Libyan rebels enter key oil town of Brega

LIBYA'S rebels claimed to have entered the government-held oil town of Brega yesterday with heavy house-to-house fighting reported. After five days of fighting, rebel units continued to advance on the town from the north, south and east.

They are being aided by heavy Nato bombing with the alliance reporting dozens of sorties and 32 military targets destroyed since the offensive began.

Rebel sources said units had entered the suburb of New Brega, meeting fierce resistance, and that a southern push had moved in behind the town, preventing government reinforcements from joining the battle.

Opposition units are being slowed in their advance by Grad rockets fired from Libyan forces from the villages of Bishir and Ugayla, and by extensive minefields laid in broad carpets to the east of the town.

Rebel commanders say with the town surrounded, government forces are retreating west along the coast to a second oil terminal, Ras Lanuf. "The main body retreated to Ras Lanuf," said rebel spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah. "I am sure they will clash today or tomorrow in Bishir and Ugayla."

The Gaddafi regime has not given casualty figures, with the rebels saying 12 soldiers are dead and 295 wounded in two days of fighting.

The key to victory appears to be Nato bombing missions: intensive air strikes continue to pound the town, destroying tanks and other military vehicles.

The air strikes risk stirring political controversy because the alliance's mandate, set down by the United Nations, orders Nato forces to act in the defence of civilians.

In the eyes of some critics, the bombing missions around Brega amount to support of armed units, with no civilians in the vicinity, opening the alliance to charges of direct military intervention.

Yet without the bombing, rebel units are unlikely to make headway: the opposition army lacks tanks and artillery, depending on fire support on a handful of grad rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns pressed into service as battlefield weapons.

Brega is one of Libya's key oil installations, and was the main export hub for oil from the country's largest fields before the war. With those fields already in rebel hands, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi will lose little strategically with the fall of the town.

It has already changed hands more than once in five months of fighting. But politically, its capture at this stage of the conflict would be a powerful psychological boost to the rebels after weeks of stalemate and hand-wringing in some Nato countries about the difficulty of ending the war.

The opposition National Transitional Council, which gained promises of recognition from the United States, United Kingdom and other members of the international Libya Contact Group at the weekend, will hope the offensive demonstrates it can seize the initiative in a war now into its sixth month.In so doing, rebel leaders will hope to head-off any effort by the Gaddafi regime to gain support for a ceasefire that could leave the country divided.

Russia criticised the US and other countries for recognising the rebel leadership as the legitimate government of Libya yesterday.

"Those who declare recognition stand fully on the side of one political force in a civil war," Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.