Rebels battle for control in Libya

LIBYAN helicopter gunships fired on a rebel force advancing west toward the capital along the Mediterranean coastline yesterday and forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi fought intense ground battles with the rival fighters.

The opposition force pushed out of the rebel-held eastern half of Libya late last week for the first time and has been cutting a path west toward Tripoli. On the way, they secured control of two important oil ports at Brega and Ras Lanouf and by yesterday, the rebels were advancing farther west when they were hit by the helicopter fire and confrontations with ground forces.

The uprising against Gaddafi, which began just days after President Hosni Mubarak was ousted by protesters in neighbouring Egypt, has been sliding rapidly toward civil war, making it the bloodiest episode in the Middle East’s wave of unrest.

The seesawing battles for towns and oil installations along the coastline signalled that Libya’s fighting could be prolonged, compared with the ousting of Mubarak after just 18 days. The protesters-turned-rebels — backed by mutinous army units and armed with weaponry seized from storehouses — are going on the offensive to try to topple Gaddafi’s 41-year-old regime. At the same time, pro-Gaddafi forces have conducted counter offensives to try to retake the oil port of Brega and the rebel-held city of Zawiya west of Tripoli — where bloody street battles were reported over the weekend.

In yesterday’s fighting, AP reporters on the scene said government airstrikes hit the town of Ras Lanouf, and ground troops loyal to Gaddafi retook the town of Bin Jawwad, about 177km east of Gaddafi’s hometown and stronghold of Sirte, which could prove to be a decisive battleground.

From the edge of Bin Jawwad, a steady barrage of rockets and artillery fired by pro-Gaddafi forces thumped to the ground. About 50 rebel fighters were trapped inside a mosque, and their comrades who had retreated to the edge of the city sent 20 pickup trucks back through the bombardment to try to rescue them. One of the trucks was hit.

A warplane attacked a small military base at Ras Lanouf and destroyed three hangars and a small building. Regime forces shelled rebel positions there with rockets and artillery. Ambulances sped toward the town and rebels moved trucks and four multiple-rocket launchers toward the front lines.

Four were killed in the fighting in those two towns, and a French journalist for France 24 TV was wounded, hospital officials said.

In Tripoli, the most firmly in Gaddafi’s grip, residents awoke before dawn to the crackle of unusually heavy and sustained gunfire that lasted for at least two hours.