Rebels reject "road map," say Qaddafi must go

BENGHAZI, Libya - The Libyan rebel council rejected a cease-fire proposal presented by an African Union delegation because it did not provide for the departure of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and his top associates.

Libyan government forces, meanwhile, battered the rebel-held city of Misrata with artillery fire on Monday despite the announcement by the African mediators hours earlier that Qaddafi had accepted their cease-fire proposal.

Rebel council head Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the country's former justice minister, said the initiative "did not respond to the aspirations of the Libyan people" and only involved political reforms.

"The initiative that was presented today it's time has past," said Abdel-Jalil. "We will not negotiate on the blood of our matyrs."

AU says Qaddafi accepts roadmap to cease-fire

The African negotiators met with Qaddafi late Sunday in the capital, Tripoli, and said he accepted their proposal for a cease-fire with the rebels that would also include a halt to the three-week-old international campaign of airstrikes.

The delegation then traveled to Benghazi Monday in hopes of convincing rebel leaders to accept the proposal, but a deal seemed unlikely from the moment they arrived. More than 1,000 people waving the pre-Qaddafi flags and chanting slogans against Qaddafi were there to greet them outside a Benghazi hotel.

They said they had little faith in the visiting African Union mediators, most of them allies of Qaddafi who are preaching democracy for Libya but don't practice it at home.

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In a sign that the delegation's proposal was not expected to pass muster with the opposition, South African President Jacob Zuma, the lead diplomat in the group, wasn't in attendance, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports.

The visit by the African delegation has taken place against a backdrop of weeks of fierce government bombardment of Misrata, the only major city in the western half of Libya that remains under partial rebel control.

The bombardment has terrorized the Mediterranean city, killed dozens of its civilian residents and left it short of food and medical supplies, according to accounts by residents, doctors and rights groups.

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A doctor who lives in the city said the shelling began overnight and continued intermittently throughout the day Monday. He said six people were killed by missiles that slammed into residential areas. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation if he was discovered by Qaddafi's forces.

Qaddafi hasn't abided by a cease-fire he immediately declared after international airstrikes were authorized last month. He has also rejected demands from the rebels, the United States and its European allies that he relinquish power immediately.

NATO airstrikes on Sunday battered Qaddafi tanks, helping the rebels push back government troops who had been advancing toward Benghazi on an east-west highway along the country's northern Mediterranean coast.

The airstrikes largely stopped heavy shelling by government forces of the eastern city of Ajdabiya — a critical gateway to Benghazi, the opposition's de facto capital and Libya's second largest city.

Bombardment blunts Libyan rebels' advance

On Monday, rebels held positions at the western gates of the city, on the fringes of desert littered with bullet casings, scraps of metal and more than a dozen blackened or overturned vehicles, including tanks and pickup trucks outfitted with anti-aircraft guns.

The area was also scattered with twisted cooking pots, torn blankets and a shredded green helmet smeared with blood.

A rebel scout sent down the highway to the west said he encountered Qaddafi forces and was drawn into a brief gunbattle before falling back to Ajdabiya, but there were no major battles on that front Monday.

With some breathing room around Ajdabiya, the rebels could mount another attempt to retake and hold the oil ports of Ras Lanouf and Brega farther west, which have changed hands repeatedly throughout the fighting.

That would bring them a step closer to the key city of Sirte, a Qaddafi stronghold and home to the Libyan leader's tribe. Several rebel advances toward the city have been driven back.

NATO is operating under a U.N. resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians.

The AU's draft called for an immediate cease-fire, cooperation in opening channels for humanitarian aid, protection of foreign nationals and the start of a dialogue between rebels and the government. AU officials, however, made no mention of any requirement for Qaddafi to pull his troops out of cities as rebels have demanded.

Qaddafi enjoys substantial support from countries of the AU, an organization that he chaired two years ago and helped transform using Libya's oil wealth.

Though the AU has condemned attacks on civilians, last week its current leader, Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, decried foreign intervention in Libya's nearly two-month-old uprising, which he declared to be an internal problem.

Concern about civilian casualties is centered on the city of Misrata. Residents of the city say Qaddafi's forces have shelled the city from its outskirts for weeks and lined a main street with snipers.

In Geneva, the U.N. children's agency said Monday that at least 20 children have been killed and many more have been injured in the city over the past three weeks. Children as young as 9 months were among the victims and the majority were under 10 years of age, UNICEF said.

They died of shrapnel from mortar shells and tank fire, and bullet wounds, it said.

Last week, the agency said children there were among those being targeted by snipers.