Gaddafi showers oil port with rockets

GOVERNMENT forces drove hundreds of rebels from a strategic oil port with a withering rain of rockets and tank shells, significantly expanding Gaddafi’s control of Libya.

Rebels saw no concrete sign of Western moves toward military assistance such as the no-fly zone that they pleaded for as they retreated through the pancake-flat desert outside the port of Ras Lanouf, scanning the skies for government warplanes.

The fleeing rebels said government forces showered rockets and tank shells on Ras Lanouf in preparation for a full-scale advance. Lightly armed opposition members sped back to their territory by the hundreds, fleeing eastward in cars and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns.