Libya: Bouyant Gaddafi makes first TV appearance for a week as troops attack Ajdabiyah

Libya: Bouyant Gaddafi makes first TV appearance for a week as troops attack Ajdabiyah

 

A bouyant Colonel Gaddafi made his first television appearance for five days as his troops engaged in new fighting with rebels on Libya's eastern front.

The dictator smiles on the camera and pumped his fists as he received an ecstatic welcome at a school in Tripoli.

It comes as government forces shelled the outskirts of Ajdabiyah, the launch point for rebel attacks towards the Mediterranean oil port of Brega.

Defiant: Colonel Gaddafi pumps his fist as he pays a visit to a school in Tripoli

 

Visit: The Libyan dictator has not been seen on national television for nearly a week

Wearing his trademark brown robes and dark glasses, Gaddafi was last seen on television on April 4.

Artillery and machinegun fire has been reported around Ajdabiyah, the gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to the northeast.

Inconclusive battles have raged along the desert road between Brega and Ajabiyah for more than a week after government troops pushed back a rebel advance.

NATO generals are increasingly pessimistic that the military stalemate can be broken despite air strikes on armoured columns.

A Red Cross ship managed to dock in Misrata today carrying enough medical supplies to treat 300 patients with gunshot wounds.

Misrata, the lone major rebel outpost in the west of Libya, has been under siege by Gaddafi's forces for weeks.

Attack: Rebel fighters launch missiles against government troops on the outskirts of Ajdabiya

 

Retreat: Rebel fighters fall back outside Ajdabiya after Gaddafi soldiers launched counter attacks

 

Casualties: Medical staff wheel a government soldier into a hospital near Brega

Insurgents said on Friday they had repelled an assault on the eastern flank of the city after fierce street battles that killed five people.

Misrata, Libya's third largest city, rose up with other towns against Gaddafi in mid-February after a security crackdown snuffed out most peaceful protests in the west.

Rebels say people in Misrata are crammed five families to a house in the few safe districts to escape weeks of sniper, mortar and rocket fire.

There are severe shortages of food, water and medical supplies and hospitals are overflowing.

The rebels said they intended to take Brega today and some had penetrated the outskirts.

'God willing, we will take Brega today. We already have people up there and we will try to do it today,' said rebel Captain Hakim Muazzib from a petrol station on the desert road between the two towns.

There were 10 pick-up trucks waiting in the petrol station, carrying rocket launchers and machineguns.

Fierce fighting: More missiles are fired at Gaddafi troops. A series of battles has taken place across the desert road as NATO airstrikes target tanks

 

Stocking up: A rebel fighter prepares a 'Grad' missile on the road between Brega and Ajdabiya

 

Abdullah Mutalib, 27, a rebel lying in a hospital bed in Ajdabiyah with a bullet wound in his side, said: 'Some of us got inside Brega to the university, some got to the outskirts. Then we came under rocket fire.'

NATO air strikes hit weapons depots belonging to Gaddafi forces near Zintan, south of Tripoli, on Friday, a resident said.

'The depots are situated nine miles southeast of Zintan. We could see buildings on fire in the distance,' the resident, called Abdulrahman, said by phone.

An oil tanker carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude that the rebels need to finance their uprising entered the Suez Canal on Saturday after leaving rebel-held east Libya.

Traders say it is heading for China with the first cargo the rebels have sold.

Captured: A badly injured government soldier is held by rebels after a skirmish near Brega

 

Arsenal: Rebels prepare to launch a barrage of missiles on the road to Ajdabiya

Western officials have acknowledged that their air power will not be enough to help the rag-tag rebels overthrow Gaddafi by force and they are now emphasising a political solution. 

NATO air strikes, with the stated aim of protecting civilians against Gaddafi's army under a U.N. mandate, have created rather than broken a stalemate with neither side now strong enough to land a knockout blow.

Alliance officials have expressed frustration that Gaddafi's tactics of sheltering his armour in civilian areas has diluted the impact of supremacy in the skies over Libya.

Analysts predict a long, low-level conflict possibly leading to partition between east and west in the sprawling country.

'The opposition forces are insufficient to break this deadlock and so as things stand, the march on Tripoli is not going to happen,' said John Marks, chairman of Britain's Cross Border Information consultancy.

'This standoff looks like it could go on pretty much forever ... for now we have a stalemate so we are looking rather more at a de facto partition.'