NATO warplanes bombed the Libyan capital early Friday, state television said, as Moammar Gadhafi's regime accused rebels of sabotaging a key pipeline feeding the country's sole functioning refinery.

About 10 loud explosions rocked the city around 1:30 am (11:30 GMT), an Agence France Presse journalist said.

The unity of Libya's revolutionaries on Wednesday became the latest casualty of the shock assassination of a top general, as a key rebel group demanded senior ministers and military brass be fired.

The head of the February 17 Coalition -- whose members kick-started the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi -- told Agence France Presse the ministers of defense and international affairs must be sacked in the wake of last week's murder of General Abdul Fatah Younis.

Libya's rebels said on Tuesday they launched a post-dawn attack on the western town of Zliten, punching through to the center and sparking fierce clashes with forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, as Russia said the fighting in Libya had reached a "dead end."

"The rebels advanced today inside Zliten to control the center. Now there is a vicious fight with Gadhafi's forces," said Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani, a military spokesman based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

France on Monday said it had given Libyan rebels 259 million dollars (181 million euros) in frozen funds that used to belong to the regime of strongman leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"The NTC (National Transitional Council) will now be able to use these funds for purchases of a humanitarian nature," the French foreign ministry said in a statement.

From Syria to Libya and Egypt, the uprisings and unrest gripping the Arab world have cast a pall on the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month when the traditional focus on piety will likely be eclipsed by more unrest.

Food prices — part of the economic hardships that catalyzed the ouster of the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders — are still climbing. And protesters have shown little patience for conciliatory gestures by governments after decades of empty promises.

Lack of a U.N. mandate and regional support means the conditions are not met for a Libya-style military operation in Syria, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen was quoted as saying on Monday.

"In Libya, we're carrying out an operation based on a clear U.N. mandate. We have the support of countries in the region. These two conditions are not met in Syria," Rasmussen told France's Midi Libre regional daily.

Libyan rebels rounded up at least 63 people suspected of murdering their military chief and having links to Moammar Gadhafi, after an hours-long battle in their eastern stronghold of Benghazi.

Security forces patrolled the streets overnight in a bid to track down more members of the pro-Gadhafi group, a rebel spokesman said, as shoppers stocked up ahead of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Libya's rebels routed a militia group accused of assassinating their military chief and of links to Moammar Gadhafi, they said, after an hours-long battle Sunday in their Benghazi stronghold.

Medics and rebels said at least four rebel and 11 pro-Gadhafi fighters were killed in the fierce shootout, which erupted around dawn during a raid on the cell holed up at a roadside factory in the eastern city.

A group of Libyans stoned a border post in southern Tunisia after a row with a Tunisian customs officer Sunday, an interior ministry spokesman said.

"Libyans hurled stones at sentry booths at the customs post following a dispute between a Tunisian customs officer and a Libyan who was returning home," spokesman Mohammed Hichem Meddeb told Agence France Presse.

Libyan rebels on Sunday took the village of Josh at the foot of the Nafusa mountain range in the west of the country, AFP journalists said.

"We took Josh this morning and are now heading west. Now we're fighting to take Tiji" further down the valley, Juma Brahim, head of the rebel fighters' operational command in the Nafusa region, told AFP.