Tripoli: The battle for control of rebel capital Benghazi looked just hours away on Thursday after the Libyan army told people to leave opposition-held locations and arms storage areas, but residents said the city was quiet.
Benghazi residents poured scorn on the army announcement, one of several recent reports on Libyan television that have not been borne out. It said on Tuesday that pro-Gaddafi masses were rallying in the city, which residents said never happened.
"This is psychological warfare," Benghazi resident Faiza Ali told Reuters by telephone.
Jibril al-Huweidi, a doctor at al-Jalaa Hospital in Benghazi said ambulances were shuttling between Benghazi and Ajdabiya, a city further west where loyalist and opposition forces clashed.
"They could not have made it repeatedly back and forth tonight if the evil forces were closing in on Benghazi" he said.
A text on the screen of Al-Libya television addressed people in the eastern city, saying the army was coming "to support you and to cleanse your city from armed gangs."
"It urges you to keep out by midnight of areas where the armed men and weapon storage areas are located," it said.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Lebanon's LBC TV he did not expect a battle in Benghazi, seat of the insurgents' provisional national council, because Libyan people have been helping get rid of "al Qaeda" elements there.
One of Gaddafi's sons, Saif al-Islam, had told Euronews TV on Wednesday morning that Libya's second largest city would fall whether or not the international community agreed to impose a no-fly zone. "Everything will be over in 48 hours," he said.
Diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed remain mired. Three weeks after a no-fly zone over Libya was first mooted, nothing has been agreed.
A UN Security Council draft resolution on a no-fly zone to protect civilians was circulated on Tuesday after a meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Paris this week failed to get the agreement France was hoping for.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States hoped for a UN Security Council vote aimed at ending Libya's conflict "no later than Thursday."
Saying Gaddafi seemed determined to kill as many as Libyans as possible in his violent effort to quell a month-long uprising, she said "many different actions" were being considered, not just a no-fly zone.
The United States, Russia, China, Germany, India and other council members are either undecided or voiced doubts about the proposal for a no-fly zone being proposed by Britain and France.
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