Car bomb explodes at rebel headquarters in Libya

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The general in charge of Libya's rebel forces says a car bomb exploded in front of their headquarters in northeast Benghazi.

A rebel fighter stands guard at a check point in the town of Al-Mekheili on Tuesday.

Gen. Abdel-Fattah Younis says no one was injured, but an APTN cameraman saw a person with an arm cut by shattered glass.

The blast apparently blew out windows in a high-rise near Benghazi courthouse, where the rebel committee has its headquarters.

Younis visited the courthouse to assess damage late Tuesday. He said it was the first car bomb to explode in the rebel capital.

Forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi also shelled a rebel supply route and a besieged opposition stronghold in western Libya on Tuesday, even as the embattled Libyan leader's international isolation deepened with a demand by Turkey that he resign now.

Turkey is a key regional mediator and in the past tried to nudge Gadhafi to meet demands for change from the opposition. However Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan adopted a much tougher stance Tuesday, saying that Gadhafi must "immediately step down."

In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the international community will act with determination to enforce U.N. resolutions calling for the protection of Libyan civilians. "And that means continuing to turn up the pressure (against the regime) ? sanctions pressure, diplomatic pressure and military pressure," Cameron told parliament.

NATO said its warplanes would keep up the pressure on Gadhafi's regime for as long as it takes to end the violence in the North African nation. Italian Navy Vice Adm. Rinaldo Veri said, having disrupted the regime's ground forces on the front lines, NATO was now focusing on cutting Gadhafi's lines of communications with his troops.

The bombing by a U.S.-led international force started seven weeks ago. NATO took over command of aerial operations at the end of March. The bombing campaign has stymied Gadhafi's efforts to retake rebel territory, but the ill-trained and badly equipped opposition has been unable to press the advantage and make advances against government forces.

Rebels in western Libya, reached by telephone, said loyalist forces fired dozens of rockets at a road Tuesday to disrupt supplies transported from Tunisia through the rebel-controlled Dhuheiba border crossing to rebel towns in a nearby mountain area of Libya. Shelling has caused the road to intermittently close.

The Libyan leader has been fighting rebels in the east of his vast oil-rich nation since an uprising against his rule began in February. His forces control most of western Libya save for a string of villages along the mountainous western border and the port city of Misrata.

In Misrata, under siege by Gadhafi's forces for two months, fighting continued on the city's edges, where regime loyalists have taken up positions. The two sides fired shells, and medics reported one dead and 22 wounded, most of them rebel fighters. Late Monday, loud booms from NATO airstrikes were heard, and the intensity of fighting appeared less on Tuesday than in previous days when regime forces pounded the city with shells, rockets and mortars.

The U.N. refugee agency, meanwhile, said Tuesday that fighting in the Libya-Tunisia border region has caused an uptick in the number of civilians fleeing Libya into southern Tunisia after a brief interruption last week.

UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said some 8,000 people, mostly ethnic Berber women and children, arrived in Dhuheiba over the weekend. Migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa, are also crossing the Mediterranean to Italy again, he said.

The U.N. envoy to Libya, Abdelilah Al-Khatib told the Security Council that more than 665,000 people have now fled Libya since the fighting began.

"As hostilities in the Nafusa/Western mountains continue, fighting in Zintan, Nalut and around Wazin has led to around about 39,000 people crossing into Tunisia to date, and more than 21,500 since April 21," he said, adding that there was fighting in the southeastern oasis town of Jalu as well.

About 3,200 people arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa during the past five days.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration said it was desperately trying to get permission from NATO for its ship, the Red Star One, to dock at Misrata so that it can evacuate some 1,000 migrants and wounded civilians from the city.

Misrata, a city of some 300,000 people, has been besieged by Gadhafi troops for two months, leaving it entirely dependent on food and medical supplies arriving from the sea. The city has also been intensively shelled by loyalist troops.

IOM spokesman Jumbe Omari Jumbe said NATO was holding back permission for the ship to dock even as 36 people need urgent evacuation. He did not know the reason for the delay.

Nine of the 36 were in Misrata hospital's seven-bed intensive care unit, and two seriously ill civilians have died while waiting for the ship to pick them up, he said.

"We are going to hang on until there is a clear indication that we can't go in," Jumbe said.

He said 23 journalists were also hoping to leave Misrata with IOM's help.

For his part, al-Khatib of the U.N. said the International Office of Migration has evacuated about 12,000 people, mostly third country nationals, from Misrata and estimates that a further 500-1,500 people need to be evacuated.

Outside pressure for Gadhafi to resign significantly increased on Tuesday. Erdogan told a news conference in Istanbul that Gadhafi has ignored calls for change in Libya and instead preferred "blood, tears and pressure against his own people."

"Gadhafi must take a historic step and withdraw, for the future of Libya, its peace and prosperity," he said.

Turkey initially balked at the idea of military action in Libya, but citing its responsibilities as a NATO member it took part in the enforcement of an arms embargo on Libya while volunteering to lead humanitarian aid efforts.

Turkey has vast trade interests in Libya, where Turkish companies have been involved in lucrative construction projects worth billions of dollars, building hospitals, shopping malls and five-star hotels before the uprising and resulting chaos began.

The Swiss government, for its part, said Monday it had identified 360 million Swiss francs ($415 million) of potential assets to be frozen belonging to Gadhafi or his entourage.

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