Western forces pounded Libya's air defences and patrolled its skies on Sunday, but their day-old intervention hit a diplomatic setback as the Arab League chief condemned the "bombardment of civilians".
As European and US forces unleashed warplanes and cruise missiles against Muammar Qadhafi's air defences and armour, the Libyan leader said the air strikes amounted to terrorism and vowed to fight to the death.
Later, however, an armed forces spokesman appeared at a live televised news conference at 9 pm (1900 GMT) to say the army was ordering all troops to cease fire immediately.
This statement drew no immediate response from western powers, who had blamed Qadhafi's government for breaking a unilateral cease-fire it announced last week.
The military intervention had forced Qadhafi's eastern forces to flee from the outskirts of Benghazi in the face of the allied air attacks.
However, tanks also moved into Misrata, the last rebel-held city in western Libya. Among the densely packed houses full of civilians, they were less vulnerable to attack from the air.
A Libyan government health official said 64 people had been killed in the Western bombardment overnight, but it was impossible to verify the report as government minders refused to take reporters in Tripoli to the sites of the bombings.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa called for an emergency meeting of the group of 22 states to discuss Libya. He requested a report into the bombardment, which he said had "led to the deaths and injuries of many Libyan civilians".
"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," Egypt's state news agency quoted Moussa as saying.
Arab backing for a no-fly zone provided crucial underpinning for the passage of a UN Security Council resolution last week that paved the way for Western action to stop Gaddafi killing civilians as he fights an uprising against his rule.
The intervention is the biggest against an Arab country since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Withdrawal of Arab support would make it much harder to pursue what some defence analysts say could in any case be a difficult, open-ended campaign with an uncertain outcome.
Britain and the United States rebuffed Moussa's comments.
A senior US official said a UN resolution endorsed by Arab states covered "all necessary measures" to protect civilians, "which we made very clear includes, but goes beyond, a no-fly zone".
Meanwhile, the African Union's panel on Libya called for an "immediate stop" to all attacks after the United States, France and Britain launched military action against Moamer Kadhafi's forces.
After a more than four-hour meeting in the Mauritanian capital, the body also asked Libyan authorities to ensure "humanitarian aid to those in need," as well as the "protection of foreigners, including African expatriates living in Libya."
It underscored the need for "necessary political reforms to eliminate the causes of the present crisis" but at the same time called for "restraint" from the international community to avoid "serious humanitarian consequences."
The panel also announced a meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on March 25, along with representatives from the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, the European Union and the United Nations to "put in place a mechanism for consultation and concerted action" to resolve the Libyan crisis.
The AU committee on Libya is composed of five African heads of state. But the Nouakchott meeting was only attended by the presidents of Mauritania, Mali and Congo. South Africa and Uganda were represented by ministers.
The committee said it had been unable to get international permission to visit Tripoli on Sunday but did not elaborate.
Iran warned Libyans on Sunday not to trust Western powers launching air strikes against Muammar Qadhafi's troops, saying their aim was to gain neo-colonial control over the oil-rich nation.
Tehran has voiced support for the uprising against the Libyan leader, part of what it considers an "Islamic awakening" in the Arab world.
But as a long-time foe of the United States which in recent years has invaded and stationed troops in two of its neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran expressed deep suspicion over Western military intervention in Libya.
"The records and the actions of the dominant countries in occupying oppressed countries means their intentions in such moves are always in doubt," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by students' news agency ISNA.
While Iran's position "is always to support the people and defend their legitimate demands", Mehmanparast warned Libyans against an eventual occupation by the Western countries which are claiming to protect them.
"These countries enter usually with seductive slogans of supporting the people but they follow their own interests in ruling the countries and continuing colonialism in a new form," he said.
Russia called for an end to "indiscriminate use of force" by foreign states taking part in military operations in Libya, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"We urge the relevant states to stop the indiscriminate use of force," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in the statement.
He said the air raids had included attacks on non-military targets in Libya, and had damaged roads, bridges, and a cardiology center.
"We proceed from the inadmissibility of using the Resolution 1973 mandate... for ends that clearly overstep its framework, which stipulates only measures to protect the civilian population," said the statement.
Aerial attacks on Tripoli, Tarhuna, Mamura and Jmail killed 48 and wounded over 150 civilians, the statement said.
On Sunday Russia said it is evacuating part of its embassy staff and other Russian citizens from Tripoli, taking them to Tunisia by car in the coming days.
Moscow on Saturday said it "regrets" the intervention in Libya which it said "was adopted in haste." Russian media also quoted a Kremlin source as saying that Russia's ambassador to Tripoli had been dismissed, without citing a reason. The decision was made several hours before the Security Council's vote.
A British foreign ministry spokesman said the safe enforcement of the no-fly zone required the targeting of Libya's air defence capabilities, but that all missions were carefully planned to avoid civilian casualties.
The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said the no-fly zone was effectively in place. But he told CBS the endgame of military action was "very uncertain" and acknowledged it could end in a stalemate with Gaddafi.
Mullen said he had seen no reports of civilian casualties from the Western strikes. But Russia said there had been such casualties and called on Britain, France and the United States to halt the "non-selective use of force".
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