Sarkozy promises Libya's rebels that airstrikes are to intensify on Gaddafi

Rebels said they fought pro-government troops for control of a main thoroughfare in the port city that is the insurgents' last stronghold in the west of the country. Eight people had been killed the previous day, mostly civilians.

Preident Sarkozy pledged stronger military action at his first meeting with the leader of the opposition Libyan National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the Elysee presidential office said in a statement.

"We are indeed going to intensify the attacks and respond to this request from the national transition council," it said, quoting Sarkozy as telling Abdel Jalil: "We will help you."

He did not say how NATO-led forces planned to break a stalemate on the ground after the United States and some European allies declined last week to join ground strikes.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with the Financial Times that American strike aircraft were not needed to achieve the alliance's mission in Libya.

"If the Lord Almighty extricated the U.S. out of NATO and dropped it on the planet of Mars so we were no longer participating, it is bizarre to suggest that NATO and the rest of the world lacks the capacity to deal with Libya -- it does not," he was quoted as saying.

"Occasionally other countries lack the will, but this is not about capacity," Biden said.

Abdel Jalil told reporters he had invited Sarkozy to pay a visit to Benghazi to demonstrate France's support for ending Gaddafi's 41-year rule.

"I think that would be extremely important for the morale of the revolution," he said. France did not say if the president had accepted.