The first air strike in two days against Moamer Kadhafi's forces in the east was carried out near Ajdabiya, where rebels are sheltering after having been routed from their front lines, an AFP reporter witnessed.

The strike, about 10 kilometres (6.5 miles) west of of the town, sent a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky and brought cries of jubilation from the rebel fighters, who had earlier called for air support by coalition jets.

The air raid was the first in two days in eastern Libya, where rebel forces were pushed back some 200 kilometres on Wednesday by Kadhafi's forces who blazed through town after town with tanks and heavy artillery.

Earlier, as the ragged rebel army regrouped around Brega, the red, black and green flag fluttered as strongly as ever from their cars, but the V-for-victory signs and the grimaces on their faces were subdued and forced.

The three-kilometre (two-mile) long convoy of Toyota pick-ups bearing tripod-mounted guns, buses filled with knife-wielding insurgents, underpowered hatchbacks bristling with AK-47s and even the odd camper van and truck was beating a hasty retreat eastwards towards Ajdabiya.

In the distance, the shells from Moamer Kadhafi's forces could be half-felt as a deep vibration in the air, half-heard as an abbreviated thunder clap. Puffs of black smoke kicked up far away, warning of approaching danger.

The ceding of almost all the flat, arid terrain the rebels had taken control of just five days ago was an unplanned, almost panicky affair.

Talk by the rebel Transitional National Council in its Benghazi stronghold of a "tactical retreat" was clearly hollow. The insurgents -- most of them overconfident young men with no military training or discipline whatsoever -- know nothing of tactics.

A lightning advance they made last weekend nearly to the gates of Kadhafi's home town of Sirte was entirely due to coalition air strikes that cleared the road before them of tanks, rocket launchers and big-calibre guns.

As Kadhafi's well-trained, well-equipped fighting units moved forward, sending the rebels scattering, the mood among them turned. Why had the coalition warplanes stopped bombing ahead of their march? they asked.

Angry mumblings against French President Nicolas Sarkozy, hitherto seen as the rebels' principal protector, were heard.

"Why aren't they bombing? We've heard things like Sarkozy is backing out of this situation," said Abdullah Shwahdi, a 25-year-old fighter.

The haphazard caravan, moving slower now, mostly continued on to Ajdabiya, although some small groups of vehicles pulled over to wait by the roadside. If Kadhafi's forced approached, they would run again. If "Sarkozy's planes" returned, they would move forward.

Justifying their lack of fight, the rebels pointed out they were poorly armed with vintage or looted weapons, some of which jammed or had no more ammunition. It was the fight of "the people" against an army, they said.

"We want two things: that the planes drop bombs on Kadhafi's tanks and heavy artillery, and that they (the West) give us weapons so we can fight," 27-year-old guerrilla Yunes Abdelghaim told AFP.

earlier related report
Libya rebels downplay Al-Qaeda charges
Benghazi, Libya (AFP) March 30, 2011 - A spokesman for Libyan rebels fighting Moamer Kadhafi's regime on Wednesday played down allegations by a top NATO commander that there may be Al-Qaeda fighters in their ranks.

"We don't have this organisation in Libya because their culture is different from ours," Colonel Ahmed Bani told reporters in the rebel stronghold Benghazi.

"If there are any Libyans who were associated with Al-Qaeda around the world and are now in Libya, they are fighting on behalf of Libya. If," he emphasised.

He told the same press conference that Wednesday's chaotic stampede of rebel forces back from a number of villages they had seized in recent days came after they were confronted by a force of thousands of Chadian Republican Guards.

"We found that the best response was a tactical retreat until we can develop a better strategy for confronting this force," he said, saying it numbered between 3,200 and 3,600 heavily armed troops.

He claimed to have "three sources" for the presence of the foreign troops but did not give further details about where the information came from.

"The dictator and his military and mercenaries will not make it to Benghazi," he said, referring to forces loyal to Kadhafi, whose 42-year rule is being challenged by the weeks-old insurgency.

On Tuesday, top NATO commander and US Admiral James Stavridis said the alliance was trying to gain a clearer picture of the rebels who had advanced with the help of Western-led coalition air strikes.

"We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah. We've seen different things," he said, referring to Osama Bin Laden's global jihadist network and Lebanon's Shiite Muslim militia.

"At this point, I don't have detail sufficient to say that there's a significant Al-Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among" (rebel forces), Stavridis said.

Al-Qaeda militant Abu Yahya al-Libi, himself a Libyan whose whereabouts are unknown, has urged on the rebellion against Kadhafi, and Al-Qaeda in North Africa has vowed to do everything in its power to help.