Loyalist forces overran the Libyan oil town of Ras Lanuf yesterday, scattering outgunned rebels as world powers debated arming the rag-tag band of fighters seeking to oust Muammur Qaddafi.
Reporters quoting rebel fighters said Qaddafi’s troops swept through Ras Lanuf, strategic for its oil refinery, blazing away with tanks and heavy artillery fire soon after dawn.
Panicked rebels fled in their hundreds through Uqayla, 20km east of Ras Lanuf, calling for coalition air strikes on Qaddafi’s forces, before driving further away from the front lines through the oil town of Brega and on toward the main city of Ajdabiya, 120km away.
“We want two things — that the planes drop bombs on Qaddafi’s tanks and heavy artillery, and that they [the coalition forces] give us weapons so we can fight,” rebel fighter Yunes Abdelghaim said.
The 27-year-old, who was holding a Russian AK-47 assault rifle and a French flag, said it seemed as if the coalition had halted its air strikes for two days coinciding with a London conference on the Libyan crisis.
On Tuesday, the rebels came within 100km of Sirte, the strongman’s hometown, before encountering fierce resistance.
Under barrages of artillery fire, rebel fighters stampeded down the coastal road in clouds of dust, many fleeing aboard pickup trucks.
They huddled down in Ras Lanuf overnight, but soon after dawn Qaddafi’s forces launched their onslaught.
British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday refused to rule out arming the rebels after French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said at the London conference the previous day that France is prepared to hold discussions on the issue.
Asked in parliament what Britain’s policy was on arming the rebels, given the existence of a UN arms embargo on Libya, Cameron replied: “We do not rule it out, but we have not taken the decision to do so.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow believed that foreign powers did not have the right to arm the rebels under the mandate approved by the UN Security Council.
Belgium, too, voiced its opposition, warning that the move could alienate Arab nations.
Belgian Foreign Minister Steven Vanackere, whose country has deployed fighter jets as part of a NATO-led campaign to protect Libyan civilians, said providing weapons to the insurgents would be “a step too far.”
In Beijing, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that air strikes on Libya could violate the “original intention” of the UN resolution authorizing them if civilians suffer.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that although UN sanctions prohibit the delivery of arms to Libya, the ban no longer applies.
“It is our interpretation that [UN resolution] 1973 amended or overrode the absolute prohibition on arms to anyone in Libya, so that there could be a legitimate transfer of arms if a country should choose to do that,” Clinton said.
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