Triumphant rebels take the fight to Gaddafi’s stronghold

LIBYAN rebel forces yesterday battered their way into Sirte, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s birthplace and his regime’s most powerful remaining stronghold.

In the biggest operation rebel units have mounted in the war to date, a force of more than 900 “technicals” – pick-up trucks with rocket launchers or machine guns – broke through loyalist positions 30 miles west of the city early in the morning.

By late afternoon they had advanced into the city itself, with street-to-street fighting around the Gardabiya bridge in the western end of the city.

Nato jets were in the skies, having destroyed seven targets the night before, and rebel sources said loyalist units fought back with artillery, mortars and long-range “Grad” rockets.

Loyalist troops were joined by hundreds of militiamen from the city’s Gaddafi tribe, of which the deposed Libyan leader is a member. Rebels reported fierce resistance in the early hours of the attack, followed by a fracturing of the front line, and more heavy fighting as they entered the city.

A second force pushed towards the town from rebel-held Waddan, 150 miles to the south, also reportedly encountering fierce resistance.

The attack comes six days after a deadline for the city to surrender expired, and nearly four weeks after opposition forces entered the capital, Tripoli.

Rebel sources say the attack was ordered as negotiations over the city’s peaceful surrender stalled and amid fears that Gaddafi tribe militiamen had begun to target Sirte civilians originally from Misrata.

These civilians, mostly merchants and businessmen, are clustered around the central First District of the city. A rebel fighter who escaped the city earlier in the week said the area had been surrounded by militias and power, water and food supplies were cut.

“Answering to the call of our people in the city of Sirte and in order to remove the injustice inflicted upon them by the ousted tyrant, more than 900 armed cars went toward Sirte this morning,” said the Misrata Military Council.

Sirte is the toughest of four remaining settlements still in loyalist hands, but the only one on the coast. Its position astride the main coastal highway effectively cuts Libya in two.

Rebels had long predicted a hard struggle to capture Sirte. Before the war, Gaddafi poured money into construction and social programmes in support of his tribe.

The city is also a major military hub: Gardabiya airbase was hit by air strikes on the second day of the war, when 45 hardened aircraft shelters were razed by American B2 bombers.

Since 24 August, after rebels entered Tripoli, the city has been pounded by Nato, with nearly 300 air strikes hitting tanks, guns, ammunition stores, command centres and suspected scud missile sites.

Misrata’s military command, which launched the operation, is anxious to eliminate the Scud threat after four of the missiles were fired in the past month from Sirte to the rebel city, each time being intercepted over the sea by US warships.

Rebels expect to find key officials hiding in the city, possibly including Gaddafi and his son Saif-al Islam, who remain missing.

A successful capture of the city may also play into a growing rift between Misrata, Libya’s third city, and the ruling National Transitional Council, now installed in the capital. Misratan officials accuse the NTC of being dominated by officials from the eastern city of Benghazi, to the exclusion of Misrata and rebel formations from the west and Tripoli. The Misrata Military Council has said it does not follow the orders of the NTC, and yesterday’s operation was launched without the support of NTC-controlled forces stationed 60 miles east of Sirte.