Libya Air Strikes Hit Rebels At Oil Port
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - After dramatic successes over the past weeks, Libya's rebel movement appears to have hit a wall of overwhelming power from loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi. Pro-regime forces halted its drive on Tripoli with a heavy barrage of rockets in the east and threatened Tuesday to recapture the closest rebel-held city to the capital in the west.
If Zawiya, on Tripoli's doorstep, is ultimately retaken, the contours of a stalemate would emerge -- with Libya divided between a largely loyalist west and a rebel east as the world wrestles with the thorny question of how deeply to intervene.
President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to plan for the "full spectrum of possible responses" on Libya, including imposing a no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi's warplanes from striking rebels. According to a White House statement, the two leaders spoke Tuesday and agreed that the objective must be an end to violence and the departure of Gadhafi "as quickly as possible."
Zawiya, a city of 200,000, was sealed off under a fifth day of a destructive siege, with conflicting reports of who was in control. A brigade led by one of Gadhafi's sons, Khamis, is believed to be leading the assault, shelling neighborhoods with tank and artillery fire from the outskirts and trying to push troops in to the city's central Martyrs Square where rebels had set up camp.
The city hospital has been overwhelmed with dead and wounded and many houses have been damaged, according to residents who escaped the past two days. One man who slipped out of the city on Monday said pro-Gadhafi forces had seized the central square.
An adviser to the Libyan Foreign Ministry in Tripoli on Tuesday also claimed that government troops were in control, raising the green flag over the square. The adviser, who is originally from Zawiya, said he was trying to mediate a cease-fire with remaining rebels. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
But a resident of the nearby town of Sabratha said people who fled from Zawiya on Tuesday afternoon told him fighting continued, with rebels back in control of the square. He said they reported hit-and-run attacks between the two sides.
The various reports could not be independently confirmed. Electricity, phone and Internet services have all been cut in the city, making it impossible to reach witnesses inside Zawiya, just 30 miles west of Tripoli.
The recapture of Zawiya would be a significant victory for Gadhafi, easing a threat just outside his main bastion in the capital. If his forces can hold it, it would free up troops to deploy against other rebel-held areas.
The fall of Zawiya to anti-Gadhafi residents early on in the uprising that began Feb. 15 had illustrated the initial, blazing progress of the opposition. The uprising swept over the entire eastern half of the country, breaking it out of the regime's control, and seized Zawiya and several other cities and towns in the northwestern pocket of the country where Gadhafi's regime was confined.
But the government could be regaining some balance and its capability to lash back with powerful force.
The battle is far from over and could be drawn out into a long and bloody civil war. The latest round of fighting on opposite ends of Libya's Mediterranean coast once again revealed the weakness and disorganization of both sides.
Even if it ends with Zawiya's recapture, the long siege of the city underlined the rebels' tenacity and the struggles of even a reportedly elite force like the Khamis Brigades to crush them.
At the same time, Gadhafi's regime has been using its air power advantage more each day to check a rebel advance west toward Tripoli on the main coastal highway leading out of the opposition-controlled eastern half of the country. The increasing use of air power underlines the vulnerability of the rebel forces as they attempt to march across open, desert terrain -- but it also could prompt world powers to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to deny Gadhafi that edge.
In the east, Gadhafi's forces succeeded over the weekend in blunting the rebels' attempt to march toward Tripoli, repelling them from Bin Jawwad, a small town 375 miles (600 kilometers) east of the capital, and driving them back to the oil port of Ras Lanouf, further east.
On Tuesday, troops fired barrages of rockets at a rebel contingent that tried to move out from Ras Lanouf. At least 26 wounded were rushed to the hospital in the town, some of them with legs lost and other serious injuries, according to doctors there.
"I was hit in the arm and leg, my friend was wounded in the stomach," Momen Mohammad, 31, said while lying in a hospital bed.
Earlier in the day, warplanes launched at least five new airstrikes near rebel position in Ras Lanouf, one hitting a two-story house in a residential area, causing some damage. None of the strikes appeared to cause casualties, suggesting they were intended to intimidate the fighters, according to an Associated Press reporter who saw the strikes. The anti-regime forces were not taking any chances and were spreading out deep inside the desert around the area in small groups.
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First Posted: 03/08/11 04:59 PM ET Updated: 05/25/11 07:35 PM ET