The regime's warplanes swept in, bombing a block of apartments and a rebel checkpoint on the edge of town.

One side of the two-storey block was blown away but no casualties were reported.

Heavy shelling followed the air raids, whistling down on rebel positions about 13 kilometres (eight miles) west of Ras Lanuf, with six shells falling in a five-minute period.

Rebel fighters making their way on foot towards the front ran back as the shelling drew closer, amid what appeared to be a concerted effort by government forces to clear pockets of resistance on and around a desert highway linking Ras Lanuf with Bin Jawad further west. Advancing Kadhafi forces ousted the rebels from Bin Jawad on Sunday.

"Kadhafi is a madman," rebel fighter Kamal Sheikh told AFP on the front.

"He's raining fire down on us but we are human beings. We are Libyans. They are shooting anybody," he said, carrying a Kalashnikov.

A second bomb narrowly missed the apartment block and skipped onto the street about 100 metres (yards) away but it failed to explode.

Kadhafi forces were fortifying the front line in a sign that they could be digging in for a lengthy battle, said Saad Hamid, who described himself as a media official for the rebels' leadership council.

He said there were skirmishes around 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Ras Lanuf. An AFP reporter could hear bursts from anti-aircraft batteries.

"They are fortifying just behind the front line. They are digging trenches and making fortifications. They have brought up rocket launchers, tanks and artillery. They have also intensified air strikes," he said at the checkpoint.

"We now have reinforcements on the way and they are also making preparations," Hamid told AFP.

An AFP photographer said one person was wounded from one of three earlier air strikes reported by witnesses near the main checkpoint on the edge of Ras Lanuf, where the rebel presence was thin on Tuesday. Sirens wailed as an ambulance picked up the wounded man.

The first air strike came in the early morning, one of its bombs sending a plume of dark grey smoke rising into the sky after it hit just metres (yards) from houses on the edge of Ras Lanuf, home to Libya's biggest oil refinery.

A missile exploded next to the road around 100 metres (yards) from some houses on the outskirts of the strategic town, which is the furthest west the rebels have advanced from their eastern stronghold.

Rebels have erected a checkpoint about five kilometres (three miles) west of Ras Lanuf and are refusing to let journalists proceed further to Bin Jawad, saying there were skirmishes ahead.

Libyan jets have carried out near daily strikes since the revolt began to topple Kadhafi and while most have missed their targets, a father and a son were wounded in one such attack at Ras Lanuf on Monday.

A doctor at the hospital told AFP two more bodies had been recovered from near Bin Jawad after heavy clashes with Kadhafi forces forced the rebels to withdraw to Ras Lanuf on Sunday.

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