Battle for Libya oil town, fighting near Tripoli

Rebels fighting against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi say they were repulsed by his forces in a battle to retake the eastern oil town of Brega, suffering at least four dead.

In the west, rebels said they were fighting Gaddafi's forces for a second day in the town of Zawiyah Sunday, bringing the revolt against his rule closer to the capital.

The rebels said they had lost at least four killed in fighting between Brega and Ajdabiyah. At least 65 fighters were wounded, doctors at the hospital in the rebel stronghold city of Benghazi said.

"We attacked them first but they attacked us back. We tried to get to Brega but that was difficult," Haithan Elgwei, a rebel fighter, said after returning from the front with the wounded.

"NATO (aircraft) were covering us from above but Gaddafi troops fired rockets and mortars outside Brega," Akram, 24, a wounded fighter, said.

"We will not retreat. We look forward to taking Tripoli," he added.

The fresh outbreak of fighting in Zawiyah, west of Tripoli and home to a big oil refinery, marks the closest the armed rebellion has come to Gaddafi's stronghold in the capital for months.

Reporters taken by the government to see Zawiyah, which saw intense fighting at the start of the anti-Gaddafi uprising in February and has changed hands several times, found it eerily quiet Sunday, with almost no one in sight.

Saturday, Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said there was "no serious fighting" there.

Sunday, he told reporters that no more than 100 rebel fighters who had attacked to the west of the city were holed up after suffering losses and the government was trying to negotiate their surrender.

"They were defeated after a few hours of scattered skirmishes with the army," he added.

Not long after the reporters left Zawiyah, rebel spokesman M'hamed Ezzawi said by phone there was heavy fighting 400 m (yards) from the main square.

"The brigades are using heavy weapons. They are better equipped than the revolutionaries," he said. "We have no statistics so far as to the number of martyrs but there are at least seven wounded among the revolutionaries."

Read More

G8: Libya’s Gaddafi ‘should go’, say world leaders

World leaders at the G8 summit in France have issued a joint call for the embattled Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to step down.
Russia, which has criticised Nato’s campaign in Libya, said it agreed Col Gaddafi had lost all legitimacy.
In a communique issued at the end of a two-day summit, the G8 also criticised Syria’s deadly crackdown on protesters.
The bloc’s statement included plans for a $20bn (£12bn) package for Tunisia and Egypt over the next two years.
BBC world affairs correspondent Christian Fraser, at the summit in Deauville, says the communique by the leaders of the US, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and the UK has 25 pages and 93 sub-sections.
‘Finish the job’
But the part that has attracted the greatest attention, he adds, is an agreement on all sides – including the Russians – that Col Gaddafi should step down.
In his comments at the end of the summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the wording of the communique had been toughened overnight and fully endorsed by the Russians.
It says: “Gaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfil their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go.”
US President Barack Obama – after talks about Libya with the French president – said: “We are joined in resolve to finish the job.”
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a news conference at the end of the gathering in Normandy that he was prepared to mediate Col Gaddafi’s departure, but he said Libya should be preserved as a single state.
The communique was issued as Nato reported that government forces had laid landmines in the rebel-held western Libyan city of Misrata.
Nato intervened in Libya after the UN passed a resolution in March mandating the protection of civilians in the country, following the uprising against Col Gaddafi.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the time was right to “ratchet up” pressure on the Libyan regime, as he confirmed that the UK would deploy Apache attack helicopters for the campaign.
But a statement issued by a group of former African presidents – including South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo – expressed “grave concern” that there was still no sign of an end to Nato’s campaign in Libya.
As Syrian government troops dispersed a new round of protests in Damascus, the G8 communique called on the regime to “stop using force and intimidation” against its people.
But while Russia was seen as having toughened its stance on Libya, Moscow insisted on softening the G8′s wording on Syria.
It obliged its partners to drop a threat of UN Security Council sanctions in favour of more general warning of “further measures”.

Click here to cancel reply.

Read More