BRUSSELS/TRIPOLI: Western powers tightened the screws on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Thursday, reaching out to his opponents and deploying more warships as his forces claimed to have reversed the rebel tide. NATO defense ministers agreed to renew military planning for a no-fly zone pending a UN mandate, setting the stage for an EU summit to ponder the next step to take. As officials talked, Gaddafi's son Saif Al-Islam said victory was “in sight” against the rebels, warning that their hold on the east of the country was now under threat. “We're coming,” he said, referring to the advance of government forces toward the rebel bastion of Benghazi in eastern Libya. “Victory is in sight. Victory is near ... I swear before God that we're going to win.” If confirmed, such success could hugely complicate the West's problems in working out what to do now in Libya. French President Nicolas Sarkozy favors airstrikes on Gaddafi's command base, a source said earlier Thursday, and will propose at the summit “striking an extremely limited number of points which are the source of the most deadly operations” by Gaddafi forces. Defense ministers “decided to increase the presence of NATO maritime assets in the central Mediterranean,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. The ships would bolster surveillance of Libya and monitor an existing arms embargo against the country but no decision to launch a no-fly zone – a step favored by Britain and France – was made. “Further planning will be required,” Rasmussen said. Earlier, in an interview broadcast on Britain's SkyNews and BBC TV, Saif said the regime would “never surrender” to the rebels and did not fear foreign intervention. “This is our country, we will never, ever give up and we will never, ever surrender,” he insisted. “We are not afraid of the American fleet, NATO, France, Europe. This is our country. We live here, we die here. We will never, ever surrender to those terrorists.” The momentum in the conflict is shifting in favor of Gaddafi's forces as they are “robustly equipped” with Russian weapons and likely to defeat the rebels, US officials said. “Initially the momentum was with the other side,” Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told US senators. With its fighters in retreat, the opposition appealed to Western powers meeting in Brussels to follow France's lead in recognizing their national council. In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United States is in “direct contact” with senior opposition people, including members of the rebel national council.“We are coordinating with the opposition, with the council to provide assistance and to determine the best ways we can support their aspirations,” he added, while saying Washington is still trying to get a sense of “what their vision is, who they represent, what their ideas are and where they would take Libya”. Targeted by rocket fire, rebels fled from Raslanuf in eastern Libya they captured last Friday. A hospital official in Brega, about 85 km further east along the Mediterranean coast, said: “We have four dead and 35 wounded, but there's still many more coming” in from Raslanuf. Medics say 400 people have died and 2,000 more been wounded in eastern Libya since Feb. 17. On the battlefield, rebel vehicles streamed eastward from Raslanuf after hours of heavy shelling and rocket attacks. “We've been defeated. They are shelling and we are running away. That means that they're taking Raslanuf,” said one rebel fighter. In the west, an intense battle for control of Zawiyah, the site of major oil installations 50 km west of Tripoli, ended in victory for Gaddafi's forces on Wednesday night. “The town is now under the army's control,” said a resident.
