http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=24496
Gaddafi forces advance towards Libyan rebel capital
14/03/2011
Doctors working at a local hospital join other protestors in calling for
a no fly zone over Libya during a rally at a square by the sea side in the
eastern Libyan town of Benghazi. (AFP)
Forces loyal to Mummer Gaddafi celebrated after retaking the eastern
Libyan town of Bin Jawad from rebel forces fighting to topple the regime. (AFP)
A combination photo shows murals adulating Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi
on the sides of apartment buildings in Tripoli. (R)
BREGA, Libya (AFP) - Libyan rebels retreated from another key town under heavy
shelling from government forces as Mummer Gaddafi loyalists swept closer
towards the main opposition-held city of Benghazi.
But following the fall of Brega, the commander of the vastly outgunned rebels,
Gaddafi's former interior minister, vowed to defend the next town in the path
of Gaddafi's forces, Ajdabiya.
A lightning counter-offensive over the past week has pushed the rebels out of
Mediterranean coastal towns, allowing the regime to wrest back the momentum
against the month-long uprising against Gaddafi's four-decade grip on power.
Gaddafi's forces are "marching to cleanse the country" of insurgents, Libyan
army spokesman Colonel Milad Hussein told reporters in Tripoli.
"Our raids are forcing the terrorists to flee. We have liberated Zawiyah,
Uqayla, Ras Lanuf and Brega, and the army is advancing to liberate the rest of
the regions."
France said it would speed up its push for a no-fly zone to ground Gaddafi's
warplanes, something the rebels on the ground have been calling for.
Dozens of rebels fled east out of Brega towards Ajdabiya, the last rebel-held
town before Benghazi which the Libyan opposition has made its de facto capital
just 100 miles (170 kilometres) away.
Libyan state television declared Brega "purged of the armed gangs."
It also reported that Gaddafi had met the ambassadors of China, India and
Russia to discuss the possibility of handing them control of the country's oil
exports.
China and Russia, both permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council, have expressed scepticism about the need for a no-fly zone in Libya.
India, a temporary Security Council member, has come out against the idea.
National Oil Corp had called its employees to return to work and called on
foreign companies to send in their tankers, state television reported.
Oil giant Total said on Friday that the unrest had slashed Libya's output by
1.4 million barrels a day to under 300,000. Libya's largest market is Europe.
General Abdel Fatah Yunis, who resigned as Gaddafi's interior minister soon
after the rebellion began in mid-February, vowed to defend Ajdabiya.
"Ajdabiya is a vital city," he told reporters in Benghazi.
"It's on the route to the east, to Benghazi and to Tobruk and also to the
south. Ajdabiya's defence is very important... We will defend it."
>From Ajdabiya there is a straight desert road to the oil port of Tobruk, which
>to date has given rebels full control over the east up to the Egyptian border.
It is a vital transit route for supplies from abroad.
The rebel withdrawal of a few kilometres was tactical given the semi-desert
terrain, Yunis argued: for if Gaddafi's army pursued them, they would be
over-stretched.
"We feel he (Gaddafi) will have serious logistical problems and serious
difficulties for supplying his troops, because they're getting extended all the
time."
But among the rebel forces only the defectors from Gaddafi's army have military
experience: they have few heavy weapons and are vulnerable to air attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had shipped seven
truckloads of food and medicine to Benghazi, where the streets were largely
deserted Sunday around the rebels' headquarters in the courthouse.
"The euphoria is over. We are frightened of what's coming, frightened of
getting blown up," said retired civil servant Mohammed Gepsi.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned that rebels were being denied medical help
in government-held areas and called for access to treatment for the wounded.
"In several conflict zones, such as Zawiyah and Misrata, large numbers of
people are cut off from any external assistance, while critical medical needs
and shortages of medicine and materials are reported," it said.
Zawiyah, just west of the capital, fell to Gaddafi's forces on Friday after
bitter fighting.
In Misrata, a city east of Tripoli which continues to hold out against attacks
that last week killed at least 21 people, residents reported renewed firing on
Sunday.
The US-based Human Rights Watch said Libyan security forces had unleashed a
wave of arbitrary arrests in Tripoli, "brutally suppressing all opposition."
Senior al-Qaeda militant Abu Yahya al-Libi, himself a Libyan, warned of the
heavy price of a rebel defeat in a videotape posted on jihadist websites on
Sunday.
Libyan insurgents "must carry on with their revolution, without hesitation or
fear, in order to push Gaddafi into the abyss," said Libi, considered one of
Al-Qaeda's top ideologues.
Gaddafi has repeatedly charged that Al-Qaeda was behind the uprising.
Rebel morale was boosted by an Arab League decision on Saturday to support a
no-fly zone over Libya and to make contact with the insurgents' national
council in Benghazi.
The White House welcomed the Arab League decision, but stopped short of giving
full support for the no-fly zone, which Britain and France have been backing.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due in Paris Monday to meet her G8
counterparts and hold talks with Mahmud Jibril, a top member of the national
council, representing Libya's opposition movement.
Clinton has said a plan for a no-fly zone would be presented to NATO on Tuesday.
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