Gaddafi forces in new attacks

AJDABIYA, Mar 15 (AFP): Rebels defending the key Libyan town of Ajdabiya braced for new attacks from forces loyal to strongman Mommar Gaddafi Tuesday with little prospect of foreign air protection any time soon. Officials said countries in the powerful Group of Eight and at the United Nations Security Council remained split over the merits of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent government air strikes. But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held out the possibility of economic and political aid to the Libyan opposition at a meeting with one of the rebel leaders in Paris, US officials said. Pro-Gaddafi forces staged a brief bombardment targeting Ajdabiya Monday which medics said left five people wounded but there was no sign that ground troops were resuming their eastward advance. The lightly armed rebels have been pushed back some 200 kilometres (125 miles) by Gaddafi's better equipped forces in the past week. They are now only 170 kilometres from the rebel capital of Benghazi, Libya's second city with a population of around one million.