From the east and west, working with NATO air strikes, resurgent rebels have battled Libyan government forces at flashpoints along the Mediterranean coast, rebel commanders reported. However, the government said their victory claims were “wishful reporting.”
Insurgents had reported fighting street by street to retake the Mediterranean port city of Zawiya, 30km west of Tripoli, a prize that would put them within striking distance of the capital and cut off one of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s last supply routes from Tunisia.
However, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said late on Sunday that Qaddafi forces had driven off the attackers, and reporters taken to Zawiya saw secure streets and the green national flag flying over a central square. The insurgents, for their part, said a high-ranking Qaddafi commander was badly wounded in the fighting.
“The wishful reporting of some journalists that the rebels are gaining more power and more control of some areas is not correct,” he said.
The rebel thrust at Zawiya and reported movements farther east — near Misrata and Brega — suggested the stalemated uprising had been reinvigorated, and that Qaddafi’s defenders could become stretched thin.
“Over the past three days, we set fire under the feet of Qaddafi forces everywhere,” said Colonel Hamid al-Hasi, a rebel battalion commander.
He said the rebels attacked “in very good coordination with NATO” to avoid friendly fire incidents.
“We don’t move unless we have very clear instructions from NATO,” he said.
In addition, the NATO blockade of ports still under government control and alliance control of Libyan airspace have severely crimped Qaddafi’s ability to resupply his forces. And his control has been hard hit by defections from his military and government inner circle.
NATO, meanwhile, has stepped up its bombing of Qaddafi’s compound in the center of Tripoli, striking it again on Sunday, along with a military airport in eastern Tripoli. The government did not immediately report casualties or damage.
The rebels’ Transitional National Council scored a political success, meanwhile, winning recognition from the United Arab Emirates, adding a wealthy, influential Arab state to the handful of nations thus far accepting the insurgents as Libyans’ sole legitimate representatives.
The rebels had first taken Zawiya, an important oil port, in early March, but were driven out by a government counterattack two weeks later.
In a surprising show of resilience, rebels regrouped and rearmed for their drive on Zawiya in an offensive that began on Saturday, an opposition spokesman based in London said. On Sunday, Kamal, a rebel fighter from Zawiya who would give only his first name, said about 30 of his fellow fighters had been killed and 20 wounded in the fighting.
Speaking with reporters by telephone, he said the city’s western Mutred and Harsha districts were under rebel control. However, later on Sunday, government officials took reporters from Tripoli to Zawiya to show that the city was under government control. Some rebel fighters were besieged just outside Zawiya, government spokesman Ibrahim said.
In the eastern Libyan rebel center of Benghazi, meanwhile, rebel military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Bani said that a Qaddafi commander, the high-ranking el-Khouwildy el-Ahmeidy, was critically wounded in a NATO air attack late on Saturday as he rushed to Zawiya. That report could not be confirmed.
Fighting also continued near the country’s main port of Misrata, a western redoubt of the rebels, who control about a third of eastern Libya from Benghazi.
From Dafniyah, just west of Misrata, rebel units were moving farther west toward the city of Zlitan, rebel Abdel-Qadir Fastouka said.
“This is to gain some territory and to try to put up barricades along the coast,” he said.
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