Rebels form military council in Benghazi

Libyan revolutionaries have formed a military council in the eastern city of Benghazi in what could be a step towards forming a unified nationwide force against Muammar Gaddafi, reports said. The council, comprising officers who joined the anti-Gaddafi protests, will liaise with similar groups in other eastern cities, but it was not immediately clear if there were plans to set up a regional command. Meanwhile, an informed source told Gulf News correspondent in Benghazi that the transitional national council estimates the death toll in the clashes to be 6,500. Gaddafi remains defiant despite losing control of virtually all of eastern Libya and parts of the west as militia loyal to him tried overnight to retake the western town of Zawiya near Tripoli. Revolutionaries are trying to break the siege on Zawiya enforced by Gaddafi since Sunday. Defenders killed three members of the 2,000-strong militia stationed on the eastern and southern outskirts of the city, Naim Al Oshaibi, a Benghazi-based activist, told Gulf News. France, meanwhile, said that there would be no international military action against Libya, including the imposition of a no-fly zone, without a "clear mandate" from the United Nations. "At the moment I am talking to you, no military intervention is expected," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told French parliament.His statement distanced France from Britain and the US, which yesterday pushed for a no-fly zone to be imposed quickly. "It is not acceptable to have a situation where Colonel Gaddafi can be murdering his own people, using aeroplanes and helicopter gunships and the like," British Prime Minister David Cameron said. "We have to plan now to make sure that if it happens we can do something to stop it. It's right for us to plan and look at plans for a no-fly zone." Susan Rice, Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, said: "We are going to squeeze him economically in conjunction with the rest of the economic community. We'll squeeze him militarily."