Libya: 'Gaddafi will win in the end' says US intelligence chief embarrassing Obama part 2

Libya: 'Gaddafi will win in the end' says US intelligence chief embarrassing Obama

 

With the defeat at Zawiya, the whole of western Libya is now in Gaddafi's control and the regime appears to be building up momentum as it continues to push eastwards.

Four battalions of pro-Gaddafi forces yesterday launched an onslaught  on rebels in their strongest attempt yet to recapture the oil facility of Ras Lanuf, in central Libya.

Opposition forces - including an eastern-based special commando unit, the Saiqa 36 Battalion, that defected to the rebellion - continued the battle into the evening.By sunset, the regime troops burst into the residential area of Ras Lanuf, forcing rebels to pull back, said Ibrahim Said, deputy director of the main hospital in Ajdabiya, a nearby city where rebel wounded were taken.

 

Hundreds of rebel fighters beat a frantic retreat east, fleeing in cars and pickup trucks fitted with heavy machine guns.

 

The rebel forces retreated to the oil facilities and industrial areas of the town, about 10 miles east of the residential area, where they appear to have established a tenacious grip, despite fighting attacks on land and from the sea.

'Four gunboats carrying 40 to 50 men each landed there. We are fighting them right now,' spokesman Mohammed al-Mughrabi said.

Pro-Gaddafi troops were forced to stop shelling the rebels taking refuge among the towering storage containers of crude oil and gas, to avoid blowing up the facility's infrastructure. Instead, they were raining rockets and shells along the main coastal highway, targeting rebel vehicles trying to bring supplies to the port.

There have also been reports of air strikes on towns further east of the frontline, Brega and Uqaylah.

The capture of Ras Lanuf a week ago had been a major victory for the rebel forces as they pushed along Libya's long Mediterranean coastline toward Tripoli, in the far west of Libya. A day after seizing it, their forces charged farther ahead, reaching the outskirts of Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown and a stronghold in the centre of the country.

They were met there by a heavy counterattack that in the past week steadily pushed them back toward Ras Lanuf, even as they tried to build supply lines to keep up momentum.

United against Gaddafi: David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy at the start of the Brussels summit