Libyan TV has broadcast what it says is a brief live address by ruler Muammar Gaddafi before supporters at his encampment near Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
Gaddafi was shown standing on a balcony before a crowd of supporters. It is his first public appearance in a week.
http://media.smh.com.au/gaddafi-i-am-not-afraid-of-the-planes-2247153.html
Denouncing the coalition bombing attacks on his forces, he told them: "In the short term, we'll beat them, in the long term, we'll beat them."
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Public appearance ... Muammar Gaddafi addresses his supporters.
Public appearance ... Muammar Gaddafi addresses his supporters. Photo: AP
State TV said Gaddafi was speaking from his Bab Al-Aziziya residential compound, the same one hit by a cruise missile on Sunday night.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News that Gaddafi's associates had been reaching out to their contacts worldwide to see how they can "get out of this".
"We've heard about ... people close to him reaching out to people that they know around the world - Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North America, beyond - saying what do we do? How do we get out of this? What happens next?" Mrs Clinton said.
Malfunction ... Libyans inspect the wreckage of the US fighter jet.
Malfunction ... Libyans inspect the wreckage of the US fighter jet. Photo: AP
"I'm not aware that he [Gaddafi] personally has reached out, but I do know that people allegedly on his behalf have been reaching out," Mrs Clinton said.
"Some of it is theatre. Some of it is, you know, kind of, shall we say game playing, to try to do one message to one group, another message to somebody else," she said.
"A lot of it is just the way he behaves. It's somewhat unpredictable. But some of it, we think, is exploring. You know, what are my options, where could I go, what could I do. And we would encourage that," she said.
US fighter jet crashes
Mrs Clinton's interview followed an incident during which US troops reportedly opened fire on villagers in an operation to rescue two jet fighter crew members after their plane crashed in eastern Libya. This was flatly denied by the US.
Britain's Channel 4 News reported that at least six villagers were injured when US Marines came in with "all guns blazing" to extract the crew members.
London's Telegraph website also reported six "were believed to have been shot by a US helicopter during his rescue".
The Telegraph said one of the downed crew members was rescued by troops on an Osprey "transformer" aircraft, which can turn from a plane into a helicopter.
United States Africa Command confirmed the US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet crashed and that two crew members were rescued.
But a US spokesman "100 per cent" denied any civilians were injured by US weapons fire in the rescue operation.
Reporter Lindsey Hilsum, at the crash, said the US helicopter came in and opened fire on Monday night, local time, as villagers were handing over one of the downed pilots to local rebel forces.
A man described as a military policeman, Omar Sayd, told the reporter: "We are disturbed about the shooting because if they had given us a chance we would have handed over both pilots."
In Benghazi, Hilsum interviewed one of the injured villagers, who was in a hospital bed. Local people had reportedly been giving a "party" for the crew when they were fired on.
The Telegraph reporter who discovered the plane, Rob Crilly, wrote that the helicopter "strafed the ground to keep the locals at bay" during the rescue.
Locals said they queued up to thank the airman, who had parachuted into a field of sheep, for his role in enforcing the no-fly zone and gave him juice to drink, Crilly reported.
Their F-15E Strike Eagle jet was on a mission on Monday night when it crashed outside Benghazi due to mechanical failure, not hostile fire, US spokesman Vince Crawley said.
Channel 4 News said a pilot and a weapons officer were on the jet. Both ejected safely, but suffered minor injuries.
The pilot was rescued by the US helicopter soon after crash landing and opposition rebels recovered the weapons officer, taking "took good care of him" before coalition forces picked him up some time later.
Details of the incident remain sketchy. The crash is the first known setback for the international coalition during three days of strikes authorised by the United Nations Security Council.
Battles flare as doubts persist
Fighting raged between forces loyal to Gaddafi and insurgents in several towns on Tuesday despite a UN-mandated no-fly zone aimed at stopping the violence.
Meanwhile, as a senior US officer said Gaddafi forces were still attacking civilians, doubts persisted over the best way to continue the campaign to stop Gaddafi, and where it was leading.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said future actions of the coalition, which began air strikes on Saturday on Gaddafi military installations, depend in part of the embattled Libyan leader.
"The military operations could stop at any moment. All it would take is for the Tripoli regime to adhere precisely and completely with UN Security Council resolutions, and to accept a genuine ceasefire," he said.
He called on Gaddafi to withdraw troops engaged in military advances and send them "back to their barracks".
Libyan anti-aircraft fire opened up over the capital after nightfall on Tuesday, amid the sound of far-off explosions, AFP journalists reported.
Residents of Yafran, 130 kilometres south-west of Tripoli, said at least nine people had been killed in clashes between the two sides.
Rebels also said they were under intense attack in their enclave of Misrata, east of Tripoli, which has been besieged by Kadhafi's forces for weeks, with four children killed Tuesday.
But rebels said they had managed to fight off loyalists and retake the outskirts of the western town of Zintan.
After a third night of strikes on Gaddafi's strongholds and defence structure, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said "significant military fighting that has been going on should recede in the next few days".
Destroying radar and missiles under Gaddafi's control would pave the way for a no-fly zone that could be patrolled by combat aircraft, with the United States assuming a supporting role, Gates said in Moscow.
In Misrata, a rebel spokesman reached by telephone said insurgents remained in control despite an onslaught by Gaddafi loyalists who had opened fire with tanks and set snipers on roofs to gun down people in the streets.
A stand-off persisted in eastern Libya, where Gaddafi forces in and around Ajdabiya, south of the insurgents' capital of Benghazi, easily repulsed attempts by the disorganised and ill-armed rebels to advance.
Coalition forces, led by the United States, France and Britain and including some other European states and Arab country Qatar, are acting under UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorising "all necessary means" to protect civilians.
There is co-ordination but no unified command, and moves to hand over control of the operation to NATO are dividing the alliance.
US President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed that NATO should play a key role in the command structure of the Libyan mission, the White House said.
"They reviewed the substantial progress that's been made in terms of halting the advance of Gaddafi's forces on Benghazi as well as the establishment of a no-fly zone," spokesman Ben Rhodes said.
NATO ambassadors resumed talks on Tuesday after "very difficult" discussions on Monday that failed to overcome their divisions.
But a diplomat said they had agreed to use the organisation's naval power to enforce an arms embargo on Libya ordered under UN Resolution 1973.
Juppe called for the creation of a special committee of foreign ministers from coalition countries to oversee operations, which he said should meet in the coming days "to show clearly that political oversight is there".
France also has doubts about the impact on Arab countries of NATO taking control - though the Arab League has backed the no-fly zone - while Germany refused to vote for Resolution 1973.
Belgian and Spanish warplanes began patrolling Libyan skies on Monday, British Typhoon fighters and Canadian jets launched their first missions from Italian bases, and a Greek source said France's aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle should join in from waters off Crete, probably by Wednesday.
Italian pilots said they had helped suppress air defences, despite Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose country has close ties with former colony Libya, saying Italian planes "are not firing and will not fire".
Russia and the United States clashed over Western bombing raids, with the US defence chief saying Moscow had accepted Gaddafi's "lies" about civilian casualties.
In talks with Mr Gates, Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev voiced dismay over what he called the "indiscriminate use of force".
Mr Gates rejected Moscow's criticism, even as he predicted that the bombing would be scaled back within days.
Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said the Western-led air strikes were disproportionate, amid US and British efforts to bring more Arab states on board.
A spokesman for the British Prime Minister said London was talking to Arab nations in a bid to "develop" the coalition.
And the White House said Mr Obama and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to seek a "broad-based international effort, including Arab states".
Oil prices rose after dipping on profit-taking earlier in the day.
Brent North Sea crude for delivery in May rose 49 cents to $115.45 a barrel in late London trade, while New York's main contract, light sweet crude for April jumped $1.42 to $103.75.
And the US imposed sanctions on 14 firms controlled by Libya's National Oil Corp, tightening a financial noose on a key source of funds for the Gaddafi regime.
Meanwhile, it emerged that three Western journalists who went missing in eastern Libya last week, including two from Agence France-Presse, were arrested by Gaddafi's forces on Saturday.
AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog wrote to Gaddafi on Tuesday, asking that he free AFP's Dave Clark and Roberto Schmidt, and Joe Raedle from the Getty agency.
"I have the honour to ask you to restore their liberty, in the name of that same freedom of expression and information that you refer to so often," Hoog wrote.
Reporter Clark and photographer Schmidt, and Raedle, had not been heard from since Friday evening.
Their driver Mohammed Hamed said they ran into a Libyan convoy near Ajdabiya. They turned around, but were caught after a chase by soldiers who shot out their tyres.
Four soldiers ordered the journalists out of their vehicle at gunpoint before putting them into a military vehicle and driving them away.
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