Forces loyal to Libya’s new rulers said they were holding back yesterday from advancing on former leader Muammar Qaddafi’s last redoubts despite their capture of two key southern oases.
NATO said that its aircraft had again pounded Qaddafi’s remaining armor, a day after the alliance announced it was extending its Libya campaign for another 90 days.
Commanders said that new regime forces were in control of all three main towns in the al-Jufra oasis yesterday, 24 hours after they announced the capture of Libya’s largest desert city, Sabha.
The defeat of Qaddafi loyalists in the two Saharan oases left his -remaining forces in his hometown of Sirte on the central Mediterranean coast and the desert city of Bani Walid to its southwest effectively cut off from any line of escape to Libya’s remote southern borders.
“Al-Jufra — Hun, Waddan and Sokna — is liberated,” a military spokesman in Libya’s third-largest city, Misrata, said in a statement early yesterday.
There had been heavy fighting in the oasis on Wednesday as National Transitional Council (NTC) troops advancing from Waddan captured Hun and then moved on Qaddafi’s forces as they retreated to Sokna further south.
“Our forces seized Waddan on Tuesday and then captured the base between Waddan and Hun at dawn on Wednesday and took Hun during the day,” an NTC official told reporters in Libya’s main eastern city Benghazi on Wednesday evening.
“Two of our fighters were wounded. There were 11 dead and 25 wounded among Qaddafi’s men and we captured 14,” said Kamal al-Hzifeh, the coordinator between the military command in Al-Jufra and the NTC.
Hzifeh said that Qaddafi’s forces had shelled Hun to cover their retreat before NATO planes intervened at about 5pm to hit the source of the fire.
In its operational update yesterday, NATO said that its warplanes had hit four anti-aircraft guns as well as a vehicle storage depot around Hun.
The alliance said it had also struck a command and control node and five surface-to-air missile systems in and around Sirte.
The strikes came as NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said alliance warplanes would stay in the air as long as Libyan civilians remained under threat.
Commanders on the front line west of Qaddafi’s hometown said they had been told to expect further NATO air strikes yesterday and had orders not to advance.
East of Sirte, commanders on the front line said that they had put off any offensive against the city for at least a week for want of ammunition after heavy fighting in recent days.
“Fighting has been stopped for a week. We are facing a shortage of ammunition,” said Commander Mustafa bin Dardef of the Zintan Brigade, whose troops are some 25km east of Sirte. He said he was heading to Benghazi to try to organize new supplies.
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