TRIPOLI, March 19 (Xinhua) -- A Libyan spokesman on Saturday denied media reports that rebels shot down a government warplane and that the military was bombarding a key rebel-held city.
Al-Jazeera TV and The Associated Press reported that the fighter plane was downed over the outskirts of Benghazi on Saturday.
An AP reporter saw the plane go down in flames, sending up a massive black cloud of smoke, and heard the sound of artillery and crackling gunfire in the distance.
Before the plane crashed, journalists could hear what appeared to be airstrikes from it. Rebels cheered and celebrated at the crash, though government spokesman Mousar Ibrahim denied a plane had gone down _ or that any towns were shelled on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi warned international forces they would "regret" intervening in Libya and his troops attacked the heart of the 5-week-old uprising on Saturday, swarming the first city seized by the rebels with shells, gunfire and warplanes.
Gadhafi spoke after the U.N. Security Council on Thursday agreed to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and authorize "all necessary measures" to protect civilians in the Northern African country.
Leaders from the Arab world, Africa, the United States and other Western powers were holding urgent talks in Paris on Saturday over possible military action after the Libyan government declared a cease-fire on Friday.
Misrata, Libya`s third-largest city and the last held by rebels in the west, came under sustained assault well after the cease-fire announcement, according to rebels and a doctor there.
Libya`s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, denied late Friday that government forces had violated the cease-fire and invited four nations to send observers to monitor compliance: Germany, China, Turkey and Malta.
Kaim said military forces were positioned outside Benghazi but that the government had no intention of sending them into the city.
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