DUSHANBE, March 4, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- According to international media outlets, the National Libyan Council in the city of Benghazi, led by former Libyan Interior Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who defected last month, called for foreign intervention to stop government air raids against the rebels.   The Council called for foreign help to set up a no-fly zone to protect civilians and help rebels topple Gaddafi.

Rebels in eastern Libya have said they will not negotiate unless Colonel Muammar Gaddafi quits and goes into exile.

"If there is any negotiation it will be on one single thing - how Gaddafi is going to leave the country or step down so we can save lives. There is nothing else to negotiate," Ahmed Jabreel, a spokesman for Mr. Abdel-Jalil, told Reuters news agency.

Reuters reports Libyan rebels prepared for further attacks by forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi on Friday as both sides struggled for control of a strategic coast road and oil industry facilities.

Rebels holding the port city of Zawiyah, 50 kilometers west of the capital, Tripoli, said they had been launching counter-attacks against Gaddafi''s forces massing in the area and warned supplies of medicines and baby milk were running low.

The popular uprising against Gaddafi''s 41-year rule, the bloodiest yet against a long-serving ruler in the Middle East or North Africa, has knocked out nearly 50 percent of the OPEC-member''s 1.6 million barrels of oil per day output, the bedrock of its economy, Reuters said.

According to the BBC, in The Hague, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Gaddafi and members of his inner circle could be investigated for possible war crimes committed since the uprising broke out in mid-February.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said Col Gaddafi and his inner circle were under its spotlight.  The court has identified at least nine incidents that could constitute crimes against humanity, including the alleged killing of 257 people in Benghazi last month.  "During the coming weeks, the office will investigate who are the most responsible for the most serious incidents, for the most serious crimes committed in Libya," Luis Moreno-Ocampo said.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told the BBC the case was "close to a joke", built purely on media reports.  "No fact-finding mission has been sent to Libya. No diplomats, no ministers, no NGOs or organizations of any type were sent to Libya to check the facts ... No one can be sent to prison based on media reports," he said.

The upheaval is causing a humanitarian crisis, especially on the Tunisian border where tens of thousands of foreign workers have fled to safety. But an organized international airlift started to relieve the human flood from Libya as word spread to refugees that planes were taking them home.

Some 200,000 migrant workers have now fled Libya, into Egypt, Tunisia and Niger, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM).