Anger as Gaddafi rockets pound city

Muammar Gaddafi's forces pounded Misrata - the only city still in rebel hands - with rocket fire as weary residents who have endured more than a month of fighting lashed out at Nato for failing to halt the deadly assault.

Five civilians were killed in a 30-minute post-dawn barrage of shelling on Saturday that heavily damaged a factory for dairy products and sent up a thick column of black smoke, a doctor said.

A human rights group has accused the Gaddafi regime of using cluster bombs in Misrata - munitions that can cause indiscriminate casualties and have been banned by most countries. The Libyan government and military denied the claim.

In eastern Libya, fierce fighting left seven rebels dead, 27 wounded and four missing as the anti-Gaddafi forces sought to push towards the strategic oil town of Brega, according to Mohammed Idris, a hospital supervisor in the nearby city of Ajdabiya. The battle took place on a road halfway between Ajdabiya and Brega.

Frustration was growing among residents in Misrata, where Gaddafi's troops have intensified their long siege of the city in recent days. The doctor sharply criticised Nato for failing to break the assault with its month-old campaign of air strikes.

"We have not seen any protection of civilians," the doctor said. "Nato air strikes are not enough and the proof is that there are civilians killed every day here."

The theme was echoed in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, where spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga told a news conference: "There's no more room for hesitation or for not standing with determination against what is happening in Misrata and other Libyan cities, because the destruction that Muammar Gaddafi is causing in Libyan cities is great and extensive."

Rebel fighters in eastern Libya were less critical of Nato. Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, head of the rebels' National Transitional Council, said this week that without the air strikes, even Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city and the rebels' main stronghold, would be in "complete danger".

The Misrata doctor said Gaddafi's forces were taking shelter in residential areas that civilians had fled, apparently confident that Nato would not risk attacking them there. But the troops have so far been unable to fully occupy the city of 300,000 people, he said, so instead they are targeting sites such as the dairy plant or the port to prevent the arrival of humanitarian aid.

A lack of medicine, food and water for the 6,000-10,000 people in migrant workers' camps around Misrata have led to a "catastrophic" situation that is deteriorating daily, said Dr Helmi Makkaoui, a Tunisian co-ordinator for the humanitarian aid group.