20110401
presstv
More people are fleeing Libya amid US-led airstrikes and clashes between troops loyal to ruler Muammar Gaddafi and opposition forces, a French organization says.

"A month after the start of the conflict, the number of displaced people fleeing the violence is again on the increase at the border between Libya and Tunisia," Action Against Hunger (ACF) said in a statement on Thursday.

"Today 9,000 people are living in the camp at Choucha," compared with hardly 3,000 last week, ACF said.

More than 100,000 people -- most of them migrant workers -- have crossed the border since February.

This is while the latest US-led airstrikes targeting the Libyan capital city of Tripoli have reportedly killed at least 40 civilians.

Meanwhile, revolutionary forces returned fire with rockets and rocket-propelled grenades to shelling by government troops on the outskirts of the oil town of Brega.

The fighting broke out a day after Gaddafi forces recaptured the oil town of Ras Lanuf.

US, British, French, Canadian, Danish and Belgian warplanes have attacked Libya since March 19 under UN Security Council resolution 1973 that authorized "all necessary measures" to protect civilians.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took full command of all Libyan operations from the United States on Thursday.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen ruled out that Western countries would arm the opposition.

"We are there to protect the Libyan people, not to arm people," he was quoted as saying by AFP.

In another development, Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, have reportedly held secret talks with British officials one day after Libyan Foreign Minister Mussa Koussa fled to London and announced his resignation.