Gaddafi defiant in face of rebel gains

LIBYAN leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi issued a defiant message vowing to crush his adversaries yesterday as rebel forces made further gains across the country.

“The Libyan people will remain. Get ready for the fight … The blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield,” he said in a barely audible audio address broadcast on state television over scenes of cheering crowds waving green banners in the capital, Tripoli.

“Move forward, challenge, pick up your weapons, go to the fight for liberating Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from Nato.”

As he spoke, government troops launched a counter-attack on rebel forces holding the strategically important town of Zawiya, 30 miles from Tripoli, with reports from the town saying the streets are echoing to the crash of tank shells and mortar fire. By evening, government forces had retaken the city centre. Rebel pick-up trucks mounting machine guns were seen by correspondents racing to and from the city centre and the main Ghanam street. Some rebel units complained they were low on ammunition after four days of battle.

Elsewhere, opposition forces claimed further victories. In the east, fighters pushed into the battered oil town of Brega and said they were in control of two thirds of it.

Pictures from Al Jazeera showed rebels inside the town and giant oil tanks in the distant refinery belching black smoke.

And while Zawiya’s rebels are battling to hold the town, further along the coastal highway they say they have captured the towns of Ajarlat and Surman, cementing an operation that has cut the last highway from Tripoli to the outside world, through Tunisia.

Col Gaddafi’s green flag still flew at the coastal highway’s border crossing with Tunisia yesterday, but the steady traffic that once supplied Gaddafi-held areas had slowed to a trickle.

Passengers said the road was only open for about 40 miles, a third of the way to Tripoli.

To the south, rebels say they have captured a large military base and stockpiles of weapons at Garyan, cutting another strategic highway.

If the claims are confirmed, Tripoli is now all but isolated from the outside world with the coastal highway cut in both directions, a Nato air and sea blockade in force and only one highway connecting Gaddafi’s regime to his units in Brega.

There were signs last night that a diplomatic offensive was under way.Reports in the Libyan rebel media said UN envoy Abdul Ilah al-Khatib had arrived in Tunis possibly to broker peace talks. There were claims that representatives from the two sides had met on the Tunisian island of Djerba on Sunday.

Peace talks have been suggested, but never attempted, twice during Libya’s nearly sixmonth long civil war, each time brokered by the African Union.

On each occasion, envoys have failed to find a consensus between the regime and the key rebel demand that Col Gaddafi steps down. After so much bloodshed, opposition leaders now scent victory in their war and may be reluctant to do a deal.

“Gaddafi wants to divide Libya (but) we want to free it,” said Misratan rebel fighter Farouk Mohammed of the rebel Eagle Brigade.