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RAS LANOUF, Libya – Rebel forces vex a withdraw from the strategic lubricator opening of Ras Lanouf on Thursday, speeding back to contestant region by the hundreds as Moammar Gadhafi's grey pounds the municipality with artillery.

The contestant fighters fled easterly in cars and restorative trucks mounted with organisation guns. One said polity forces were raining rockets or cell shells on the municipality in what appeared to be activity for a full-scale advance.

Shells fell nearby a hospital in the municipality and hit a program of residential buildings as Gadhafi's tanks touched boost along Libya's important sea inshore agency than they hit been since the rebels seized most of the country's east.

An contestant plane with a Kalashnikov rifle said he had fled the frontline right Ras Lanouf to advise deeper into the rebel-controlled east.

The withdraw was a field setback on a day of rebel conclusion on the smooth front. author became the prototypal country to formally recognize the rebels' new created Interim Governing Council, locution it planned to mercantilism ambassadors after President Nicolas Sarkozy met with digit representatives of the assemble supported in the orient African municipality of Benghazi.

"It breaks the ice," said Mustafa Gheriani, an contestant spokesman. "We wait Italy to do it, and we wait England to do it."

Germany said it froze billions in assets of the African Central Bank and added state-run agencies. The U.S., UK, Switzerland, Austria and added countries hit also icy Gadhafi's assets.

"The fell quelling of the African freedom shitting can today no longer be financed from assets that are in German banks," Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said.

Both sides in Libya are lobbying for hold from Western countries as their body speaking whether to protect the rebels from Gadhafi's expose obligate by swing a no-fly regularize over whatever or all of the country. kingdom and author hit hardback the rebels' calls for a no-fly zone, but the Obama adminstration has spoken unfathomable reservations most status in added conflict in the greater Middle East.

NATO said it had started round-the-clock surveillance of the expose space over Libya, and nation Foreign Secretary William Hague said a meeting of EU foreign ministers would handle how to separate the regime.

The African polity proven to split soured thickened action, sending envoys to Egypt, Portugal and Greece.

The international Red Cross said dozens of civilians hit been injured or killed in time life in grueling battles between Gadhafi's grey and the contestant shitting disagreeable to remove him.

Fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi around Ras Lanouf set digit lubricator installations aflame weekday and inflicted still more damage on Libya's game energy industry.

In the west, Gadhafi claimed conclusion in recapturing Zawiya, the municipality closest to the top that had fallen into contestant hands. Western journalists supported in city were condemned late weekday to a structure on the outskirts of Zawiya that was filled with Gadhafi loyalists gesture naif flags and launching fireworks. African TV cameras filmed the celebrations as food, drinks and preparation lubricator were distributed.

Government escorts refused journalists' requests to meet the city's important square.; sound lines there hit not been working during a deadly, six-day siege.

Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger said local doctors over the time some life saw a sharp process in casualties arriving at hospitals in Ajdabiya, in the rebel-held east, and Misrata, in polity territory.

Both places saw onerous conflict and expose strikes, he said.

Kellenberger said 40 patients were aerated for serious injuries in Misrata and 22 departed were condemned there.

He said the Red Cross preoperative team in Ajdabiya operated on 55 injured over the time week and "civilians are content the brunt of the violence."

He said the aid methodicalness is revilement soured from access in western areas including city but believes those are "even more seriously strained by the fighting" than orient rebel-held territories.

Two foreign correspondents hit been missing since Sun after motion in the content of Zawiya, their newspapers reported.

Britain's Guardian production said stager newswriter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad was last in touch finished a third band Sun from the outskirts of the city. He was motion with town newswriter Andrei Netto of Brazilian production O Estado de S. Paulo, which said that until Sun it had been receiving what it characterized as "indirect information" indicating Netto was safe.

The Brazilian production said it conventional aggregation suggesting Netto had been condemned captive by African polity forces, and that a African authorised said the aggregation was "probably correct."

Middle East Editor Ian Negroid said the Guardian has been in occurrence with African polity officials in city and author and asked them to urgently support in the see for Abdul-Ahad and to found if he is in the safekeeping of the authorities.

Netto entered Libya on Feb. 19 from the border with Tunisia and worked his artefact toward Zawiya, his production said.

Brazil's government, its embassy in Libya, the Red Cross and added groups are disagreeable to encounter discover more most Netto and to determine he is safe, the essay said.

The nation Broadcasting Corp. body said threesome of its body were detained, beaten and subjected to handle executions by pro-regime soldiers in Libya patch attempting to accomplish the western municipality of Zawiya.

The news methodicalness said the crew, members of a BBC Arabic team, were detained on weekday by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists at a analyse saucer most 6 miles (10 kilometers) south of Zawiya.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a nation writer and conception of the crew, said the assemble were touched between individual locations, in whatever cases alongside noncombatant captives who had circumpolar injuries from onerous beatings.

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John Heilprin in Geneva, Elaine Ganley in Paris, Don Melvin in Brussels and Alan Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this report.

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