TRIPOLI, Libya (The New York Times) -- Emboldened by improvements in their military communications, the rebels challenging Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi say they are now coordinating attacks on three fronts in order to stretch the loyalist forces’ defenses.

Their efforts were evident this week, rebels say, as they initiated new attacks in the east from Benghazi toward the oil port of Brega; on the central coast from Misurata toward the pivotal barracks town of Zlitan; and from their newest stronghold in the Nafusah Mountains into the town of Zawiyah on the doorstep of the capital.
In addition, rebel spokesmen in Misurata and Benghazi said they had succeeded in smuggling weapons to cells of allies here in the capital, where residents say there are nightly clashes with Qaddafi security forces in the rebellious neighborhoods of Tajura, Souq al-Juma and Feshloom.
Two Tripoli residents said Thursday that rebel supporters in Tajura and Souq al-Juma were distributing leaflets urging Qaddafi soldiers to put down their weapons and the residents to rise up. A rebel spokesman in Benghazi said that the leaflets were composed in the east and e-mailed to the Tripoli residents to print and distribute.
The existence or origin of the leaflets could not be confirmed because foreign journalists trying to visit the neighborhoods were stopped by Qaddafi soldiers and returned to their hotel. Nor could the level of rebel success on other fronts be determined.
On the most active front, between Misurata and Zlitan, a rebel spokesman said this week that the anti-Qaddafi forces had advanced as far west as the town of Naima, though NATO was urging them to retreat to the older front line at Dafniyah.
-----NATO planes dropping leaflets
Rebels and news agencies say NATO planes have been dropping leaflets urging Qaddafi soldiers to leave their weapons and flee, with pictures of an attack helicopter and a warning that when one arrives there is “nowhere to hide.”
Much of the information from the battlefield has been hard to verify and, at times, unreliable. The rebels said the city of Zlitan had risen up against Colonel Qaddafi, but during an official visit to the neighboring town of Al Khums many residents said that was overstated.
Several residents, speaking in the presence of official government news media minders, said the only fighting was at the Dafniyah front. Two residents speaking without supervision said that Zlitan was at best divided, with some residents attacking the Qaddafi troops stationed there.
In other cases the rebel communications system may have transmitted overly optimistic reports. Spokesmen in Misurata and Benghazi suggested Wednesday that the insurgents in the important oil port of Zawiyah had closed the main road through the town to the Tunisian border. But journalists traveling the road both ways said they passed undisturbed.
In Tripoli, officials of the Qaddafi government remained defiant. They said that the brief flare in violence in Zawiyah was quickly snuffed out, and that Zlitan, Brega and Tripoli were firmly under control.
After a meeting with a Russian envoy on Thursday, Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, the Libyan equivalent of a prime minister, told foreign journalists that he had categorically ruled out the demands of the rebels and NATO that Colonel Qaddafi leave power.
The “whole Libyan people are Muammar Qaddafi,” Mr. Mahmoudi said. He said to NATO, “You are betting on a losing horse.”
Still, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Colonel Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam appeared to go further than he had in the past in pledging democratic reforms in what seemed to be an attempt to persuade NATO to stop the bombing. He said that Libya could hold national elections under international supervision within three months, and that Colonel Qaddafi would step aside if he lost.
“My father’s regime as it developed since 1969 is dead,” the younger Qaddafi said.
Western officials and the rebels have insisted that Colonel Qaddafi and his family leave Libya before talks on its future can begin. Democratic reform “is not yours to offer any more; you are a war criminal,” said Jalal el-Gallal, a spokesman for the rebels in Benghazi.
-------Two large blasts
After at least two large blasts not long before dawn on Thursday, government officials escorted foreign journalists to what they said was the site of the two blasts, the wreckage of a hotel adjacent to a government building. It had been closed for renovations after damage in an earlier bombing, and several people on the scene said that no one was injured.
-------NATO’s “brutality” and “stupidity” Speaking nearby, the deputy foreign minister, Khalid Kaim, said bombing the same civilian building twice reflected NATO’s “brutality” and “stupidity.”
Around 11:00 P.M. Thursday, jets were heard again in the sky over the capital, and about a half-dozen bombs exploded around the city. Security forces seemed not to be as prevalent in the capital as they had been in previous months, perhaps reflecting the impact of the NATO airstrikes or the widening front with the rebels. On the highways entering the city, checkpoints that a few weeks ago were heavily guarded by tanks, armored personnel carriers and well-equipped soldiers were staffed by only a few irregular guards.
And security within the city appeared much less conspicuous as well, with fewer checkpoints along the streets. One rebel sympathizer said the Qaddafi forces had switched to plain clothes to avoid guerrilla attacks by underground rebels operating in the city at night, although that could not be confirmed.
In the Nafusah Mountains in the west, where a few weeks ago desperate rebel fighters were struggling to survive and information was almost impossible to obtain from the outside, the rebels have consolidated their hold well enough to set up an official “Nefusa Mountain Media Group,” with its own Web site and multilingual spokesman.
Rebels in the mountains, Misurata and Benghazi said they had managed to smuggle in and distribute satellite telephones that have allowed them to improve their communication from disparate corners of the country, at the same time that NATO’s bombing raids have severely damaged the Qaddafi forces’ communication abilities. And rebel fighters are now equipped with high-frequency radios that allow better coordination in the field, the rebels say.
The “strategy is to stretch his resources and hopefully draw them from Tripoli,” said Mohamed, a rebel spokesman in Misurata whose full name was withheld for the protection of his family. The “link between Misurata and Benghazi is only five weeks ago, and it is only two weeks old in the mountains.”
The goal, said Mr. Gallal in Benghazi, is to “coordinate so we can strengthen the attacks and weaken him and bring this to a conclusion.” In a sign of their growing optimism, rebels in Misurata and Benghazi say they have even begun preparing teams to help secure vital facilities in Tripoli in anticipation of the Qaddafi government’s collapse.
At the moment, however, there is no evidence whatsoever of that on the streets of the capital, where green flags and Qaddafi posters are everywhere and residents still look nervously over their shoulders before speaking with a foreign journalist