Africa, Libya | featured news

Key dates in the history of Libya, from riches to rebellion.

The imminent end of a seven-month civil war in Libya holds the promise of restoring oil production and pushing prices lower. But rebel forces face a number of obstacles.

President Barack Obama said on Monday the United States would be a friend and partner to Libya, but urged rebels poised to depose Muammar Gaddafi to not seek justice through violent reprisals.

With Libyan rebels on the brink of toppling Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year rule, leaders around the world -- with the exception of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez -- called on the longtime leader to step down.

Explosions and gunfire rocked Tripoli overnight, after days of battlefield defeats left Muammar Gaddafi's government and troops penned ever more tightly in the besieged capital by a rebel advance.

As street battles raged on Friday just a half-hour’s drive from the Libyan capital, there were new signs in Tripoli that worried foreigners were urgently trying to leave.

Convinced that their battlefield strategy will work, the rebel forces are refusing France's demands that they negotiate with the Libyan leader to peacefully end their uprising. As the Libyan war grinds on across three fronts and rebel forces find themselves pinned down on their own territory outside two strategic eastern oil cities, the rebels' most resolute European ally, France, is insisting that they negotiate with Moammar Kadafi to peacefully end their 5-month-old uprising.

The battle for the Libyan oil town of Brega switched from the desert to intense street-to-street fighting on Sunday, as rebel forces said they punched into a residential area in the town's northeast.

Tripoli was rocked by a series of airstrikes by NATO forces in the early hours of the morning Sunday.

The United States and other nations on Friday formally recognized Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government until a new interim authority is created.