NATO insisted Thursday it was not targeting Moammar Gadhafi or coordinating with Libyan rebels, after Britain's defense secretary said the alliance was helping to hunt down the elusive leader.

"No specific individual is a target as an individual, whether it's Gadhafi or anybody else," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told Agence France Presse when asked about British Defense Secretary Liam Fox's comments that the alliance was providing intelligence and reconnaissance assets in the search for Gadhafi.

A senior Syrian general who was assassinated in 2008 was most likely the victim of a power struggle between figures linked to Bashar al-Assad's regime, France told U.S. envoys at the time.

According to a U.S. diplomatic cable published online by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks, a senior adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy and an expert from the foreign ministry branded the killing a "mafia-like hit".

Four Italian journalists kidnapped in Libya on Wednesday by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, have been freed, the foreign ministry said in Rome.

"I'm alive and kicking," Domenico Quirico told his colleagues at La Stampa newspaper by phone, confirming he had been freed along with two reporters for Italy's top daily, Corriere della Sera and one for Avvenire, a Catholic paper.

Hardened fighters streamed Thursday into Tripoli as Libya's rebels sought to deliver a knockout punch to Moammar Gadhafi's diehards and, backed by NATO, to flush out the elusive strongman.

Hundreds of rebel fighters on Thursday launched an attack on a Tripoli hideout of forces and snipers loyal to Gadhafi, an AFP TV reporter said.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani is expected Thursday night in Tehran for talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an official told Agence France Presse, without providing further details.

It marks the first visit to Tehran by one of the leaders of Gulf monarchies following the political crisis in the tiny kingdom of Bahrain.

A ship chartered to evacuate foreigners from Tripoli docked at the Libyan capital this morning, the International Organization for Migration told Agence France Presse Thursday.

"We are optimistic the boat will be able to depart this afternoon for Benghazi," IOM spokeswoman Jemini Pandya said.

French and British operatives have been working with Libyan rebels on their eastern front, where the insurgents scored strategic blows against Moammar Gadhafi's forces, an Agence France Presse journalist discovered on Thursday.

The operatives are installed at the rebel command for the eastern front, at the dysfunctional oil refinery in Zuwaytina, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of the opposition capital Benghazi.

Eight Syrian soldiers, including an army officer, have been killed in separate attacks in the country's central province of Homs, the official SANA news agency reported Thursday.

"In an ambush Wednesday afternoon at (the town of) Talbisa, terrorists fired on a military bus killing one officer and two soldiers and wounding seven others," said a military official quoted by the agency.

Dick Cheney said he urged then-president George Bush in June 2007 to bomb a suspected nuclear reactor site in Syria, the former vice president wrote in his memoirs, the New York Times reported Thursday.

"I again made the case for U.S. military action against the reactor," Cheney wrote about a meeting on the issue according to the newspaper, which received an advance copy of the book.

Israel will keep hitting Islamic Jihad if it continues its "terrorist activities" against Israeli targets, a minister warned on Thursday after air strikes on Gaza killed two of its militants.

"We will continue to hit those who hit us. Islamic Jihad, which has an itchy trigger finger, is starting to pay the price," Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told army radio as a days-old truce appeared to be unraveling.