Brussels : The first daytime bombing raid on the Libyan capital Tripoli on Saturday morning heralded a new stage in the military campaign against the Gaddafi regime as British, French and other Nato forces were on Saturday night preparing a two-pronged blitz to try to finish off Col Gaddafi.
It hit a military storage base in the centre of Tripoli that has been subject of repeated raids all week. But a military spokesman said a separate mission the night before had taken out
watchtowers on the leadership's Bab al-Azizia compound and threatened to begin opening up its miles of bleak green-painted concrete walls up by precision bombing.On Saturday evening, it appeared the regime was attempting to open back-door channels to negotiate with the British government.
The Libyan deputy foreign minister, Abdelati al-Obeidi, who has been in Tunis, told Al-Jazeera he had spoken to British intermediaries to establish a line of communication in a bid to bring the fighting to an end.
They were said by diplomatic sources not to be representatives or acting in an official capacity, however, and Mr al-Obeidi denied there was talk of an exit strategy for Col Gaddafi.
Meanwhile, after pushing regime forces out of the city of Misurata rebel forces have been told to prepare for the first attacks by Apache helicopters, withdrawing from close combat to allow a clear run on the front line.
"Yesterday two French men, who usually come to take coordinates so that Nato knows where to attack, came to the front. They told me this is the 'third stage'," said Ahmed Ibrahim, a senior rebel.
The front lines are now about 15 miles from the centre of Misurata. Mortars and Katyusha rockets killed four rebels in fighting on Saturday, before fighting quieted down.
The latest bombing raids sent plumes of smoke into the air from Bab al-Azizia in central Tripoli and the storage compound opposite, which has now been hit by four separate raids in the last week.
Gaping holes in its walls, revealing huge, crushed concrete hangars and other wreckage inside, face on to the entrance to Bab al-Azizia where Gaddafi loyalists maintain a permanent guard of "human shields".
The regime says the base is an empty barracks for army volunteers, left deserted because of a fear of raids. It says 19 people died on the first night of attacks, several of them local residents who ran from their homes after the first bombs hit, only to be struck by a second wave.
Reporters were shown three bodies said to be of civilians.
The lack of a visible target inside led to accusations by local residents that the raids were intended merely to spread terror.
It is clear that Nato's strategy is to send an ultimatum that attacks will intensify if Col Gaddafi does not step down.
"There are signs that the momentum against Gaddafi is really building. So it is right that we are ratcheting up the military, the economic and the political pressure," the Prime Minister, David Cameron, said at the end of Friday's G8 summit.
President Jacob Zuma of South African is expected to arrive in Tripoli on Sunday to lead a new peace mission. But Mr al-Baghdadi appeared to cut the ground from under his mission by pledging to make "no concessions".
While Mr al-Baghdadi offered for the first time to hold talks with the opposition Transitional National Council, Mr Kaim appeared to back away even from that offer after the Russian volte-face.
"It will be very difficult for the Libyan people to deal with them," he said, calling council members "traitors".
"Their place in history will be in the house of shame."
Some Nato members meanwhile have suggested that Col Gaddafi could stay while ceasefire talks took place, but have refused to compromise on the principle that his departure must be guaranteed.
