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Loud blasts rock Libyan rebel-held Misrata

 Loud explosions rocked the besieged rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata where the death toll mounted Saturday as a rights group charged Moamer Kadhafi's forces are using banned cluster bombs.

The blasts were accompanied by bursts of gunfire heard coming from the city centre, after NATO flyovers and possible air raids followed by a lull in shelling and shooting, an AFP correspondent reported.

Officials at Misrata's main Hikma hospital said overnight it had received five dead bodies and 31 wounded.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said
its researchers reported the use of internationally banned cluster munitions against Misrata, the rebels' last major bastion in the west of Libya.

Insurgents said forces loyal to Kadhafi were using cluster bombs, which explode in the air and scatter deadly, armour piercing submunitions over a wide area.

"Last night it was like rain," said Hazam Abu Zaid, a local resident who has taken up arms to defend his neighbourhood, describing the cluster bombings.

The use of the munitions was first reported by The New York Times. A reporting team for the daily photographed MAT-120 mortar rounds which it said were produced in Spain.

"It's appalling that Libya is using this weapon, especially in a residential area," said Steve Goose, HRW's arms division director.

"They pose a huge risk to civilians, both during attacks because of their indiscriminate nature and afterwards because of the still-dangerous unexploded duds scattered about," he said.

A spokesman for the Libyan regime denied the accusations.

"Absolutely no. We can't do this. Morally, legally we can't do this," government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told journalists. "We never do it. We challenge them to prove it."

On Friday, the rebels said Kadhafi forces were firing shells and mortar rounds two kilometres (more than a mile) away from the main road, Tripoli Street.

Rebel checkpoints were seen around a now-abandoned residential area where nests of loyalist snipers were suspected to be active.

"We want NATO to attack Tripoli Street -- there are no civilians there," pleaded one rebel.

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