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Outside Ajdabiya, Libya • Opposition fighters cheered and flashed victory signs as allied jets streaked across the sky Monday over the strategic city of Ajdabiya, under siege by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

But as the rebels sped toward Ajdabiya in dozens of vehicles, many mounted with machine guns, Gadhafi's soldiers attacked. They rained mortar and tank shells that exploded like thunderclaps, spraying thick smoke and debris along the highway. The rebels quickly retreated.

Even as allied strikes hammer Gadhafi's air defenses, his ground forces have dug into heavily populated urban areas such as Ajdabiya, and on Monday they gained ground in the western city of Misurata.

U.S. officials say the three-day-old international military intervention is intended to protect Libyan civilians, not provide support to Libya's opposition. But Monday's setbacks for the rebels revealed the degree to which the disorganized and ill-equipped force is depending on allied airstrikes to end Gadhafi's 41-year-rule. It also raised questions, so far unresolved, about how far coalition members are prepared to go to help Libya's opposition.

On Monday, NATO members voiced disagreement over the goal and leadership of the international mission in Libya. The United States had hoped to turn command of the operation over to NATO, but that transition appears to have been delayed by the lack of consensus within the organization.

U.S. officials maintained Monday that they were interested only in shielding civilians from violence and that getting rid of Gadhafi would be up to the Libyan people. But rebels said more assistance was needed to avert the massacre that would inevitably come if Gadhafi was allowed to remain in power.

"We can't win without the airplanes of the international community," Farhad al-Mraibi, a 55-year-old rebel fighter, said after their retreat. "Gadhafi will kill all of us."

Top rebel officials say the internationally enforced no-fly zone has come too late to alter the military equation on the ground.

Their forces, they say, are not militarily equipped to battle Gadhafi's superior arsenal of tanks, rocket launchers and other heavy land-based weaponry.

Preventing Gadhafi from laying siege to cities falls under the U.N. mandate of protecting civilians, and rebel leaders said Monday that more allied airstrikes are needed to swiftly immobilize his ground forces. Although they rejected the idea of foreign troops on Libyan soil, they said the international intervention must be about regime change — a position that U.S. officials have pointedly declined to take.

"I believe this is about pushing Gadhafi out of power," said Salwa el-Daghili, a constitutional law professor and member of the rebel provisional leadership. "They must quickly attack Gadhafi's ground forces."

Since the U.N. Security Council vote authorizing the use of force last week, Gadhafi's ground forces have attempted to retake the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, an offensive that was repelled only after allied airstrikes decimated Gadhafi's encampments outside the city.

Rebels are concerned, however, that the coalition has focused on Benghazi to the exclusion of other areas where rebels are holding out against government forces, notably Misurata, Libya's third-largest city. There, Gadhafi's forces launched a major assault on the eve of the U.N. vote.

On Monday, loyalist forces reportedly made further advances, with government tanks rolling into the city and attempting to fight their way to the symbolic central square. At least 14 people were killed and more than 100 were injured, according to a doctor at the hospital in Misurata who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared for his security.

He said that rebel fighters managed to hold on to the square but that Gadhafi's forces had secured control of several neighborhoods and positioned snipers on buildings on a main road leading through the city. Tanks and artillery continued to pound rebel-held neighborhoods throughout the day, he said. Overnight, a helicopter attacked the antenna of the local radio station.

"What no-fly zone?" the doctor asked. "I am sure the U.N. has forgotten us."

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said that Misurata had been "liberated" but that pockets of what he described as Islamist extremists were continuing to resist government forces.

He said coalition forces had struck a harbor west of Tripoli on Monday and the airports in Gadhafi's home town of Sirte and in the southern town of Sabha in earlier strikes. He said that all the targets were civilian facilities and that "many" civilians had been killed, an assertion that could not be independently verified.

Pushing Gadhafi's soldiers out of Ajdabiya, a city of 170,000 people that is roughly 100 miles south of Benghazi, would bring a tactical and psychological victory to the rebels. Nestled on a strategic highway junction, the city would build an additional layer of protection for Benghazi, the birthplace of Libya's populist rebellion. It would also solidify the rebel movement's grip over eastern Libya.

For the rebel forces, Monday began with an abundance of hope and confidence. A day after the allied airstrikes, the highway from Benghazi to Ajdabiya was a graveyard for Gadhafi's forces. Charred tanks, some still burning, and shattered armored personnel carriers littered the road beside the bodies of Gadhafi's soldiers.

But near Ajdabiya there was anxiety brewing. Rebel commanders said they were unable to reach their allies inside the city to mount a two-pronged offensive against Gadhafi's forces positioned at the eastern entrance. Cellphones had been shut down, and the rebels had no satellite phones.

"Why doesn't our leadership give us better communications?" said Mraibi, the rebel fighter. "We are cut off from our forces inside Ajdabiya."

Like other fighters, he said he was expecting an allied airstrike on Gadhafi's tanks and rocket launchers on the perimeter of the city. Adil al-Hasi, a rebel commander, said he was given orders not send his men into battle until allied jets had struck Gadhafi's forces.

"Gadhafi's forces are like birds," said Fathi Bin Saoud, 54, a fighter. "They can fly anywhere, but the international community can shoot them down. Our role in this war is to walk in and pluck their feathers."

So when the rebels saw the coalition jets, there was a sense of relief and euphoria. Fighters pointed at the sky and cheered. "The French are here," yelled one, referring to French warplanes leading the allied air assault.

After the retreat, rebel forces were in disarray. Within minutes, the front line had been pushed back five more miles. "We made a mistake," mumbled Kareem Ali, 55, another fighter, as he looked toward Ajdabiya.

Several rebels had been killed, including four in a pickup truck that was covered with blood. Rebel commanders tried to regroup their men, but they failed to bring order. Some fighters proposed taking a back route through the desert to attack Gadhafi's forces. Others inexplicably began to fire heavy machine guns into the sky, which raised concerns that the allied jets might strike them instead.

"Every one of us has his own plan," a fighter named Abu Ahmed, clutching a ragged pair of binoculars, shouted at a comrade.

In the end, though, almost every commander and fighter reached the same conclusion: Don't push forward. Let the allied warplanes destroy Gadhafi's forces. Some hoped that their foes, fearing the airstrikes, would leave on their own.

"We are waiting," said Hasi, the commander. "Maybe they will surrender."

Correspondent Liz Sly in Tripoli and staff writer Greg Jaffe in Washington contributed to this report. —

Latest developments in the Middle East

LIBYA

Airstrikes by Western forces hit forces of Moammar Gadhafi for the third straight night. Coalition officials say the campaign has cut into Gadhafi's ability to hit rebels and has neutralized much of his air defense system, but warn that the campaign in Libya could be long.

YEMEN

Key military officers in the Yemeni army deserted President Ali Abdullah Saleh, depriving the U.S.-allied ruler of most of his fast-dwindling power base. Rival tanks deployed in the streets of the capital, but there were no clashes. Saleh, in power for 32 years, is insisting he won't step down.

BAHRAIN

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa implies that Iran is behind the unrest in his country. He also praises the presence of the Saudi-led contingent from the Gulf Cooperation Council. The king heads a 200-year-old Sunni Muslim dynasty in the mostly Shiite Muslim country.

SYRIA

Protesters defy a crackdown and marched in the southern city of Daraa after a much larger crowd burned government buildings during three previous days of protests, when police killed seven demonstrators. Police disperse the Monday march with no casualties. The unrest is exceptional in a country known not to tolerate dissent or protests.

The Associated Press