TRIPOLI, Libya — American and European bombs battered Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s most important bastion of support in his tribal homeland of Surt on Sunday night, as rebels seeking his ouster capitalized on the damage from the Western airstrikes to erase their recent losses and return to the city’s doorstep.
Their swift return, recapturing two important oil refineries and a strategic port within 20 hours, set the stage for a battle in Surt that could help decide the war.
There were unconfirmed reports early Monday that rebel forces had routed pro-Qaddafi defenders in Surt, but there was no corroboration. Even so, rebels in Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising, drove through the streets, blaring horns and firing weapons into the air to celebrate.
News reports on Monday said some military vehicles and dozens of civilian cars loaded with personal belongings were seen heading west from Surt toward Tripoli, 225 miles west. The city itself was said to be quiet.
The ease of the rebel march west along the coast underscored the essential role of Western airstrikes, now focused mainly on Colonel Qaddafi’s ground troops, in reversing the rebels’ fortunes. But it also framed anew the question of how the poorly equipped and disorganized rebel forces might fare against Colonel Qaddafi’s garrison in Surt, where air cover may be less useful.
As Western warplanes again bombed sites around Tripoli and other Qaddafi strongholds, NATO agreed at a meeting in Brussels to take over the mission. The decision effectively relieved the United States of leading the fight, and ended a week of squabbling.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the change, pushed by the United States, would allow the military to begin reducing its presence.
In interviews on Sunday, Mr. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton left open how long the American commitment would be.
President Obama plans to address the nation on Monday night about the American role in Libya amid continuing questions about its objectives and duration.
An official with the Pentagon said Sunday that it was already beginning to reduce the number of American warships involved in the operation. The official said that at least one of the Navy submarines that had fired Tomahawk missiles into Libya had left the area, and that a further naval pullout was likely.
Mr. Obama will be able to cite some early success, as the airstrikes have lifted the rebels back from the brink of defeat in the eastern city of Benghazi and enabled them to rush west along the coast past their farthest gains of their previous peak weeks ago.
After clashes with government forces overnight near the town of Al Uqaylah, rebel fighters met little resistance on Sunday as they pushed from the city of Ajdabiya past the oil towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf, recapturing the two important refineries. By the evening, they had pushed the front line west of Bin Jawwad, according to fighters returning from the front.
“There wasn’t resistance,” said Faraj Sheydani, 42, a rebel fighter interviewed on his return from the front. “There was no one in front of us. There’s no fighting.”
In Tripoli, the explosions of about 10 large bombs near the city were heard downtown on Sunday night, followed by barrages of antiaircraft fire and cascades of tracers. At a news conference, a short time later, Musa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, declined to comment on the exact location of the battle lines. But he argued that Western powers were now attacking the Libyan Army in retreat, a far cry from the United Nations mandate to establish a no-fly zone to protect civilians.
“Some were attacked as they were clearly moving westbound,” he said. “Clearly NATO is taking sides in this civil conflict. It is illegal. It is not allowed by the Security Council resolution. And it is immoral, of course.”
In western Libya, however, the rebel-held city of Misurata was still under siege by loyalist forces. By Sunday evening, rebels were again reporting street fighting in the center of the city as well as renewed shelling and mortar fire from Qaddafi tanks and artillery from west and northwest of the city.
Allied airstrikes outside Misurata had kept up through the previous night, rebels said, destroying a major ammunition depot that exploded in a blaze of light. It was still burning 13 hours after the initial blast, said Muhammad, a rebel spokesman there whose full name was withheld for his family’s safety.
Speaking over a satellite hook-up and hospital generator, he contradicted statements from the Qaddafi government that it had restored power and water to the city. He said that rebels had used a local generator to restore electricity to about half the city. But he said that water remained cut off and that residents were using a small supply from a desalination facility there. The reports were impossible to confirm because the Qaddafi government has prevented journalists from reaching the city.
Muhammad said he believed the airstrikes had not killed any civilians in the area, but had struck barracks and airfields, killing many Libyan soldiers. “Thousands of them, I hope,” he said.
In Tripoli on Sunday, most stores were closed. Usually busy streets were deserted. Officials said the port had been closed to ships carrying refined fuel as well as food and other goods. Gasoline was in increasingly short supply, and lines of cars at gas stations stretched for several blocks. Some motorists said they had turned out before dawn for a chance to fill up, or waited in line for more than two hours to reach the pump.
Residents also stood in long lines for bread at bakeries, mainly because the migrant workers Libyans rely on to bake and do other service jobs have fled the country.
The NATO agreement was announced Sunday evening by its secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. He said that “NATO will implement all aspects of the U.N. resolution. Nothing more, nothing less.”
He said the decision would take “immediate effect,” but it may take up to two days for the transfer to be completed.
الرئيسية 
موضوع: Libyan Rebels March Toward Gaddafi Stronghold 
الإثنين مارس 28, 2011 1:44 am
