BENGHAZI: Rebels fighting to topple Moammar Gadhafi scorned reports of secret talks with the Libyan leader Monday as their forces fought to secure gains and the United States said Gadhafi’s days were numbered.
With reinvigorated rebel forces closing in from the West and South, rebels claimed a victory was imminent with Gadhafi isolated in the capital, Tripoli.

Libya’s rebel National Transitional Council, recognized by many of the NATO nations whose air power is supporting their assault, denied any kind of negotiation with Gadhafi.
“The NTC would like to affirm that there are no negotiations either direct or indirect with the Gadhafi regime or with the special envoy of the U.N.,” said NTC leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil.
Gadhafi must step down and leave Libya, he said. “It is unthinkable to hold any negotiations or talks that disregard this basic principle.”

Jalil promised to hand over power to an elected assembly within eight months of the collapse of Gadhafi’s regime, as he sketched out the country’s path to democracy Tuesday.
In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Gadhafi’s forces had been put on the defensive, and reports that a senior figure in the Libyan security apparatus had defected indicated the regime was cracking. “I think the sense is that Gadhafi’s days are numbered,” Panetta said at an event with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Rebels fighting to topple Gadhafi seized two strategic towns near Tripoli over the past two days, cutting the city off from its supply lines and leaving the Libyan leader with a dwindling set of options if he is to stay in power.
However, pro-Gadhafi forces were mounting a fight-back in one of those towns, Zawiyah, west of Tripoli. Snipers concealed in tall buildings were picking off rebel fighters, and salvos of Russian-made Grad rockets landed in the town.

The Scud missile, an obsolete Soviet-era weapon, was fired Sunday morning from near Sirte, Gadhafi’s now isolated home town 500 kilometers east of Tripoli.
It exploded to the east between the rebel-held towns of Brega and Ajdabiyah, said a U.S. official, injuring no one.
There was no immediate comment from Tripoli.

Analysts say the rebel strategy is to isolate Tripoli and hope the government collapses, but they say it is also possible Gadhafi will opt to stage a last-ditch fight for the capital.
In a barely audible telephone call to state television in the early hours of Monday, Gadhafi called on his followers to liberate Libya from rebels and their NATO supporters.

“Get ready for the fight. The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield,” he said.
As he spoke rebels were making dramatic advances in months of fighting, shifting the momentum in a conflict that had been largely static and was testing the patience of NATO.
Rebel forces southwest of Tripoli surged forward at the weekend to enter Zawiyah, straddling the main highway linking the capital to Tunisia.

A day later, they said they had taken the crossroads town of Garyan, which controls the highway south from Tripoli linking it to Sabha, a Gadhafi stronghold deep in the desert.
“Gadhafi has been isolated. He has been cut off from the outside world,” a rebel spokesman from the Western Mountains, called Abdulrahman, told Reuters.
Tripoli officials deny the rebels control Zawiyah, and say their forces are preparing to drive “armed gangs” from Garyan.

Medical workers at one of the town’s hospitals said 20 people, a mixture of rebel fighters and civilians, were killed Monday, and the death toll for Tuesday had reached one.
A U.N. peace envoy in neighboring Tunisia, Abdel Elah al-Khatib, said he knew nothing of any negotiations in Djerba.
He said he had held informal talks with representatives of Gadhafi’s government and the rebel council but did not say who they were or what they discussed.