NATO warned on Tuesday that its warplanes will bomb former civilian facilities if Moamer Kadhafi's forces use them to launch attacks, as the UN said Libya's capital is suffering shortages of fuel, medicine and cash.

The alliance warned it would target facilities including factories, warehouses and agricultural sites being used by loyalist troops.

The warning came a day after foreign reporters were taken to Zliten, east of Tripoli, by government minders and shown what they were told was the remains of a clinic hit by a NATO bomb that killed seven people.

Alliance military spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie said in Brussels that in recent days NATO had hit a concrete factory near Brega where regime forces were hiding and firing multi-barrel rocket launchers.

"Pro-Kadhafi forces are increasingly occupying facilities which once held a civilian purpose," Lavoie told reporters in a video conference from the operation's headquarters in Naples, Italy.

"By occupying and using these facilities the regime has transformed them into military installations from which it commands and conducts attacks, causing them to lose their formerly protected status and rendering them valid and necessary military objectives for NATO," Lavoie said.

Earlier, NATO said it had "no evidence" that civilian facilities were hit in air raids near Zliten on Monday.

NATO's daily operational update said it had also hit a military facility, armoured vehicles, tanks and light military vehicles around Brega on Monday.

It also hit a command centre, anti-aircraft weapons, multiple rocket launchers and a military vehicle in the Tripoli area and armoured fighting vehicles near Garyan.

The United States' top military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, spoke on Monday of "stalemate" in NATO's Libya campaign, but still voiced optimism that Kadhafi would go.

"We are, generally, in a stalemate," the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said in Washington, but added that NATO attacks had "dramatically attrited (reduced) his forces."

"In the long run, I think it's a strategy that will work ... (toward) removal of Kadhafi from power," Mullen said.

Baghdadi Mahmudi, the Libyan premier, reiterated on Tuesday that Kadhafi's departure is "not up for discussion," after meeting UN special envoy to Libya Abdul Ilah al-Khatib.

"The departure from power of Colonel Kadhafi is not up for discussion," he told a news conference after British Foreign Secretary William Hague demanded on Monday that Kadhafi step down but said he might be allowed to stay in the country.

"With all due respect to the British foreign minister, it is not up to him to take decisions on behalf of the Libyan people."

Hague had previously indicated he wanted the strongman to leave Libya, but a diplomatic source in London denied that Britain had changed its strategy on Libya.

Speaking before meeting French counterpart Alain Juppe, Hague said Britain would prefer for Kadhafi to leave Libya and stressed that London and Paris were "absolutely united" in NATO's current mission against Kadhafi.

"What is absolutely clear, as Alain (Juppe) has said, is that whatever happens, Kadhafi must leave power."

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Libya Laurence Hart, in a statement issued late on Monday, said the week-long fact-finding UN mission to Libya had identified several problems besetting Kadhafi's regime, which has been battling rebels for the past five months.

"Although the mission observed aspects of normalcy in Tripoli, members identified pockets of vulnerability where people need urgent humanitarian assistance," Hart's statement said.

The health sector is under strain, having lost thousands of foreign workers at the beginning of the conflict, it said.

"Medical supplies, including vaccines, are rapidly running low, and the mission received reports of heavy psychosocial impact of the conflict, mainly on children and women," it added.

"Although basic food items are available in the markets, prices are rising and there are concerns over the sustainability of supplies into the city especially as the (Muslim) holy month of Ramadan approaches," it added.

The UN fact finders also visited Khoms and Zliten, east of Tripoli and close to the frontline, as well as Garyan south of the capital, where they found "a significant" influx of internally displaced people.

"Fuel shortages have become a pressing problem, and the UN team observed long queues at gas stations, some of which had closed down," the statement said.

"Reduced availability of cash is also a serious concern because many Libyans withdrew their savings from banks at the beginning of the crisis. Banks are restricting cash withdrawals for individual account holders."

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