Children die in shelling by Gaddafi forces
Forces loyal to longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have shelled Misurata, pressing their siege of the embattled western city.
Four children were killed in the shelling on Tuesday, a resident named Mohammed Ahmed told the Reuters news agency. The children were killed while trying to flee their home, a rebel spokesman told Al Jazeera.
Gaddafi's regime has encircled Misurata for days, bringing in tanks and stationing snipers on rooftops, in an attempt to choke off one of the only cities in the west where a strong rebel presence remains. Shelling there killed at least 40 people on Monday, Ahmed said.
Misurata lies around 200km east of Tripoli, the capital, and is home to a major oil refinery.
Libyan government spokesman Ibrahim said Misurata, Libya's third-largest city, was "liberated three days ago" and that Gaddafi's forces were hunting "terrorist elements".
But a spokesman for opposition fighters in the city told the AFP news agency that the opposition remained in control despite an onslaught by Gaddafi loyalists, who he said opened fire with tanks and set snipers on roofs to gun down people in the streets.
"Casualties fell in their dozens," after snipers and a tank "fired on demonstrators", the spokesman said.
A medic in Misurata said 40 people had died and at least 300 had been wounded.
The opposition spokesman said Gaddafi's troops "have taken up position along the main road where they have deployed three tanks, as well as positioning snipers on rooftops".
There was also fierce fighting further east in Ajdabiya. Opposition fighters were seen retreating in the face of an attack by government forces.
Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from an area close to Ajdabiya, said there had been clashes outside the city.
"There's been heavy fighting and heavy shelling going on ... the rebels told me there have been heavy casualties and there are a number of corpses between here and the town [of Ajdabiya] that they have been unable to reach."
He said the road between the eastern city of Benghazi and Ajdabiya was littered with the "burned-out wreckage of what was Gaddafi''s armour and tanks," destroyed in air raids by coalition forces.
Government troops retreated 100km from Benghazi, the opposition stronghold, after fierce strafing by coalition aircraft destroyed much of their armour, AFP news agency reported.
Meanwhile, around 106km south of Tripoli, Libyan pro-democracy fighters forced government troops to withdraw from the outskirts of Zintan, breaking a siege of the town.
After enduring heavy shelling the day before, rebels on Tuesday pushed pro-Gaddafi troops out of the eastern outskirts of the city, a Swiss journalist, Gaetan Vannay, told Al Jazeera.
Gaddafi's forces withdrew around 10km east, to a village that is still controlled by Gaddafi, he said.
During their push, rebels managed to capture four regime tanks, Vannay said. The international military coalition that is enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya did not aid the rebels by launching air strikes against Gaddafi's forces.
Children die in shelling by Gaddafi forces - Africa - Al Jazeera English