A gunman stays on guard in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (AFP)

Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Feb. 27 (Reuters): Rebels took over a key crossroads town and edged closer to the capital while supporters of embattled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide mounted defences today against a bloody rebellion that threatened to topple Haiti’s government.

The stage was set for a showdown between the ragtag band of former soldiers and gang members trying to unseat Aristide and the diminutive former priest and one-time populist hero of Haitian democracy backed by an ill-trained, 4,000-member police force and a horde of armed gang members from the slums.

A group of rebels called the “Assaillants” from Haiti’s Central Plateau took control of the town of Mirebalais overnight, freeing prisoners from the local jail, a former legislator and radio reports said.

Mirebalais is about 50 km northeast of Port-au-Prince and sits at a junction with access to the capital, the rebel stronghold in the north, the coastal town of Saint Marc and the border with the Dominican Republic, where rebel leaders lived in recent years.

Haitian national police dispatched officers to Les Cayes, Haiti’s third-largest city, to quell an uprising, a police official said. Les Cayes is southwest of the capital, an indication the rebellion in the north was spreading.

Guy Philippe, an ex-police chief accused of plotting coups who returned from exile in the Dominican Republic to lead the rebellion, said his men had surrounded Port-au-Prince and were awaiting orders to attack. Philippe has said he wants to celebrate his 36th birthday on Sunday in the capital.

Aristide, who has repeatedly said he will stay in office until his second term expires in 2006, was also under pressure from abroad. French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin told a Haitian government delegation in Paris that Aristide should quit.

The US, which restored Aristide to office with an invasion in 1994, openly questioned whether he should remain in power in the face of a revolt that has killed at least 65 people. Aristide has predicted a blood bath if the rebels enter the capital and pleaded for international soldiers to head off a coup. Rebels hold Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city, and Gonaives, the fourth largest.

“I would like to tell Guy Philippe and his band of criminals that Port-au-Prince is not Gonaives or Cap Haitien,” said Sony Joseph, an Aristide loyalist surrounded by men with shotguns, pistols and rifles near the National Palace.“They say they are coming. So we are waiting for them.”

Dozens of Aristide loyalists stood in the streets early on Friday around the palace, a stately white building surrounded by an iron fence. Shipping containers and debris used for barricades littered streets leading to the palace grounds.

Armed gangs loyal to the president were out in large numbers overnight, setting fire to roadblocks built of tires, charred car wreckage, old appliances and rocks. Masked men questioned motorists and shouted“Five Years,” a rallying cry referring to Aristide serving out his term as president.

Looters hit the main port on Friday, carrying away goods from shipping containers, while Aristide supporters stripped a warehouse belonging to businessman Smarck Michel, a former prime minister who turned against Aristide, witnesses said.

Across the capital, street markets were open but many shops were closed and the streets were quieter than usual.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that 15 people had died in the rebel assault on Cap Haitien last weekend Ä 10 had been previously reported Ä taking the death toll to at least 65 in clashes that began on Feb. 5 when a street gang overran the western city of Gonaives.

A negotiated end to the crisis in the country of 8 million seemed far away. This week Aristide's political foes rejected power-sharing and reiterated demands that the president leave the palace.

Caribbean Community nations asked the United Nations to send an international force to restore order in Haiti, which has a long history of coups and dictatorships. The U.. Security Council said it was ready to order a peacekeeping force on condition Haiti's government and opposition leaders reach a power-sharing accord.

Foreigners and Haitians have been fleeing the country for days, but the number of ways out were shrinking. American Airlines has suspended its five daily U.S. flights to Haiti. (Additional reporting by Laurent Hamida in Cap Haitien and Amy Bracken and Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince)