Allied planes fly over Libya as Gaddafi hits Benghazi

Allied warplanes are stopping Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces attacking the rebel-held city of Benghazi, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Saturday, Reuters reports.

Gaddafi's troops on Saturday morning pushed into the outskirts of Benghazi, the second city of some 670,000 people, in an apparent attempt to pre-empt Western air strikes that came after a meeting of Western and Arab leaders in Paris.

But as the meeting ended, Sarkozy announced that allied air forces had already gone into action.

"Our planes are already preventing air attacks on the city," he said, adding that military action supported by France, Britain, the United States and Canada and backed by Arab nations could be halted if Gaddafi stopped his forces attacking.

Earlier, a French military source told Reuters that French reconnaissance planes were flying over Libya.

Hundreds of cars full of refugees fled east from Benghazi toward the Egyptian border after the city came under bombardment overnight.

In the besieged western city of Misrata, residents said government forces shelled the rebel town again on Saturday and they were facing a humanitarian crisis as water supplies had been cut off for a third day.

Gaddafi said Western powers had no right to intervene. "This is injustice, this is clear aggression," government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim quoted Gaddafi as saying in a letter to France, Britain and the United Nations. "You will regret it if you take a step toward interfering in our internal affairs."

The Libyan government blamed the rebels, who it says are members of al Qaeda, for breaking the ceasefire around Benghazi.