Misurata shelled as Libya conflict rages on

Powerful explosions rocked Tripoli within minutes of each other late Thursday as NATO warplanes flew over the city, and witnesses said smoke was rising from the Ain Zara district in the southeast, a frequent target of NATO air strikes.

Italy's military took part in its first air raid over Libya, triggering an uproar within Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's coalition partner, the Northern League.

A pair of Tornado jets took off from Sicily equipped with precision-guided munition to strike "selected targets", a defence ministry official said without revealing details.

Rebels in Misrata earlier said they were confident victory was "very close" in the strategic city, but they were again under deadly fire on Thursday night.

Rebel fighters, backed by NATO air strikes, earlier said they had driven Gaddafi troops out of missile range of the port, an aid conduit for the city of half a million people under siege for more than seven weeks.

The Thursday night shelling was described as random, with two women and three children among those killed in the eastern district of Grara.

In other developments in Misrata, a prosecutor said government forces had kidnapped more than 500 people listed as missing.

In western Libya, the situation at a post on the Tunisian border was fluid amid heavy fighting.

On Thursday evening, hours after Gaddafi forces had retaken the post at Dehiba from rebels who had seized it on 21 April, the insurgents again captured it in clashes that killed eight loyalist soldiers, sources said.

On the Libyan side of the border, the rival camps exchanged artillery fire in the early evening, causing panic among civilians.

Several ambulances from Tunisia crossed into Libya to evacuate the wounded, witnesses said.

Earlier, witnesses said rebels had fled into Tunisia, pursued by their enemies for a distance of about one kilometre (half a mile).

A witness said Tunisian troops had arrested fighters from both sides of the conflict, but that could not be confirmed.

A Tunisian police source said 5,150 people had crossed from Libya into Tunisia at Dehiba within 48 hours as fierce fighting raged.

Meanwhile, rebels said Gaddafi forces had taken Al-Kufrah, 600 kilometres (375 miles) from the rebels' eastern bastion of Benghazi, in the southeast of the country bordering Chad, Sudan and Egypt.

There were "no casualties" as rebels withdrew after "putting up a light resistance," the source said, adding that Gaddafi forces were "now in control of three quarters of the city."

In Brussels, rebel military chief Abdulfatah Yunis, formerly Gaddafi's interior minister, urged the West to deliver heavy weapons and warned that the strongman could use mustard gas on them in a bid to stay in power.

In Paris, the military said French jets were dropping inert bombs packed with concrete instead of explosives to destroy Gaddafi tanks without killing civilians.

Spokesman Thierry Burkhard denied rumours that the use of the 300-kilogram training devices was prompted by a shortage of real bombs, adding that the first such strike crushed an armoured vehicle on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in what was an about-face, Rome had said on Monday it would participate in air strikes with a NATO-led coalition against Gaddafi's regime.

While ruling out ground operations, the government said it was stepping up its contribution after heavy fighting in Misrata claimed numerous civilian victims.

Berlusconi's coalition partner strongly opposes aerial bombings on Libya over fears they will provoke massive migration into Italy, which is already swamped by 30,000 North African refugees fleeing unrest there since January.

Having secured Misrata's port, rebels were bolstered by the arrival of a ship carrying humanitarian supplies including food and medicines, as well as at least one boat loaded with arms.