Gaddafi’s right-hand man defects as rebels capture three towns

Muammar Gaddafi's former right-hand man, Abdel Salam Jalloud, has defected to rebel-held territory in Libya's Western Mountains, a rebel spokesman said on Friday, Reuters reports.

Jalloud was a member of the junta that staged a 1969 coup bringing Gaddafi to power, and was seen as the North African oil producer state's second in command before falling out of Gaddafi's favor in the 1990s, it reports.

"He is definitely here in Zintan. He is under the control of the military council here," Massoud Ali, a local rebel spokesman, told Reuters.

Rebels showed Reuters a video of a person they identified as Jalloud standing among them earlier in the day.

The news came as Libyan rebels claim to have captured three strategic coastal cities to the east and west of Tripoli as the encircled regime denied reports Muammar Gadhafi is seeking refuge for his family.

Rebel fighters were celebrating in the streets of Zawiya just 30 kilometers west of Tripoli, and claimed also to have driven loyalist forces out of Zlitan and Brega to the east, AP reported.

"We are just having a big celebration right now in the city center," rebel Hussein Azzwaik told the BBC in Zawiya, which contains a vital oil refinery and straddles a key supply route to Tripoli from Tunisia.

Government sources denied that the rebels were in control of the cities, which have seen fierce fighting this week.

But there were also reports of rebel forces advancing on Tripoli from the south and more NATO air strikes in the capital.

U.S. officials said Gadhafi was preparing for a final battle to save his regime, after months of rebellion and NATO bombing.

"We believe he could be planning for a last stand," one U.S. official told The New York Times.

The latest sign of Gadhafi's loosening grip on power came Friday when opposition forces said former prime minister Abdel Salam Jalloud had fled Tripoli and joined the rebel ranks.

Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told CNN that Gadhafi were staying put in the country, dismissing rebel claims that the colonel had sought help from Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria to host his family.

NATO meanwhile pounded the home of intelligence service chief Abdullah al-Sanussi, a brother-in-law of Gadhafi's, government officials said.

A school and medical store were also destroyed in the strike, neighbors and officials said.