Mon, Apr 18, 2011 page1

• Qaddafi’s men blast rebels in outskirts of Ajdabiyah

  • Reuters, AJDABIYAH, LIBYA
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  Rebels came under fire on the outskirts of Ajdabiyah yesterday, hemming them in to their eastern outpost and denting their hopes of pushing west to try to end a stalemate in the Libyan conflict.

  One witness said he saw about a dozen rockets land around the western entrance to town, which rebels wanted to use as a staging post to retake the oil port of Brega. Many fled the attack as loud explosions boomed across the town.

  “There are still some guys out there at the western gate, but the situation isn’t very good,” said Wassim el-Agouri, a 25-year-old rebel volunteer waiting at Ajdabiyah’s eastern gate.

  Rebels on Saturday made it into the outskirts of Brega, 80km to the west, but many fled back to Adjabiyah after six were killed by rockets fired by Gaddafi loyalists on the exposed coastal road joining the two towns.

  Yesterday marked a month since the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing force to protect civilians in Libya, leading to an international air campaign.

  However, despite NATO air strikes against Qaddafi’s forces, rebels have been unable to make or hold their gains in weeks of back-and-forth fighting over the coastal towns in eastern Libya.

  In western Libya, the rebel-held city of Misrata has been besieged for seven weeks, raising international concern about a growing humanitarian crisis. Hundreds of civilians are believed to have died in fighting and bombing in the city.

  A rebel spokesman said that Qaddafi’s forces shelled Misrata again yesterday, killing at least six people. Abdel Basset Mezerik said at least 47 people were also wounded.

  The US, France and Britain said last week they would not stop bombing Qaddafi’s forces until he left power.

  With NATO troops bogged down in Afghanistan, Western countries have, however, ruled out sending ground troops — a position reinforced by British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday.

  “What we’ve said is there is no question of invasion or an occupation — this is not about Britain putting boots on the ground,” Cameron said in an interview.

  However, he said outside powers would help in every other way to stop Qaddafi “unleashing this hell on people in Misrata” and other towns up and down the Libyan coast, including providing “non--lethal equipment” to the rebels.

  The rebels have called repeatedly for heavier arms, saying their machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades are not powerful enough to face the government forces.

  “We want weapons, modern weapons,” rebel Ayman Aswey, 21 said. “If we had those, we could advance against them.”

  With the sound of explosions and machine gun fire echoing across Ajdabiyah from its western gate, scores of rebels and civilian cars carrying men, women and children streamed east from the city toward the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

  A sandstorm whipped up during the morning, obscuring the view across the flat expanse of desert. Some rebels said they were laying anti-tank mines near Ajdabiyah’s eastern gate.

  Days of sporadic clashes on the road west to the oil town of Brega have failed to break a deadlock in the fighting.

  Rebel officials said on Saturday that their most experienced soldiers were clashing with Qaddafi’s forces on the edge of Brega, but it was not possible to verify that.

  The front line is hard to locate because of the hit-and-run style of fighting, long-distance shelling and the growing tendency of Qaddafi’s followers to launch outflanking maneuvers and ambush less experienced rebel fighters on the coastal road.
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