Germany recognizes Libya's rebel leadership

(Reuters) - Germany recognized Libya's rebel council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people on Monday, giving heavyweight support to leaders poised to run the country if Muammar Gaddafi falls.

The recognition, voiced by Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on a visit to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, is significant because Berlin has been reluctant to be drawn into the conflict and opted out of NATO military action.

"We share the same goal -- Libya without Gaddafi," Westerwelle told a news conference after meeting members of the National Transitional Council, seen by many as a government-in-waiting.

"The national council is the legitimate representative of the Libyan people," Westerwelle said, to applause. Countries that have recognized the rebel council include France, Italy, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday urged African leaders to follow suit and abandon Gaddafi.

Gaddafi has styled himself the African "king of kings" and over the years won support from many African states in exchange for financial help and generous gifts. Most countries on the continent have been lukewarm toward the rebels.

"It has become clear that we are long past the time when he (Gaddafi) can remain in power," Clinton said in a speech to the African Union at its headquarters in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

"Your words and your actions could make the difference... (in ending this situation) ...and allowing the people of Libya to get to work writing a constitution and rebuilding their country," she said.

Gaddafi's government on Monday promised to implement proposals laid out by African countries to end the stalemate as well as draft a constitution and a new media law, according to official JANA news agency.

MISRATA ADVANCE

A Reuters photographer in Misrata, the biggest rebel stronghold in western Libya, joined rebel units as they pushed their front several kilometers west to the outskirts of Zlitan, a neighboring town controlled by Gaddafi's forces.

The photographer was taken to the furthest rebel point along the main road, where rebels had shifted shipping containers and sand to block the road and provide cover for their fighters.

After taking control of a mosque in farmland beside the road, the two sides traded heavy artillery fire.

On the wall of the mosque, rebels had scrubbed out graffiti in Arabic that read "Muammar." The new positions, they said, were inside Zlitan district.

A doctor at a field hospital in Dafniyah, west of Misrata, said two rebels were killed and at least 12

wounded in rocket attacks near the mosque.

Zlitan may be the next town to rise against Gaddafi's rule, bringing the rebellion closer to Tripoli, the Libyan leader's stronghold which lies 200 km (124 miles) west of Misrata.

Rebels from Misrata say tribal sensitivities prevent them from attacking, and they are instead waiting for the people of Zlitan to rise up.

Western governments say they believe it is only a matter of time before Gaddafi's 41-year rule ends under the weight of NATO military intervention, sanctions and defections.

But Gaddafi has refused to quit, and he has proved in the past to be a wily survivor. Libyan television showed him on Sunday evening playing chess with the visiting president of the international chess federation.

His armed forces have also shown they are not about to buckle, inflicting heavy damage on the rebels on several fronts and forcing the NATO-led coalition to extend its operation until the end of September.

Britain's navy chief warned on Monday that a prolonged military campaign would be challenging for its naval resources.

"Beyond that (90 days) ... we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about what priorities they want," Admiral Mark Stanhope told reporters at a joint briefing with the head of the U.S. navy in London.

ZAWIYAH REBELS SILENCED

Fighting flared at the weekend in the town of Zawiyah, 50 km (30 miles) west of the capital -- clashes the rebel leadership said were a sign that the momentum in the four-month-old conflict was shifting their way.

But on Monday, a rebel spokesman in Zawiyah who had been giving accounts of the fighting was no longer reachable by telephone. The main highway west from Tripoli, which had been closed because of the fighting, appeared to have re-opened.

A group of foreign journalists who traveled with an official escort from Tripoli to neighboring Tunisia on Monday morning passed along the main highway, instead of taking a detour near Zawiyah as happened at the weekend.

A rebel spokesman in the town of Zintan, in the rebel-held Western Mountains range southwest of Tripoli, said the settlement was subjected to its heaviest bombardment by pro-Gaddafi forces in several weeks on Sunday.

"There were nine martyrs from the bombardment ... yesterday. More than 40 others were wounded," the spokesman, called Abdulrahman, told Reuters by telephone from Zintan.

"The revolutionaries captured several mercenaries and Libyan army officers. Some of them were wounded and are receiving treatment," he said. "There was no bombardment today. It's quiet for the moment."

Gaddafi has said the rebels are criminals and al Qaeda militants. He has described the NATO military intervention as an act of colonial aggression aimed at grabbing Libya's oil.

Libyan state television on Monday showed pictures of what it said was Abu Bakr Jaber Younes, Gaddafi's de facto defense minister, touring the front lines in Brega, an oil town on the Mediterranean Sea that marks his eastern front line.

On Sunday, rebels said they were repulsed by Gaddafi's forces in a battle to retake Brega, despite NATO air support, and at least four were killed and 65 wounded.

"We attacked them first but they attacked us back. We tried to get to Brega but that was difficult," said Haithan Elgwei, a rebel fighter, after returning from the front.

(Additional reporting by Matt Robinson and Zohra Bensemra in Misrata, Jonathan Saul in London, Souhail Karam in Rabat, Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, Mussab Al-Khairalla and Nick Carey in Tripoli, Andrew Quinn in Addis Ababa and Sami Aboudi in Cairo; Writing by Christian Lowe and John Irish; Editing by Louise Ireland)