGHAZI, Libya, April 11, 2011 (Xinhua) --

Libyan rebels on Monday rejected a road map initiated by the African Union (AU) calling for ceasefire between the rebels and forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, because it did not include the ouster of the ruling family.

Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chairman of the rebels' Transitional National Council (TNC) and the country's former justice minister, said the initiative "did not respond to the aspirations of the Libyan people."

The AU proposal did not discuss Gaddafi's removal and instead only involved political reforms, he added. He also strongly rejected any mediation initiative that could pave the way for Gaddafi's stay in power.

Gaddafi and his family must leave Libya, Abdul-Jalil told a press conference in the opposition's stronghold of Benghazi. "It ( the African Union's road map initiative) has already surpassed the time. We know the departure of Gaddafi and his sons is the people' s demand," he added.

The African Union's road map called for an immediate ceasefire, cooperation in opening channels for humanitarian aid and starting a dialogue between the rebels and the government, without mentioning any requirement for troops loyal to Gaddafi to pull back from Brega, Ras Ranuf, and Misrata.

A delegation comprised by leaders from South Africa, Mali and Mauritania arrived in Benghazi Monday to meet with Libyan rebels, trying to broker a ceasefire between the government forces and the militants in Benghazi.

The delegation tried to convince people in Tripoli and Benghazi to stop the war but after four hours of talks, the rebels rejected the terms of the ceasefire deal.

The AU mediators held talks with Gaddafi in Tripoli on Sunday. After the meeting, South African President Jacob Zuma said the Libyan leader had accepted the AU proposal.

Then they flew on to Benghazi, where demonstrators shouted " Gaddafi out" and tried to stop their vehicles when they were entering the hotel that held the meeting.

Since Monday morning, hundreds of residents in Benghazi have gathered in front of the hotel, rejecting any negotiation that allows Gaddafi and his family to stay in Libya.

Mull Sebujja Katende, Uganda's ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti, said ahead of the meeting that what Libya needs now is a ceasefire of all involved parties and access for humanitarian assistance, and the negotiation should lead to transitional arrangements for political reforms.

"Gaddafi declared the ceasefire last month, but that is not reached through negotiation, it is a unilateral declaration," Sebujja said.

"The declaration should involve both parties and a credible mechanism must be put on the ground to observe it, and that is why we come here," he added.

The delegation has completed its mission with the Libyan government which has accepted the road map, Zuma said Sunday. He went to Tripoli with the heads of Mali and Mauritania to meet with Gaddafi, whose 42-year rule has been rocked by the conflicts that broke out nearly two months ago.

The NATO launched airstrikes Sunday against Gaddafi's troops in Brega, which stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya, a gateway to the opposition's base of Benghazi.

NATO said the airstrikes destroyed 11 tanks near Ajdabiya and another 14 near Misrata, the only city rebels still hold in the western half of Libya.

The AU also outlined an agreement for the "deployment of an effective monitoring mechanism for ceasefire," but it was not clear whether this would involve the African Union troops.

After almost two months of fighting, troops loyal to Gaddafi and rebels in the North African country, Africa's largest oil producers, have fought to a stalemate, with battles moving back and forth in a small area along the coast, and neither side is able to take or hold position for long.

"We have heard quite a number of announced ceasefires and they have not been implemented, and we have fed up with that," a demonstrator outside the conference room said.

Editor: Mu Xuequan