Tripoli, Libya ? Pressing to break a two-month siege, rebels in the port city of Misrata said they had captured the local airport and pushed Moammar Gadhafi’s forces ever further from the city’s western outskirts.

The reported advances were the latest in a recent flurry of accounts of rebel victories, coinciding with intensified NATO airstrikes on Gadhafi’s forces in several areas of Libya. In all, NATO said Wednesday, the alliance has carried out more than 2,400 airstrikes since March 31 as part of the effort to assist the rebels and pressure Gadhafi to end his 42-year authoritarian rule.

At least four air strikes appeared to target central Tripoli overnight. Their crashing sound was clearly audible from the hotel where foreign journalists are staying in the Libyan capital.

Wailing ambulances were heard minutes after the last missile exploded, along with the thundering sound of military aircraft.

Government officials and state-run Libyan television said the NATO strikes early Thursday targeted Bab al-Azaziya, Gadhafi’s sprawling compound in Tripoli. They did not say which of the compound’s buildings were targeted.

At the nearby Khadra Hospital, medics wheeled in two men they said were killed in the shelling. One of the men was completely blackened and charred, his hands pausing mid-chest as if trying to defend himself when he died. The other man’s body covered by a green blanket, his lifeless leg dangling from the stretcher.

From the bus ferrying reporters to the hospital, smoke could be seen pluming from part of the Gadhafi compound. Skid marks left from screeching vehicles crisscrossed the roads around it.

The medics said others had been killed by the airstrikes and were still being retrieved from the compound.

NATO strikes earlier this week hit an intelligence building and another structure used by parliamentarians.

The strikes came hours after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi made his first TV appearance since an April 30 NATO attack on his sprawling compound killed one of his sons. The brief TV appearance seemed designed to squelch the rumors that he had been hit by the bombing.

Libyan TV showed Gadhafi meeting tribal leaders, but did not record him speaking. To authenticate the scene, the camera zoomed in on the date on a TV monitor in the room, and it read Wednesday, May 11. It was apparently recorded at the hotel where foreign correspondents must reside in Tripoli. Gadhafi did not make himself available to them.

The last time Gadhafi had been seen in public was April 9, when he visited a school in Tripoli.

According to the Libyan state news agency, JANA, one of the NATO strikes hit the North Korean Embassy in the capital, Tripoli. JANA said the mission was badly damaged by fragments of a NATO missile fired Monday.

Even though some of the recent reports of ground combat are difficult to confirm, they seem to represent a major boost for the rebels’ military prospects after weeks of stalemate on several fronts.

According to a rebel who identified himself as Abdel Salam, rebels were in total control of the airport in Misrata’s southern outskirts after two days of fighting. He said five rebels were killed and 105 injured.

He said rebels are also pushing west from Misrata, toward the nearby city of Zlitan, hoping to then advance farther toward Tripoli.

“This is a major victory,” Abdel Salam said. “The Gadhafi forces have been suffering lack of supplies … Their morale was very low after being defeated several times and pushed back.”

The rebels control most of eastern Libya, but Misrata — about 125 miles southeast of Tripoli — is the only rebel stronghold in the west. Local doctors say more than 1,000 of its residents have been killed in the fighting and shelling during the siege by Gadhafi’s forces.

In Tripoli, a government spokesman denied the Misrata rebels’ claims of success.

“This is nonsense,” said Moussa Ibrahim. “We control the airport and we also control the sea port.”