Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi launched a counterattack yesterday against rebel advance positions 50km southwest of Tripoli, a correspondent reported.
Loyalist forces fired half a dozen Grad rockets into the hamlet of Gualish.
The rebels replied with anti-tank fire as they sought to maintain their grip on Gualish, a key gateway on the road to Tripoli that they seized on Wednesday.
Just hours before the government attack, NATO warplanes bombed positions in the area, the correspondent said. A colonel in the rebel forces said the raid struck near Asablah, 17km from Gualish.
In its daily update, the Western military alliance said its planes carried out 48 strike sorties on Saturday, with the focus on Misrata.
However, some fighters are impatient with NATO and its air campaign against Qaddafi’s armor.
“They have been very slow for the past few days,” one said. “I hope that they will concentrate on this region. The [Muslim fasting] month of Ramadan is coming [in August], and it’s going to be more difficult to fight without eating.”
Meanwhile, rebel troops advancing into the loyalist stronghold of Zliten said yesterday they lost one fighter and had 32 wounded by landmines laid by Qaddafi’s retreating troops.
Insurgents pressing out westward from the long-besieged city of Misrata said the ordnance was laid by Qaddafi loyalists falling back from their positions around Zliten.
Zliten, once considered a bastion of Qaddafi forces, is a key link on the road from rebel-held Misrata to Tripoli.
Libyan rebels said they were preparing on Saturday to push forward in their drive on Tripoli from both the south and west in a bid to isolate Qaddafi in his capital.
However, the embattled leader remained defiant, telling supporters on Friday that “the regime in Libya will not fall.”
Qaddafi defiantly said in a -radio address to supporters in the southern desert town of Sabha — a loyalist stronghold — that “the regime … is based on the people, not on Qaddafi. NATO is wrong if it thinks it can topple the regime of this country. Our only choice is resistance — we are on home ground and are not afraid of your war machine,” he said, addressing NATO directly.
After heavy fighting, rebel fighters captured the desert hamlet of Gualish on Wednesday, taking them closer to the strategic garrison town Gharyan and the last major objective standing between them and Tripoli to the north.
For now, they have set their sights on Asablah, on the road to Gharyan, 80km from Tripoli.
A second target in a three-pronged strategy is the coastal city of Zawiyah, one of the last major loyalist strongholds west of Tripoli.
From a base in Misrata, 215km east of the capital, the rebels reported on Friday battling to within 2km of the center of Zliten town with the loss of five dead and 17 wounded.
“When we take Zliten, enforced with Misrata, it gives us a clear path” to Tripoli, rebel spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said.
Meanwhile, Australia vowed yesterday to keep up humanitarian aid to Libya, as a senior official from Canberra visited the country for the first time since the revolt against Qaddafi erupted in mid-February.
Australian Deputy Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Paul Grigson met members of the rebel National Transitional Council (TNC) for talks, underscoring Canberra’s role in providing aid and its recognition of Libya’s rebel council.
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd last month recognized the council as “the legitimate interlocutor” of the Libyan people during a visit to Abu Dhabi.
“Australia ... has been a very significant supporter, in a humanitarian sense, of the Libyan people to this point,” said Grigson, pledging to carry that on in the future.
“Australia is focusing on the health sector. We are the third-largest donor on the humanitarian side after the US and the EU,” he said. “It strikes us that food security and health are the key issues at present and as schools go back [in September] assistance in the education sector.”
Libya’s health sector has been hobbled by fighting, a lack of cash to pay for medicines and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers who were essential to providing basic services.
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