Rebels close in on Gaddafi stronghold

Libya’s rebel forces were closing in on Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, the gateway to the western half of the country, today after it was targeted for the first time by international air strikes.

Celebratory gunfire broke out in the early hours of the morning in the rebel city of Benghazi amid rumours that Sirte had already fallen without a fight.

Witnesses in the city said bombing could be heard at around 6.30am local time but there was no fighting in the streets or signs of rebel forces.

Libya’s rebels have recovered hundreds of miles of flat, uninhabited territory, including two key oil installations, at record speeds after Colonel Gaddafi’s forces were forced to pull back by international air strikes.

A heavy bombardment of Tripoli also began late yesterday, with at least nine loud explosions and anti-aircraft fire heard, an Associated Press reporter in the city said.

Earlier in the day, rebels regained two key oil complexes along the coastal highway and promised to quickly restart Libya’s stalled oil exports, prompting a slight drop in the soaring price of crude oil to around 105 a barrel.

Moving quickly westward, the advance retraced their steps in the first rebel march toward the capital. But this time, the world’s most powerful air forces have eased the way by pounding Col Gaddafi’s military assets for the past week.

Sirte is strategically located about halfway between the rebel-held east and the Gaddafi-controlled west along the Mediterranean coast. It is a bastion of support for Col Gaddafi and was expected to be difficult for rebels to take.

If the city has fallen, it would mark a major victory for the rebels and leave the way open to Tripoli and Misrata, the sole rebel outpost remaining in the west of the country.

In Misrata, residents reported fighting between rebels and Gaddafi loyalists who fired from tanks on residential areas.

Misrata is one of two cities in western Libya which have risen against the regime and suffered brutal crackdowns. It is located between Tripoli and Sirte on the coastal road.

In Washington, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he could not offer a timetable for how long the Libya operation could last, as the Obama administration tried to bolster its case for bringing the United States into another war in the Muslim world.

The UN Security Council authorised the operation to protect Libyan civilians after Col Gaddafi launched attacks against anti-government protesters who demanded that he step down after nearly 42 years in power. The air strikes have crippled Col Gaddafi’s forces, allowing rebels to advance less than two weeks after they had seemed at the brink of defeat.

The assault on Sirte, where most civilians are believed to support Col Gaddafi, however, potentially represents an expansion of the international mission to being more directly involved with regime change.

“This is the objective of the coalition now, it is not to protect civilians because now they are directly fighting against the armed forces,” Khaled Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, said in the capital, Tripoli. “They are trying to push the country to the brink of a civil war.”