Taking the battle to Gaddafi

FORCES loyal to Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi yesterday clashed with rebel fighters advancing into two besieged towns in a bid to end months of civil war.

The smoke of battle hung over Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, on the coast between Tripoli and Benghazi, and Bani Walid, a tribal stronghold in the desert, as the motley forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC) mounted their biggest push after weeks of stalemate and skirmishing.

But the news coming back from the front lines was that defence forces were not being routed quickly, nearly four weeks after the rebel coalition overran Libya’s capital.

“It’s a very strong resistance,” Abusif Ghnyah, a spokesman for NTC forces at Bani Walid, told reporters watching the battle from high ground. “The most difficult part is the central market, that is where they are firing from.”

Anti-Gaddafi fighters could be seen moving forward under mortar, rocket and sniper fire, edging from house to house and sheltering behind walls from shrapnel and bullets. A faux-ancient castle built for Gaddafi on a hill in Bani Walid was also under attack, fighters said.

Many of Bani Walid’s 100,000 residents have fled. It was unclear how many civilians remain in Sirte, a city of a similar size, which Gaddafi created out of his home town. NTC fighters, who brought up scores of machinegun-mounted pickup trucks and a handful of tanks, spoke of pockets of heavily armed opponents dug in there.

Contact has not been possible with Gaddafi loyalists in the two towns, or at Sabha, deep in Libya’s southern desert where several senior Gaddafi aides have been seen. Details of developments around Sabha are scant, but British jets fired about two dozen Brimstone missiles to destroy Libyan armoured vehicles near the town on Thursday.

The new leadership, struggling to maintain unity and restore order as international powers offer aid and seek contracts for oil and reconstruction contracts, wants to capture the last strongholds of Gaddafi and his sons. The US is taking an increasingly active role to secure up to 20,000 shoulder-launched missiles among scores of rocket launchers, mines and small arms from Gaddafi’s once vast arsenal, despatching weapons experts to train Libyans to locate and destroy weapons. The fear is that the weapons could either fuel an insurgency or fall into the hands of al-Qaeda linked extremists.

At Bani Walid, lorryloads of NTC fighters shouting “Let’s go! Bani Walid!” and columns of pickups carrying anti-aircraft guns advanced on the town in the early morning. But the going proved slow throughout a day of heavy fighting.

At Sirte, NTC fighters massed at a mosque on the outskirts, while others drove towards the centre accompanied by two tanks. It was reported that NTC forces had taken Sirte’s airport, six miles south of the city.