Libya

An overcrowded ship carrying up to 600 people trying to flee Libya sank just outside the port of Tripoli, the UN refugee agency said, citing witness accounts.

Vandals attacked the Italian and British embassies in the Libyan capital on Sunday, hours after officials said Muammar Gaddafi escaped a Nato missile strike that killed one of his sons and three young grandchildren. The unrest prompted the United Nations to pull its international staff out of Tripoli.

Two Western photojournalists including an Oscar-nominated film director have been killed in the besieged city of Misrata while covering battles between rebels and Libyan government forces. Two others working alongside them were wounded.

Europe has moved closer to doing what it said it wouldn't do in Libya - directly jump into the bid to overthrow leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Holding out under a rain of shelling and sniper fire, Libyan rebels fought Muammar Gaddafi's forces in close-quarters battles in the city centre of Misrata, the last major rebel foothold in western Libya. Seventeen people were killed, an NGO worker and an opposition activist said.

Nato has launched new airstrikes on targets held by Muammar Gaddafi as the rebel movement urged a stronger air campaign that will allow them to advance on Gaddafi's territory.

Muammar Gaddafi struck a defiant stance on Thursday after two high-profile defections from his regime, saying he's not the one who should go - it's the Western leaders who have decimated his military with airstrikes who should resign immediately.

Muammar Gaddafi's forces hammered rebels with tanks and rockets, turning their rapid advance into a panicked retreat in a protracted battle on Tuesday.

Rebel forces bore down on Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte, a key government stronghold where a brigade headed by one of the Libyan leader's sons was digging in to defend the city and setting the stage for a bloody and possibly decisive battle.

Libyan rebels have taken back a key oil town in their westward push toward the capital, seizing momentum from the international airstrikes that tipped the balance away from Moammar Gaddafi's military.

Nato ships patrolled off Libya's coast as airstrikes, missiles and energised rebels forced Muammar Gaddafi's tanks to roll back from two key western cities, including one that was the hometown of army officers who tried to overthrow him in 1993.

Muammar Gaddafi's snipers and tanks are terrorising civilians in the coastal city of Misrata, a resident said, while the US military warned it was "considering all options" in response to dire conditions there that have left people cowering in darkened homes and scrounging for food and rainwater.