scorched earth and stalemate...,

DailyMail | Colonel Gaddafi's forces today blasted an oil terminal to smithereens as Libya's bloody civil war entered its blackest day.

Rebels retaliated by firing back with rockets as a fireball exploded from one of the oil tanks and the sky above the Es Sider terminal, in the east of the country, filled with hideous smoke.

A witness said one of the smoke plumes was the biggest he had seen in the conflict so far.

The fresh onslaught came as Gaddafi deployed tanks and snipers to 'shoot anything that moves'. Forces loyal to the Libyan dictator poured into the city of Zawiyah in a desperate bid to oust the hardcore band of protesters and army defectors who have taken control.

Witnesses said dead bodies were lying in the ruins of many buildings destroyed in air raids earlier in the week and there was no one in the streets of the centre of the city of 290,000.

'We can see the tanks. The tanks are everywhere,' one rebel fighter said by telephone.

Eye witnesses said that the city had been almost flattened after a 13-and-a-half hour barrage from rockets, tanks and war planes

The hellish scenes unfolded as senior officials in the U.S. spoke of their fears that the country had reached a painful stalemate.

Senior officials believe that Gaddafi has solidified his control over some cities but ant-government protesters have a strong enough hold on other regions to remain locked in the stand off.

As the standoff continues and hundreds of more lives continue to be lost, it has created a split in the U.S. government about whether to take military action.

The Obama intervention is still looking at options for intervention while the European Union is preparing to impose stricter sanctions on the Libya government, including an asset freeze.

'What we're looking at right now—and things can change on a dime in these kinds of fluid conflicts—is basically a stalemate in certain parts of Libya,' another U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal.

'Gaddafi has solidified his control of some areas while the rebels have the upper hand in other places.'