TRIPOLI, Libya - Muammar Gadhafi's forces attacked two west Libyan towns, killing dozens, while rebels were pinned down in the east and NATO tried to resolve a dispute over who should lead the Western air campaign.

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In the latest fighting on Tuesday, Gadhafi's tanks shelled the rebel-held western town of Misrata, and casualties included three children killed when their car was hit, residents said, adding the death toll for Monday alone had reached 40.

Residents painted a grim picture of the situation in Misrata, under siege by Gadhafi loyalists for weeks, with tanks in the city center and doctors operating on people with bullet and shrapnel wounds in hospital corridors.

"The situation here is very bad. Tanks started shelling the town this morning," a resident called Mohammed said by telephone from outside the city's hospital, adding: "Snipers are taking part in the operation too. A civilian car was destroyed killing three children on board, the oldest is aged 13 years."

In the first Western air force loss of the campaign, a US F-15E crashed in Libya overnight and its two crew members were rescued, the US military said. The crash was likely to have been caused by mechanical failure and not hostile fire, it said.

Explosions and anti-aircraft fire have reverberated across Tripoli for the past three nights and state television reported several attacks by the "crusader enemy". Twenty Tomahawk missiles were fired at Libyan targets overnight, the US military said.

A Reuters correspondent taken to a naval facility in east Tripoli by Libyan officials saw four Soviet-made missile carrier trucks which were destroyed. They were parked inside a building whose roof had collapsed, leaving piles of smouldering rubble.

"Yesterday six missiles and one bomb from a warplane hit this facility," said Captain Fathi al-Rabti, an officer at the facility. "It was a massive explosion."

Gadhafi's forces were trying to seize the western rebel-held town of Zintan near the Tunisian border in an attack using heavy weapons. One resident said 10 people were killed on Tuesday. People fled to seek shelter in mountain caves.

Security analysts say it is unclear what will happen if the Libyan leader digs in, especially since Western powers have made it clear they would be unwilling to see Libya partitioned between a rebel-held east and Gadhafi-controlled west.

Journalists Freed

Gadhafi has ordered the release of three journalists missing in Libya, including two working with Agence France-Presse and a Getty Images photographer, Getty said on Tuesday.

"We at Getty Images are delighted to learn that Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has ordered the release of our staff photographer, Joe Raedle, along with Roberto Schmidt, staff photographer with Agence France Presse and David Clark, a reporter with Agence France Presse," the agency said in a statement.

"We are grateful to those involved that helped to secure the group's release and we will continue to support the work our photojournalists undertake to document news events," Getty added.

AFP said on Sunday that Clark, a reporter based at the agence's Paris headquarters, and Schmidt, a photographer in its Nairobi bureau, had not been heard from in Libya since they sent an e-mail to senior editors on Friday evening local time.

Raedle had also not been heard from since Friday night, AFP said.

Libya released four New York Times journalists on Monday, nearly a week after they had been captured by Libyan forces while covering the conflict there.

Reuters