Washington:
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Thursday that she would meet with Libyan rebel leaders in the United States and during travels next week to France, Tunisia and Egypt.
Mrs Clinton did not identify the Libyan rebel leaders she intended to meet.
American officials have reached out to members of the rebel's provisional council in eastern Libya, directly and through intermediaries, but Mrs. Clinton's meetings will be the administration's highest-level contacts with those who hope to replace Colonel Gaddafi's government.
"We are standing with the Libyan people as they brave bombs and bullets to demand that Gaddafi must go - now, " Mrs. Clinton said in remarks to a House panel.
She spoke hours after France became the first country to recognize the Libyan opposition, calling itself the Libyan National Council, even as forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi pounded rebellious forces in Zawiyah and Ras Lunaf, cities the rebels seized after the uprising began.
On Thursday, President Nicholas Sarkozy met with two representatives of the new provisional council, Mahmoud Jibril and Ali al-Esawi.
Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight nations are meeting in Paris on Monday and Tuesday. Mrs. Clinton said that while she is in Tunisia and Egypt, she would press for democratic changes there. It will be her first trip to the Middle East since a wave of popular uprisings began reshaping the Arab world, complicating American diplomacy. The United States once counted on the stability of autocratic rulers to maintain regional security, though their continued rule often came at the expense of democratic and economic development.