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Muammar Gaddafi's capital hit by blackouts as rebels cut oil supply

Advances by rebel forces in the west and east of Libya in recent days threaten to encircle the regime.

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Libyan rebels have inflicted a devastating blow on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Tripoli stronghold with a strike on a key oil pipeline that has triggered widespread electricity blackouts in the capital.

Advances by rebel forces in the west and east of Libya in recent days threaten to encircle the regime. Rebels claimed to have taken Bir Ghaneim, a fiercely contested town that is the gateway to the coastal road to Tunisia, and a Qatari shipment of arms on Saturday bolstered their advance on Zlitan in the east.

The severe disruption of electricity in Tripoli as a result of an attack at the end of July has enraged residents at the most sensitive time of the calendar. Festivities to celebrate the Muslim month of Ramadan were launched last week amid temperatures of 40C.

Khaled Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, said rebel forces had sabotaged a section of a pipeline carrying fuel supplies to the regime's only electricity plant, knocking out one section and interrupting the flow through a second pipe. As a result there would be permanent damage to the regime's generating capacity.

"The rebels turned off a valve and poured cement over it," he said. "It took two days to clear the mess but even then there are disruptions. These attacks are aimed at starving and displacing the Libyan people and causing a humanitarian crisis."

Blackouts are in force across Tripoli and residents breached the culture of fear to denounce the shortages.

A retired engineer shopping at a vegetable market said his home had no power for three days. "We want this to end, these conditions are very difficult," he said quietly. "The lack of fuel, no electricity, foreign countries bombing us. People can't accept this. There has to be a solution.

"The other side won't accept Gaddafi, he has to recognise this."

Ramadan's two peak demand periods - 8pm when the Iftar meal breaks the day-long fast and the 3am feast before the dawn call to prayer - are held in semi darkness.

"We have gone back to candles," said a jewellery shop owner in the old city. "Libya is a rich country and this what we have to put with. It's enough."

No official figures for the drop in output have been released but the power cuts have even reached the al-Nasr district near Col Gaddafi's fortified complex.

Some areas have had no power for days while other districts have supplies for only a few hours a day.

The lack of gas for cooking and rising prices has also soured the festive season; a canister of cooking gas costs up to pounds 40, more than 20 times the price in May.

The rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) has previously promised to leave Libya's basic infrastructure intact so that a post-Gaddafi government can function without a civil war hangover.

A special body, the Tripoli Task Force, has drawn up detailed plans that commit the rebels to targets for electricity output, numbers of schools open, medical provision, police patrols and other necessary services in the first month.

Foreign Minister Alistair Burt yesterday insisted that "incremental progress" was being made in Libya and said that the international community had to be "patient and persistent" in dealing with Col Gaddafi.

Mr Burt told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: "We see steady incremental progress being made. All the time, the Gaddafi regime is being degraded politically, diplomatically, economically through the impact of so many nations working together.

"It is a question of being patient and persistent. The work will go on to ensure that the Gaddafi regime is less likely to attack its own people."

 Britain is spending pounds 1.3 million a month on accommodation for 1,000 service personnel in Italy while they conduct air strikes on Libya, official figures show.

The RAF pilots and their support crews are deployed in four different parts of Italy as part of the Nato campaign.

Accommodation costs have averaged pounds 1,315,000 a month since the bombing raids began in March, the ministry of defence said on Sunday.

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