Arab League foreign ministers are meeting to discuss a draft resolution rejecting foreign military intervention in Libya. They held a minutes' silence to remember "martyrs" of reform in the Arab world.

At the scene:



John Simpson BBC News, Ajdabiya

According to someone I spoke to by mobile phone in Brega a short time ago, fighting is still going on there, as Gaddafi's troops, more than 100 carloads of them, the eyewitness said, take control of the small airfield in the town, which is attached to an oil refinery.Here in Ajdabiya, an imminent attack doesn't seem very likely. Still, in the last few minutes there was the second bombing raid of the morning by a pro-Gaddafi pilot, on the enormous arms dump on the edge of town here. That makes the fifth attack on the arms dump in 12 days, though no real damage has so far been caused to it.

Rebels determined

Government forces took the oil facility at Brega at dawn on Wednesday without using force.

"It's not an attack. We are OK. The government troops came in to secure the whole area. Our concern is to maintain the facility," Ahmed Jerksi, the manager of the oil installation in Brega, told the Associated Press.

But rebels in Benghazi, the main city in eastern Libya, said they had retaken the town.

"They tried to take Brega this morning, but they failed," spokesman Mustafa Gheriani told Reuters news agency. It is back in the hands of the revolutionaries. He is trying to create all kinds of psychological warfare to keep these cities on edge."

The BBC's John Simpson in Ajdabiya says rebel forces in Ajdabiya have been expecting an attack but with fighting continuing in Brega that may not be imminent. The rebels are determined to put up a fight but it remains to be seen whether this translates into an organised defence of the city, our correspondent says. Protesters fear air attacks on the towns they have won and are calling for the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya. The UK has been investigating the possibility, but the BBC's Barbara Plett at the UN says there is little appetite in the Security Council for such a move.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said reports suggested more than 1,000 had died in the unrest so far. The UN has passed a resolution suspending Libya from its Human Rights Council and accusing it of committing gross and systematic violations of human rights.

Mr Ban said: "These UN actions send a strong and important message - a message of great consequence within the region and beyond - that there is no impunity, that those who commit crimes against humanity will be punished, that fundamental principles of justice and accountability shall prevail."