NATO chief says confident Gaddafi rule will collapse as government denies Gaddafi’s wife, daughter and top oil officer had left country

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that military and political pressure were weakening Muammar Gaddafi's hold on power in Libya and would eventually topple him.

"We have significantly degraded Gaddafi's war machine. And now we see results, the opposition has gained ground," Rasmussen told a news conference in the Slovak capital, Bratislava. "I am confident that combination of strong military pressure and increased political pressure and support for the opposition will eventually lead to the collapse of the regime."

Rasmussen delivered his message as Libya's government denied persistent rumors that Gaddafi's wife, daughter and top oil official had left the country. "Shokri Ghanem is in his position, at work. If he's out of the country, he'll be coming back," Khaled Kaim, Libya's deputy foreign minister and one of the main government spokesmen, told Reuters in Tripoli. "As for the family of the leader, they're still here in Libya. Where else would they be?"

Earlier, a Tunisian security source and a Libyan opposition source with links to the ruling circle said Gaddafi's wife Safia and daughter Aisha were staying on the Tunisian island of Djerba, near the border with Libya.

Libyan opposition officials, as well as official sources in Tunisia, have also told Reuters that Shokri Ghanem, a former prime minister who runs Libya's oil industry, had left Libya via Tunisia, though it was unclear where he had gone.

Rasmussen said he had no information that Gaddafi's wife, daughter and oil chief had fled.

Meanwhile, a NATO air strike targeted a neighborhood in the city of Misrato, the biggest opposition stronghold in the west of Libya, where pro-Gaddafi forces were firing mortars. "Gaddafi's forces bombarded the Kararim and Defniyah areas with mortars last night. There was one martyr. Twenty others were wounded," an opposition spokesman, called Belkasem, told Reuters by telephone. "NATO struck the Defniyah area last night ... The situation is calm today, thank God."