Libya: Defiant rebels shrug off mortar attacks and insist they will prevail

"Allah Akhbar" screamed the fighters victoriously on the pick-up trucks mounted with weapons as they sped into the raging war. Mortars pounded their positions, and the blue skies filled with the sickening scream of the incoming Grad rockets.

Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's forces attacked the besieged west Libyan town of Misrata with renewed ferocity yesterday. Even as they watched their comrades' fall in the sand, rebels rallied in conviction that the noose is tightening around the discredited Libyan dictator.

"The morale of the fighters is getting higher and higher. We are determined to finish the job," said Majdi, 35, who was returning from the front to reload his weapon. "I have a rocket launcher taken from a helicopter mounted on my truck. We are pushing the Gaddafi guys up the road."

Misrata fighters have pushed the loyalists out approximately 35km from the centre. They have fended off constant onslaughts, suffering barrages of heavy artillery rockets and cluster bombs fired by Gaddafi troops on to their homes. As Gaddafi pounded the defensive lines to the south and the west yesterday, life in central Misrata continued on its path to stability. Locals mingled and chatted calmly, greeting each other outside the mosques after Friday prayers. The only hint of the war around them came in the deep sound of distant booms.

"This is the red line," said fighter Adl Mustafa on the front-line checkpoint at Dafnya - the border of control between Misrata and Zleitan. "When we see Gaddafi fighters advancing, we attack."

Fighters took cover behind strategically placed sand-filled containers as the bullets whizzed past them from nearby loyalist troops.

As the rebels held their lines, they said it was a matter of time before loyalist troops were crushed. "We are waiting for the rebel forces to advance from Zleitan and there is co-ordination in that respect," confirmed Ibrahim Bait el Mal, the spokesperson for the Misrata military forces. "We have been in touch with tribal leaders that carry weight in Zleitan."

Mustafa said: "We plan to sandwich them one day; there is fighting in Zleitan."

Gradually, they said, they intended to crush the loyalists' morale. "We feel that the Gaddafi forces are at their lowest level. We keep capturing them."

The sentiment was echoed by world leaders at the G8 summit in the French seaside town of Deauville yesterday. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev joined the calls for Gaddafi to go, bringing a unanimous verdict among the G8 leaders on the crumbled legitimacy of the dictator's regime.

"The situation is much better now, we have more weapons, more men and we are advancing. Every day is better than the day before," said Omar Hussein, who has spent more than two months on the front line. "He had enough to crush an uprising - he never thought there was going to be a war."