Libyan rebels lift siege as Gaddafi plays chess

LIBYAN rebels broke out towards Tripoli from the opposition-held port of Misrata, 225km to the east, yesterday.

They broke a government siege as fighters across the country mounted a resurgence in their four-month-old revolt against Muammar Gaddafi.

The rebels gained a diplomatic boost as well when the visiting German foreign minister said the nascent opposition government was “the legitimate representative of the Libyan people”.

Guido Westerwelle was visiting Benghazi, the capital of the rebel-held east of the country, to open a liaison office and hand over medical supplies.

He stopped short of full diplomatic recognition of the Transitional National Council, as has the US, awaiting the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi from his more than 40-year rule in the oil-rich north African country.

Germany has refused to participate in NATO airstrikes in Libya and withheld its support for the UN resolution that allowed the attacks. What started as a peaceful uprising against Gaddafi has become a civil war, with poorly equipped and trained rebel fighters taking control of the eastern third of Libya and pockets of the west.

But the fighting had reached a stalemate until last week when NATO began the heaviest bombardment of Gaddafi forces since the alliance took control of the skies over Libya under a UN resolution to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s wrath.

NATO has been pounding Gaddafi military and government positions with increasing vigour and the rebels are again on the move.

Meanwhile, the Libyan leader has been playing chess with the visiting Russian head of the World Chess Federation.

The federation is headed by the eccentric Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who until last year was the leader of Russia’s predominantly Buddhist republic of Kalmykia. He once claimed to have visited an alien spaceship.

Libyan state television showed Gaddafi, dressed all in black and wearing dark sunglasses, playing chess with his Russian guest.

It was unclear where the chess game took place.