WAR IN LIBYA:Libyan forces battle to loosen grip on Gaddafi towns + Related News

Laaska News  Sept. 18,2011
Libyan fighters inch forward in Gadhafi hometown
Libyan forces battle to loosen grip on Gaddafi towns

By Maria Golovnina and Alexander Dziadosz

BANI WALID/SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan interim government forces charged a desert stronghold controlled by fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and battled on the streets of the ousted leader’s hometown as they struggled to quash his last pockets of support.

Nearly a month since they drove Gaddafi’s forces out of the capital Tripoli, transitional government fighters have become mired in sieges of his loyalists’ remaining redoubts, raising doubt over whether they can quickly unite the vast country.

Forces backed by Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) made little headway against stiff resistance in Gaddafi’s birthplace Sirte on Saturday, but were able to celebrate the capture of the town of Herawa 40 miles to the east.

The fighters also stormed back into the desert town of Bani Walid, a day after diehard loyalists beat them into a retreat.

An NTC spokesman said anti-Gaddafi forces also captured the small town of Birak as they advanced on the major loyalist stronghold of Sabha, deep in the remote southern desert.

Gaddafi’s spokesman said the ousted leader was still in Libya and leading resistance. Moussa Ibrahim also accused NATO of killing 354 people in a bombing of Sirte, an accusation Reuters could not independently verify.

NATO said such reports in the past had been false.

A column of NTC pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft machine guns and fresh ammunition rushed into Bani Walid as dusk fell across Libya’s interior desert.

“Gaddafi forces attacked the checkpoint so our troops went in. There is a lot of fighting inside the city right now,” senior regional NTC official Abdullah Kenshil said.

Ibrahim, the deposed leader’s spokesman, contacted Reuters by satellite telephone to say Gaddafi was still in Libya, leading the “resistance” against his foes.

“We will be able to continue this fight and we have enough arms for months and months to come,” he said.

He said NATO air strikes on Sirte had hit a residential building and a hotel, killing 354 people. More than 700 people were wounded and 89 were missing from that bombing, he said, giving a total death toll for 17 days of more than 2,000.

There was no way to verify the account, as pro-Gaddafi-held parts of the city were inaccessible. NATO has repeatedly denied in the past that its bombings — authorized by the United Nations to protect civilians — have killed many civilians.

“LIBERATION” ON HOLD

With fighting still raging in the seven-month war, Libya’s interim council is unable to declare all of the oil-producing North African nation “liberated” and begin a timetable for drawing up a democratic constitution and holding elections.

Outside Bani Walid, NTC fighters blamed each other, their commanders and traitors for the previous day’s defeat.

“When we entered the city, snipers shot at us from the front and traitors shot at us from the back,” said fighter Abushusha Bellal. “They always play tricks and shoot us in the back.”

The first of what NTC fighters said would be an extra 1,000 men from Tripoli and elsewhere began arriving near Bani Walid.

But Gaddafi forces are also getting reinforcements from Sirte and are throwing much of their fire power into Bani Walid to protect one of Gaddafi’s sons and another “big fish” hiding there, the NTC’s Kenshil said.

“We already know that Saif al-Islam is there. But we believe someone even more important is there,” he told reporters. Asked whether this was Muammar Gaddafi, Kenshil indicated this was the case. Both men are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

In Sirte, anti-Gaddafi fighters battled street by street for the third day running, dodging sniper, assault rifle and rocket fire from loyalists perched on the city’s rooftops.

Orange flashes of gunfire mixed with dust and black smoke over the sand-colored buildings of the seaside city, as scores of machinegun- and rocket launcher-mounted trucks snaked through its streets.

Pro-NTC soldiers said they had been battling for Sirte on three fronts — from the west, the south and the east entrances — but had been advancing slowly.

“There’s been fighting by the sea and in the city,” said one fighter who did not give his name. “We are gathering and then advancing. We are retaking it step by step.”

East of Sirte, pro-NTC fighters danced in the streets of the town of Herawa, captured on Saturday after days of fighting. They sang, “Gaddafi, we will burn you,” and ripped down posters of the former strongman, stamping on his face in the dirt.

But after a mosque where they set up a base came under heavy fire, the fighters scrapped plans to press on and reinforce comrades who entered Sirte from the west.

“Answer me! Answer me!” one pro-NTC fighter sobbed as he cradled the body of his friend, killed by shrapnel wounds to his head.

Reuters.
 

Libyan fighters inch forward in Gadhafi hometown

By RYAN LUCAS and HADEEL AL-SHALCHI
Associated Press

SIRTE, Libya (AP) — Revolutionary fighters struggled to make gains in an assault into Gadhafi’s hometown Saturday with bloody street-by-street battles against loyalist forces fiercely defending the most symbolic of the shattered regime’s remaining strongholds.

The fresh attack into the Mediterranean coastal city of Sirte contrasted with a stalemate in the mountain enclave of Bani Walid where demoralized anti-Gadhafi forces tried to regroup after being beaten back by loyalist snipers and gunners holding strategic high ground.

Intense resistance has stalled forces of Libya’s new leadership trying to crush the dug-in fighters loyal to Gadhafi, weeks after the former rebels swept into Tripoli on Aug. 21 and pushed the country’s leader out of power and into hiding. Sirte and Bani Walid are the main bastions of backers of the old regime in Libya’s coastal plain, but smaller holdouts remain in the deserts of the center of the country – and another major stronghold, Sabha, lies in the deep south.

The resistance has raised fears of a protracted insurgency of the sort that has played out in Iraq and Afghanistan, even as the transitional government tries to establish its authority and move toward eventual elections.

A military spokesman for the transitional government said revolutionaries do not know Gadhafi’s location.

Col. Ahmed Omar Bani pointed to the still uncollected bounty of nearly $2 million that the new leadership has put on the fugitive leader’s head, saying, “Up to now we don’t have any certain information or intelligence about his whereabouts.”

Columns of black smoke rose over Sirte, as revolutionary fighters backed by heavy machine guns and rockets tried to push through crowded residential areas in the city. They claimed to have gained less than a mile into the city, along the main coastal highway leading in from the west.

The forces were met by a rain of gunfire , rockets and mortars. A field hospital set up outside Sirte at a gas station filled with wounded fighters, including some from a convoy hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Twenty-four anti-Gadhafi fighters were killed and 54 wouneed in the day’s battles, the military council from the nearby city of Misrata reported.

The pro-regime radio station in Sirte repeatedly aired a recorded message it said was from Gadhafi, urging the city’s defenders to fight on. “You must resist fiercely. You must kick them out of Sirte,” the voice said. “If they get inside Sirte, they are going to rape the women.” The voice resembled Gadhafi’s but its authenticity could not be confirmed.

Gadhafi’s spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, vowed, “We have the ability to continue this resistance for months,” in a phone call Friday to Syrian-based Al-Rai TV, which has become the mouthpiece for the former regime.

The conditions inside Sirte were reportedly growing increasingly dire for those caught in the crossfire. Nouri Abu Bakr, a 42-year-old teacher fleeing the city, said there is no electricity or medicine and food supplies are nearly exhausted.

“Gadhafi gave all the people weapons, but those fighting are the Gadhafi brigade of loyalists,” he said.

Hassan Dourai, Sirte representative in the new government’s interim government, said fighters reported seeing one of Gadhafi’s son, Muatassim, shortly before the offensives began Friday, but he has not been spotted since the battles intensified. The whereabouts of Gadhafi and several of his sons remain unknown. Other family members have fled to neighboring Algeria and Niger.

Most of the hundreds of fighters assaulting Sirte are from Misrata, a city to the northwest along the coast that held out for weeks against a brutal Gadhafi siege during the civil war. Revolutionary commanders were trying to open a second front into Sirte, from the east. They said they were trying to reach a surrender deal with elders in most of the Harawa region, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Sirte, to open a possible new pathway – but fighting was reported in the area Saturday, suggesting efforts were stalled.

The other stronghold of Bani Walid, 150 miles (250 kilometers) east of Sirte, has proven even more difficult for the forces of the new regime. The fighters withdrew Friday after facing withering sniper fire and shelling from loyalist units.

The loyalists hold the strategic high ground along the ridges overlooking a desert valley called Wadi Zeitoun that divides the city between northern and southern sections. From there, they could bloody the fighters trying to move down through the northern half of the city and into the valley, which is irrigated with olive groves. The terrain has made the city a historical hold-out: In the early 20th century, Italian forces occupying Libya struggled to take Bani Walid.

“This may be the worst front Libya will see,” said fighter Osama Al-Fassi, who joined other former rebels gathered at a feed factory outside the city’s northern edge, where they drank coffee and took target practice at plastic bottles.

On Saturday evening, Gadhafi forces blasted fighters at the northern entrance with snipers and mortar fire, prompting the revolutionary forces to battle their way in once again in an unplanned advance, said Bilqassim el-Imami, one of the fighters. They made their way back to the edge of Wadi Zeitoun amid heavy fire with anti-aircraft machine guns.

A 50-year-old civil servant fleeing Bani Walild with his family, Ismail Mohammed, described the pro-Gadhafi forces as “too strong” inside Bani Walid and suggested a generational divide between young people strongly behind the uprising and older Libyans often more cautious about whether the revolutionary forces can bring stability.

“The youth wanted this revolution and sometimes you can’t control your own son,” he said.

In Libya’s southern desert, hundreds of revolutionary fighters were negotiating with villagers in the still pro-Gadhafi region to surrender peacefully. The fighters left the captured Bani Jalloud air base and rolled through villages where they reached truces. Along the route, crowds cheered their arrival and flashed V-for-victory signs. But in one village, Ayoun, they came under fire, prompting a heavy gunbattle in which one fighter was killed.

Col. Bashir Awidat said they seek to secure the surrounding hinterlands before moving against Sabha, the main southern urban center about 400 miles (650 kilometers) south of Tripoli. He said the villagers had been isolated and believed Gadhafi’s propaganda.

“They think that we’ll raid their houses and rob them. The media coverage here has been bad for 42 years and it has trained people to think a certain way, and that will take time to change,” he told The Associated Press at the captured air base.

AP.
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