As it happened: Libya March 9

1725 GMT No-fly lite? That’s what the British are pushing for tomorrow at Nato. This from Roland Watson, Times Political Editor:

Britain will tomorrow press Nato to accelerate plans for a no-fly zone over Libya.

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, will tell fellow defence ministers in the alliance that they must step up preparations to shield ordinary Libyans from Colonel Gaddafi’s weapons.

“Our objective is for Nato to be ready to act,” said David Cameron’s spokeswoman ahead of tomorrow’s summit in Brussels.

Defence ministers will discuss the possibility of a “no-fly lite” which would meet the objections of the Pentagon. Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, cautioned last week that a fully-fledged no-fly zone would initially involve offensive air strikes to disable Colonel Gaddafi’s air defences.

However, likely planning will include alternative scenarios of no-fly zones that may not cover the whole country.

‘Do you have to move agressively against all of Gaddafi’s air defences? There are other models that might not require that,’ said one British official.

Separately, British and French diplomats are exploring whether a no-fly zone could have legal weight without an explicit resolution from the UN Security Council, such as the one established over Iraq in the 1990s.

Following a Tuesday evening phone call between President Obama and David Cameron, British and US officials have referred to the need for a “clear legal basis”. Diplomats at the UN are examining whether that could be provided without the most formal endorsement available to the UN Security Council, a so-called “chapter 7” resolution.

Russia and China, both permanent members to the Security Council, are opposed to any endorsement of outside military intervention in a sovereign country.

‘There is no consensus on the security council,’ said one official.

The Iraq no-fly zone was set up after Saddam Hussein broke UN resolutions. It was policed by the US and UK, but was established without full chapter 7 authority.

1725 GMT Sky News is quoting a doctor saying that 40 people have so far been killed today in the battle for Zawiyah. The Times is heading to the scene of the battle. Check back to read Martin Fletcher’s account later.

1710 GMT The Libyan regime has offered a £250,000 bounty for the capture of Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the rebel National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, state TV has annouced.

“The General Administration for Criminal Investigations is offering a reward of 500,000 Libyan dinars for any person who captures and hands over the spy named Abdel Jalil and a reward of 200,000 Libyan dinars for anyone who provides information leading to his capture,” it reported.

1650 GMT David Charter, our European correspondent in Brussels, has just filed a news story on the latest manoeuvring for a no-fly zone, which we’ll quote from at length:

Britain and the United States are pushing for Nato to adopt the principle that a fresh UN Security Council resolution is not necessary for a no-fly zone in Libya.

In separate briefings, senior British and US officials today outlined the same list of three guiding principles for military intervention.

Officials from both countries said that they wanted Nato to include the principles in its communique following the meeting of defence ministers, to be attended by Liam Fox, which starts tomorrow.

In an off-the-record briefing, a US diplomat said: “With respect to whether and how action would be taken by Nato, we will be guided by three fundamental principles: There has to be a demonstrable need for this alliance to act; there has to be a clear and proper legal basis for such action; there has to be regional support for such action.”

Pressed on whether a UN Security Council resolution would be needed, the source added: “We would welcome a UN Security Council resolution. We would want it.”

The source avoided saying that the UN decision was needed.

Soon after, also at an off-the-record briefing, a British official said: “There is a very clear consensus in Nato evolving around three points: first, there needs to be a demonstrable need for Nato action; secondly there needs to be a clear legal basis which would be different under different contingencies and third that no action would take place without firm regional support. These are things that have gotten into the Nato bloodstream.”

Pressed on whether a UN Security Council resolution would be needed to give a clear legal basis, the official added: “On every single case, you need to look at the facts. It is hard to envisage circumstances in which it would be legal to do a no fly zone without a UN security council resolution.

“But supposing any Nato sovereign territory felt itself under attack and imposed a no fly zone, you don’t need the support of the UN security council to do that, it would be self-defence. The danger is to say categorically there is no exception, but in the case of Libyan sovereign territory it is very hard to envisage a no fly zone of the sort people are thinking about at the moment without a UN Security Council resolution.”

1620 GMT More just in from Hampstead Garden Suburb, the North London suburb where squatters have taken over a mansion belonging to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

A group calling themselves “Topple the Tyrants” occupied the £10 million house today and have vowed to remain until the property’s assets are returned to the Libyan people.

Montgomery Jones, a spokesman for the squatters, told the BBC: “We will stay here until we can be sure the property will be returned to its rightful owners.

“The police came to look around, then went away. The house isn’t occupied at the moment but there are things to sit on.”

The group said the property was managed by the Gaddafi family through a holding company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

In a statement, it said: “We didn’t trust the British Government to properly seize the Gaddafi regime’s corrupt assets, so we took matters into our own hands.

“In the meantime, we want to welcome refugees from the conflict in Libya and those fleeing tyranny and oppression across the world.”

1553 GMT: Ibrahim, a rebel fighter in Zawiya who has been in sporadic touch with Reuters by phone, claims that rebels killed a high-ranking cousin of Colonel Gaddafi in fighting earlier in the week. “That’s why he bombed the city. They wanted to retrieve the body and they did.”

He said that a force of about 60 rebel fighters had left the city to attack an army base yesterday some 12 miles (20 km) away. “None of them has returned and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive. We haven’t heard from them,” he said.

1537 GMT: Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain has called for the US and UK to stay out of Libya, and leave it for Muslim nations to sort out.

“It is the huge and highly capable Egyptian army, as demanded by people in the region, that needs to immediately intervene and remove Gaddafi. The time has come to bring back the era where the Muslim world addresses its problems free from Western colonial interference,” writes Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Islamic organisation.

1530 GMT: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has voiced sorrow and bitterness at the way the London School of Economics and friends in Britain have turned their backs on him since he endorsed his father’s ruthless efforts to crush the uprising against his dictatorial rule in Libya, writes Martin Fletcher in Tripoli.

“If you are strong, everybody is nice to you,” Dr Gaddafi replied, when asked if he felt betrayed by those in London with whom he mixed socially or did business. He mimicked the high-pitched voice and false smile of the insincere.

But “if you are going to collapse it’s :’bye byeeeeee, see youuuuuu’,” he continued in the same wheedling voice but with a wave of his hand.

Clearly agitated, Dr Gaddafi abruptly ended a 30-minute interview with Paris Match in a Tripoli hotel, said goodbye and left.

1525 GMT: What is a no-fly zone, and how would it work? Find out more here.

1521 GMT: A lone Tweeter asserts that more than 1,000 people have died in the besieged city of Zawiya in the last week, 300 of them yesterday. These figures, tweeted by @BRQNews, are completely unsourced and unconfirmed, but interesting because they are the first to try to evaluate the scale of the killings in the city.

Khaeri Aboshagor, a spokesman for the London-based Libyan League for Human Rights, said that Zawiya might prove hard for Gaddafi’s troops to control entirely. “If they have taken the square, the resistance might diminish - it’s a symbolic place, and you could say whoever holds the square holds the town - but they will keep fighting. It’s a very spread out town and you can’t just hold it with 50 tanks and some pickup trucks.”

1502 GMT: An airstrike appears to have hit an oil pipeline near Ras Lanuf, sending a number of fireballs and a vast cloud of dense black smoke into the sky, writes James Hider in Benghazi.

The volume of smoke appears to indicate that a huge oil storage facility is now on fire. In normal circumstances, such a fire could take weeks to put out. The way things are now, it could burn unabated for months, analysts warn.

“I know for sure that what they blew up was an oil pipe. I know the whole line by heart,” said Ali al-Aguri, an oil company mechanic who works at another plant further away from the As Sidra oil port where the explosion happened.

The ensuing series of explosions, followed by huge flames leaping hundreds of metres into the sky, could reportedly be seen and heard at least three miles away. The fire could be seen raging in the vicinity of an oil facility, a set of low beige buildings with a water tower and a communications tower. Every few minutes, another ball of flames shot up into the sky. A constant inferno of fierce flames could be seen at the foot of the cloud of black smoke.

Rebels blamed Gaddafi warplanes for the fire. A rebel official in Benghazi accused Gaddafi of playing a “dirty game” by hitting pipelines. In tit-for tat recriminations, Libyan state television blamed the explosion on al “Qaeda-backed” armed elements. Afterwards, there was another air strike close to the refinery in Ras Lanuf a couple of miles away, which is one of the largest in North Africa.

1455 GMT: YEMEN LATEST: Listen to Times correspondent Iona Craig’s powerful audio report from the makeshift clinic which treated injured protesters after security forces opened fire on an anti-government demonstration in Sanaa last night.

1445 GMT: A member of Libya’s exiled royal family has spoken out in favour of a no-fly zone. Crown Prince Mohammed El Senussi asked for a no-fly zone over Libya and strikes against Colonel Gaddafi’s air defences, but did not support foreign troops on the ground - exactly the position espoused by the rebel Provisional Transitional National Council in Benghazi.

“I am speaking for all Libyans when I ask for a no-fly zone and targeted air strikes on Gaddafi’s air defences although it would be wrong for (there to be) troops on the ground and the people of Libya do not want it,” he said in a statement from London.

1436 GMT: London’s venerable Ham & High newspaper reports by tweet that rebel activists have occupied Saif Gaddafi’s mansion in Hampstead Garden Suburb in support of the Libyan uprising.

1428 GMT: Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Peace prizewinning lawyer who quit her native Iran in 2009, said today that a combination of poverty and fierce repression would soon lead to an Arab Spring-style popular revolt in Iran.

“With the slightest breeze, there could be a conflagration. As to what will spark that fire and when, it is difficult to predict. But I can say with certainty that it won’t be long in coming,” she told a news conference on the fringes of a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council, at which Western countries want an investigation into Iran to be set up.

1423 GMT: The Most Reverend Dr Desmond Tutu today warned world leaders to learn from the uprisings in north Africa. “As we know people are in fact not fools. They notice things and one day they will explode,” the retired Archbishop of Cape Town and icon of the anti-apartheid movement told an annual lecture in his name at the University of the Western Cape, where he has been chancellor since 1988.

“What is happening in north Africa is to remind governments everywhere that people are not fools. One day they will call rulers to account.”

1409 GMT: MOROCCO LATEST: King Mohammed VI will address the nation this evening, the royal ministry in Rabat has announced. Speeches by the monarch are rare. The TV address is thought to be in response to protests last month demanding political reforms.

1359 GMT: The absolute necessity for a UN security council resolution for a no fly zone was today dropped from the pre-conditions for action in Libya given by a senior US official, writes David Charter in Brussels.

In an off-the-record briefing in Brussels, a US diplomat said: “With respect to whether and how action would be taken by Nato, we will be guided by three fundamental principles: There has to be a demonstrable need for this alliance to act; there has to be a clear and proper legal basis for such action; there has to be regional support for such action.”

Pressed on whether a UN security council resolution would be needed, the source added: “We would welcome a UN security council resolution. We would want it.” The source avoided saying that the UN decision was needed.

The statement modifies the position given by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato Secretary-General, earlier this week that a UN resolution would be necessary.

1357 GMT: Cries of “Where’s Willie?” echoed around the House of Commons chamber this afternoon as Labour backbenchers noticed that the Foreign Secretary was absent from the front bench for Prime Minister’s Questions. Sky News quoted anonymous sources who said that Mr Hague was at Buckingham Palace updating the Queen on the situation in Libya.

1333 GMT: SUDAN LATEST: Security agents have arrested and beated dozens of opposition supporters today, minutes after they started a rally against the 21-year rule of the Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, witnesses said.

The protest in central Khartoum was the latest in a series of attempts by youth groups and opposition parties to follow the lead of anti-government uprisings across the Arab world. The movement has so far failed to attract widespread support.

1326 GMT: The senior Libyan army officer who landed on a military airstrip in Cairo a couple of hours ago was carrying a message from Colonel Gaddafi, Egyptian army officials have told the AP news agency.

Major Gen Abdul-Rahman bin Ali al-Saiid al-Zawi, the head of Libya’s logistics and supply authority, was reportedly asking to meet Egypt’s military rulers. Relations between the two countries have been cool since Colonel Gaddafi accused Egyptian nationals in Libya of fomenting the uprising.

There is speculation that the Gaddafi regime is attempting to lobby Arab states ahead of the 22-member Arab League meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss whether to support a no-fly zone.

1315 GMT: EGYPT LATEST: More violence has broken out in Cairo, where people armed with knives and machetes have attacked hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Tahrir Square, state TV said.

1301 GMT: SAUDI ARABIA LATEST: Cyber activists have called for a “Day of Rage” after prayers this Friday, on a Facebook page that has so far amassed over 31,000 “likes”. Another page calls for a “Saudi revolution” to begin on March 20. The activists in both pages are calling for political and economic reforms, jobs, freedom and women’s rights.

Any street demonstrations would be in contravention of the ultra conservative kingdom’s total ban on protests. Political parties are also banned, and the country ruled by an absolute monarchy. The interior ministry issued a stern reminder last weekend that all demonstration was illegal and that the security forces had been authorised to crack down on protests, after several hundred Shias protested on Friday in the Eastern Province for the release of an arrested Shia cleric, Sheikh Tawfiq al-Aamer.

Leading clerics have backed the regime, condemning calls for demonstrations and petitions demanding reforms as “un-Islamic”. The Council of Senior Scholars said that “reform and advice do not take place through demonstrations and methods that fan sedition”.

Human rights activists have however taken heart from the fact that although 26 people were arrested on Friday they were later freed, and the cleric himself was freed on Sunday.

Western rights organisation have called the ban on peaceful protest “outrageous”, and called on Saudi Arabia to fulfil its obligations under international law.

1258 GMT: TUNISIA LATEST: There are celebrations in the street as a Tunisian court outlaws the once all-powerful political party of ousted former president Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Times defence editor Debbie Haynes reports from Tunis that a small group of anti-Gaddafi protestors is rallying outside the Libyan embassy this afternoon. Waving a Tunisian flag, the men shouted: “Death for Gaddafi.” Libya’s embassy in the Tunisian capital has been shut since last Friday. A lone guard stood outside a role of barbed wire that surrounds the building.

1236 GMT: Four airstrikes on the western front line between Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf this morning have left several rebel fighters injured, according to rebel Colonel Masud Mohammed.

There has been no close quarters fighting in the area so far today, it appears. Rebels are digging in in the hills around the coastal highway to Ras Lanuf.

1217 GMT: Juan Mendez, the UN special investigator on torture, says he has opened a probe into allegations of torture used by Colonel Gaddafi’s forces since the start of the uprising last month.

Mr Mendez said that his inquiry has focused on the Gaddafi regime’s alleged executions of patients pulled from hospitals, shots fired at crowds of protestors and other uses of disproportionate force. He said that he had received complaints from Gaddafi’s opponents when the regime’s crackdown began, and that he sent a formal notice to the Libyan government demanding information about the allegations. “Those communications are confidential, so I can confirm that we are engaged. But we cannot say more about it,”.

1214 GMT: Prince Saud al-Faisal , the Saudi foreign minister, has told a press conference in Jeddah that a Libyan no-fly zone “is an issue that is the responsibility of the Arab League”. Foreign ministers of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states, which include Saudi Arabia and are all members of the 22-member Arab League, released a statement on Monday calling on the United Nations to enforce a no-fly zone.

1213 GMT: A Gaddafi private jet has landed in Cairo with two passengers. It was carrying Major-General Abdel Rahman Ben Ali al-Sayyid al-Zawy, the head of the Libyan Authority for Supply and Logistics, officials in the Egyptian capital have told Reuters.

The two were whisked away in private cars, Al Jazeera reports. Some reports speculate that they were going to meet the Egypt’s ruling military council. Others suggest they intended to lobby members of the Arab League before its emergency meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the uprising in Libya. The

1211 GMT: Libyan state television is broadcasting images of Gaddafi troops celebrating in Bin Jawad, the village they recaptured from the rebels on Sunday.

1153 GMT: A tweet on the #Libya hashtag alleges that Libyan students are being paid to mount a pro-Gaddafi demonstration in London tomorrow. We’ll try to find out whether this is true.

1134 GMT: Tweets on the #Feb17 hashtag say that Colonel Gaddafi’s three private jets took off this morning from a military airstrip outside Tripoli, bound for Vienna, Athens and Cairo respectively.

No-one is clear what this means. One theory is that the regime is conducting a diplomatic blitz to try to reassert its legitimacy, after the rebel Provisional Transitional National Council declared that it was the only authority in Libya and started seeking international recognition. It may also be trying to encourage opposition to a no-fly zone.

1125 GMT: “Reliable sources” say that two doctors were shot in the main square in Zawiya yesterday as they tried to reach the wounded, Nic Robertson of CNN has tweeted.

1120 GMT: Colonel Gaddafi says that the whole Libyan nation would rise up against the West if it imposes a no-fly zone.

“If they take such a decision it will be useful for Libya, because the Libyan people will see the truth, that what they want is to take control of Libya and to steal their oil,”, Colonel Gaddafi said in an interview broadcast on Turkey’s state-run TRT news channel this morning, speaking in Arabic. “Then the Libyan people will take up arms against them.”

An aside about this interview - readers of yesterday’s Libya live blog may remember that Colonel Gaddafi was expected to speak to Western reporters in a hotel in Tripoli in the early afternoon. Nic Robertson of CNN tweets that after the assembled group of journalists and cameramen had been kept waiting in a hotel room for eight hours, the Libyan leader finally swept in, refused to answer any questions, did one interview with the Turkish television team - and then left.

1114 GMT: Hafiz Ghoga, spokesman for the rebel National Libyan Council in Benghazi, said: “We will complete our victory when we are afforded a no-fly zone. If there was also action to stop him (Gaddafi) from recruiting mercenaries, his end would come within hours.”

1052 GMT: A senior Libyan rebel leader has issued an impassioned plea at the European Parliament for a no-fly zone to be enforced, with or without UN support, to stop the “slaughter” in Libya, writes Times Correspondent David Charter in Strasbourg.

Mahmud Gebril, 58, a famous former dissident and former planning minister, who now heads the rebel council’s “Crisis Committee”, said that he wanted other international assistance such as communication jamming to thwart Colonel Gaddafi’s fight back against the revolution.

“We need all types of assistance to help us get through this ordeal as soon as possible,” said Mr Gebril, sitting alongside fellow defector Ali al-Essawi, former ambassador to India, and the Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt who brought them to the European Parliament.

“For the no fly zone, if that is the way we have to stop or paralyse this power to kill machine then be it, but with one condition - no physical presence of any foreign soldier on Libyan soil. That is totally rejected.”

Asked if a UN resolution should be passed to sanction a no-fly zone, he said: “The United Nations and the Security Council is a reflection of World War Two and is composed of five powers that have different interests and unfortunately each one of them have veto power. So we are having difficulty passing the resolution through the Security Council for the time being because of those conflicting interests.

“But there are different ways outside the United Nations umbrella to have a no fly zone, and I heard some reports that there are some discussions to that effect going on right now.

“Simply put, we are in a situation - to compare on one side, people are slaughtered by the minute, on the other side there is conflicting interests impeding the issuance of a resolution by the Security Council. Which one shall we pick? Of course I will pick the first - I have to stop the slaughter at any expense. There is no choice there.”

Mr Gebril added: “Our first concern and request is to ask for immediate recognition of the National Interim Council as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people today. Whenever any regime in the world is firing shots at its own people or starting to divide its own territory, it loses its legitimacy, so there must be a legitimate body representing the people.

“Our trip started with the European Parliament and we are intending to go all over the world trying to explain the case of our people and trying to mobilise support needed for our people.”

He added that he wanted to convince the world that the council would protect their “vital interests”, probably a reference to Libya’s vast oil reserves, opposition to Islamic extremism and role in keeping African migrants out of Europe. Mr Gebril rejected suggestions that Libya could be divided into two parts, calling it a scare tactic and a trick.

1040 GMT: The European Parliament today heard calls for the EU to back a Libyan no-fly zone and recognise the legitimacy of the Libyan rebels’ Provisional Transitional National Council in Benghazi.

“We have to start the process of recognition of the provisional national council as the representatives of the Libyan people,” said Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the large Liberal group in Strasbourg, who invited two senior members of the LIbyan rebels to speak to MEPs yesterday. “We have to neutralise as quickly as possible Gaddafi’s capacity to kill his citizens.”

But Lady Ashton of Upholland, the European Union’s foreign and security chief, refused to back either call. She has convened a working lunch tomorrow of EU foreign ministers to discuss the crisis in Libya, ahead of Friday’s emergency EU summit.

“It will be for the member states to determine,” Lady Ashton said during a virulent exchange with Greens leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit in the Strasbourg chamber. “I can only do what within my mandate I’m allowed to do. My personal opinion does not count on this. The European Council (summit of leaders) will take a decision,”

1023 GMT: Another reason for Colonel Gaddafi’s urgency in reasserting control over the city of Zawiya is the nearby major oil refinery, the biggest supplier of petrol for cars in Libya. A refinery official said that production, already down to 70 per cent, had had to be shut off altogether today because of the fighting.

“Heavy weapons have been fired nearby and we can’t run the refinery under these conditions,” the official told Reuters, appearing inadvertently to confirm rebel claims that Colonel Gaddafi’s forces are using massive force against civilians.

Petrol shortages would add to the instability in Libya, and could damage the capability of Colonel Gaddafi’s army.

1020 GMT: EGYPT LATEST: The death toll in yesterday’s clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims in Cairo has risen to ten, according to Egypt’s health ministry. The violence was triggered by a Christian protest over an arson attack on a church in Helwan, south of Cairo. The Christian protesters blocked a main highway out of the Egyptian capital and violence started after Muslim motorists became enraged at the hold up, a security source said. Rocks and petrol bombs were thrown and 110 people were wounded. At least one of the dead, a Christian, was shot in the back.

0944 GMT: America and its European allies are considering enforcing a no-fly zone even without a UN Security Council resolution, according to a report in today’s Washington Post.

“With a UN mandate far from assured, those considering some form of intervention - including the United States, Britain, France and Italy - are looking for alternative support, officials said.

“Officials, saying international support could come from regional blocs, noted that Nato’s air attacks on Serbia in 1999 came without UN backing.

“‘If you have [support from] the Arab League, the African Union, Nato and potentially the European Union, you have every country within 5,000 miles of Libya,’ a Nato official said. ‘That gives you a certain level of legitimacy.’”

The Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference have both already expressed interest in a no-fly zone. The Arab League is holding an emergency meeting on the subject on Saturday, and the OIC is meeting in Sharm el Sheikh next week.

In addition to a no-fly zone, the United States and NATO governments were considering military options that would not require a UN resolution, such as setting up an air or naval bridge to carry humanitarian supplies to Libya, and naval patrols to block arms shipments to the Libyan government, the Post added.

One word of caution about the Post’s report: Italy has not so far been vocal in calling for Western intervention. The former colonial power has come to rely on Libyan investment in its economy and Libyan help to block the large numbers of African migrants trying to reach Europe. Italy signed a mutual interest treaty with Libya in 2008, and foreign minister Franco Frattini said yesterday the country was keen to preserve it. The furthest he would go was to say that if there was a UN resolution on a no-fly zone, then Nato planes could use Italian air bases.

0940 GMT: Colonel Gaddafi has been on Turkey’s TRT television channel this morning, blaming the unrest in Libya on al Qaeda. “If Al-Qaeda manages to seize Libya, then the entire region, up to Israel, will be at the prey of chaos. The international community is now beginning to understand that we have to prevent Osama Bin Laden from taking control of Libya and Africa,” he said.

0932 GMT: YEMEN LATEST: Times correspondent Iona Craig in Sanaa reports that one of the ten protesters shot by Yemeni soldiers has died. “Dr. Abdualmalek Alyosofi informed me the man who was shot in the eye at Sanaa University last night died. And he was in fact shot in the back of the head - the eye was the exit wound,” she writes.

0913 GMT: David Cameron has warned that the world could not “stand aside” and allow Colonel Gaddafi to use violence against ordinary Libyans, writes Times political editor Roland Watson.

“I had a phone call with President Obama this afternoon to talk about the planning we have to do in case this continues and in case he does terrible things to his own people,” Mr Cameron told the BBC. “We have got to prepare for what we might have to do it he goes on brutalising his own people.”

The White House reported that Mr Obama and Mr Cameron had discussed a “full spectrum of possible responses” - a phrase that appears to add weight to reports this morning that Western powers may be considering a no-fly zone even without a UN resolution.

Downing Street used similar language, saying that the two leaders had agreed to “press forward” with possible measures. “The Prime Minister and the President agreed to press forward with planning, including at Nato, on the full spectrum of possible responses, including surveillance, humanitarian assistance, enforcement of the arms embargo, and a no fly zone,” a spokesman said. “They committed to close co-ordination on next steps.”

British and French diplomats are seeking to build on the acceptance of the US that a no-fly zone over Libya might be necessary, and are drawing up the wording of possible UN resolution authorising one.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, stressed yesterday that a no-fly zone would have to have a mandate. “It has to have a clear legal basis, demonstrable need, strong international support and broad support in the region and a readiness to participate in it,” he said. He did not however specify that the mandate would have to come from the UN.

0856 GMT: UAE LATEST: The Arab Spring has spread to the United Arab Emirates, the vastly rich union of seven sheikhdoms where Abu Dhabi’s Al Nahyan family controls the oil wealth and holds most government posts. A group of 130 opposition supporters has petitioned the federation’s rulers for an elected parliament and more political freedoms.

It is the first public demand for leadership overhaul in the Emirates, whose parliament has no legislative powers and all its 40 members are appointed by the ruling sheikhs. But there was no indication of a move toward street protests. Neighbouring Bahrein has already seen four weeks of unrest.

0853 GMT: EGYPT LATEST: Six Coptic Christians have been shot dead and at least 45 injured in religious clashes with Muslims in Cairo, a Coptic priest has told the AFP news agency today.

0842 GMT: “We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,” Ibrahim, a rebel fighter in Zawiya’s main square, has told the Reuters news agency by phone.

Ibrahim said that dozens of bodies lay in the streets, with citizens too frightened to collect them for fear of sniper fire. “Zawiyah as you knew it no longer exists. They have been attacking the town from 10 in the morning until 11:30 in the evening. There is no electricity, no water and we are cut off from the outside world,” he said.

There were army snipers on top of most buildings, shooting whomever dared to leave their homes. Half of the city was hit by air attacks, including a mosque, he said.

0835 GMT: Good morning and welcome to The Times’s rolling live coverage of the uprising in Libya and the unrest in other North African and Middle Eastern countries.

This morning Colonel Gaddafi’s tanks were said to be closing in at last on the centre of the rebel city of Zawiya, which has held out under intense military bombardment and the apparently indiscriminate killing of civilians. The Libyan leader is reported to have ordered his commanders - including one of his own sons - to take Zawiya by today, to end the embarrassment of an uprising only 30 miles from the Libyan capital Tripoli, and to free up elite troops to fight on the eastern front.

In The Times this morning Martin Fletcher in Tripoli and James Hider in Benghazi report on the carnage in Zawiya, which has stubbornly held out against wave after wave of attacks by tanks, heavy artillery and reportedly air strikes. Bodies lie uncollected in the streets and children are among the dead.

President Obama was holding out against increasing pressure to take action to protect Libyan civilians from the regime. A no-fly zone, championed by Britain and France, will be debated by Nato in Brussels tomorrow, before a draft resolution is put to the United Nations Security Council in the next few days.

Libyan rebels say that Colonel Gaddafi is trying to make as many military gains as possible before any no-fly zone comes into force. But British military experts from the International Institute for Strategic Studies warned yesterday that Britain and Nato will not be able to play a full part in a no-fly zone because of their commitments in Afghanistan, and that the policy might have only limited success in protecting civilians.

Times defence editor Deborah Haynes reports from the Tunisian border town of Ras Jdir that black African refugees from LIbya are being persecuted as they try to flee.

Elsewhere in the region, ten protesters were shot and injured by soldiers in Yemen yesterday as they demonstrated in the capital Sanaa, and 50 other people were treated for the effects of teargas.

And in Iran, whose hardline religious leaders had violently suppressed any attempts at protest, veteran reformist Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rajsanjani has been driven out of his post as head of the Assembly of Experts for daring to stand up to the Government. Hugh Tomlinson comments that Mr Rafsanjani has succeeded in exposing splits in the regime, but had failed to exploit them.