So far, the airstrikes have not been enough to give rebel fighters the upper hand over Gadhafi's superior troops, and Western officials are debating whether arming the rebels should be the next step.
Libya's opposition has said any extremists among their ranks would be few in number, and Gadhafi's own punishing campaigns crushed Islamic militants in the country years ago.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday that his country would neither arm the rebels nor send ground troops to Libya.
While acknowledging the importance of Islam in Libyan society, Ghoga insisted that "there is no place for an Islamic state in Libya."
"Will we accept an extremist government? Never," he said, dressed in a pinstriped blue suit with a pin of Libya's pre-Gadhafi flag on his lapel.
The rebels, backed by airstrikes, made incremental advances.
Sunday, rebels fired truck-mounted rocket launchers, then moved to avoid government counter-strikes, suggesting improving tactics and training.
The council, based in the rebels' de facto capital of Benghazi, was formed to represent the opposition in the eastern Libyan cities that shook off control of the central government in a series of popular uprisings last month.
Rebel forces — defected army units and armed civilians — have since seized much of Libya's eastern coast, but have been unable to push westward. Gadhafi's superior forces had been close to taking Benghazi before a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone and airstrikes began March 19.
Ghoga said the rebels were counting on numerous factors to push Gadhafi out: growing isolation, international military support, further defections among Gadhafi loyalists and improved organization of rebel troops.
The council rejects all negotiations with the Gadhafi regime, saying they don't trust it, making military pressure the current tactic of choice.
Ghoga said the working plan is for better organized rebel forces, supported by international airstrikes, to march on the cities of Sirte and Misrata, which lie on the coastal road to the capital, Tripoli.
Sirte, Gadhafi's tribal homeland, remains a well-armed bastion of support, and Gadhafi loyalists have besieged rebel fighters in Misrata's city center for weeks.
Medical officials said Saturday that shelling and sniper fire by government forces had killed 37 civilians in two days while incinerating the city's main stocks of flour and sugar.
Also Sunday, a Turkish ship carrying 250 wounded from Misrata was expected to dock in Benghazi, according to rebel officials.
The U.S. said it stopped flying strike missions in Libya as of Sunday, having passed the mission's military burden to NATO. NATO's on-scene commander can request American strikes, which Washington must approve.
The NATO flights include attack jets, AWACS surveillance aircraft, aerial refueling tankers, maritime patrol planes and other support aircraft.
Ghoga, 51, rose to prominence with the council's creation by acting as its official spokesman. Ghoga, whose father served as Libya's ambassador to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon, studied law in Libya before earning his degree at the University of Damascus in Syria.
In Libya, he was involved in two high-profile — and ultimately unsuccessful — human rights cases.
"There was no movement on it because the principal actor was the Gadhafi regime and Gadhafi himself," he said.
The other case involved five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting more than 400 Libyan children at a Benghazi hospital with HIV. Ghoga represented the children's families.
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