Car bomb hits rebel HQ in Benghazi

TRIPOLI, May 4 (AFP): Three explosions were heard early Wednesday as jets overflew the Libyan capital Tripoli, days after the regime said Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi escaped an air strike that killed one of his sons. Gunfire rang out following the second strike. A witness said that there were three explosions in total, and that smoke could be seen rising from one of the sites in eastern Tripoli. Early on Sunday, government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said that Seif al-Arab Kadhafi, one of the Libyan leader's sons, and three of his grandchildren were killed in a NATO airstrike that he termed a bid to assassinate the strongman. Meanwhile: A car bomb exploded near the headquarters of Libya's rebels in their eastern bastion of Benghazi Tuesday night, wounding two people and fraying nerves in the recently peaceful city. In the capital Tripoli three loud explosions were heard early Wednesday as jets flew overhead, days after the regime said Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi narrowly escaped a NATO air strike that killed one of his sons. The explosion in Benghazi took place about 200 metres (yards) from a seafront headquarters of insurgents fighting to overthrow Gaddafi. Meanwhile, besieged rebel city of Misrata was relatively calm Tuesday but braced for new attacks by Kadhafi's forces as an ultimatum to surrender expired, a day after shelling killed 14 people. Several kilometres away, however, fighting continued in Al-Ghiran and Zawiat al-Mahjub near the airport, which rebels have been trying to capture from Gaddafi forces based there. Medical sources in Libya's shell-shocked third city said one person had been killed and 22 wounded . In Benghazi, the rebels issued a plea for an emergency credit line of up to $3 billion from the United States and the two European countries to recognise them-France and Italy-ahead of a meeting in Rome of the International Contact Group on Libya.