BREGA, Libya — Rebel forces routed troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in a fierce, topsy-turvy battle over an oil port Wednesday, scrambling over the dunes of a Mediterranean beach through shelling and an airstrike to corner their attackers. The daylong fighting blunted the regime's first counteroffensive against opposition-held eastern Libya.
At least 10 anti-Gadhafi fighters were killed and 18 wounded in the battle over Brega, Libya's second largest petroleum facility, which the opposition has held since last week. Citizen militias flowed in from a nearby city and from the opposition stronghold of Benghazi hours away to reinforce the defense, finally repelling the regime loyalists. 
Anti-Gadhafi forces take back an area in Brega, Libya, on Wednesday.
"We will not accept an intervention like that of the Italians that lasted decades," Gadhafi said, referring to Italy's colonial rule early in the 20th Century. "This will lead to a bloody war and thousands of Libyans will die if America and NATO enter Libya."
The attack on Brega began just after dawn, when several hundred pro-Gadhafi forces in 50 trucks and SUVs mounted with machine guns descended on the port, driving out a small opposition contingent and seizing control of the oil facilities, port and airstrip.
But by afternoon, they had lost it all and had retreated to a university campus 5 miles away.
There, opposition fighters besieged them, clambering from the beach up a hill to the campus as mortars and heavy machine gun fire blasted around them, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. They took cover behind grassy dunes, firing back with assault rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. At one point a warplane struck in the dunes to try to disperse them, but it caused no casualties and the siege continued.
NBC, msnbc.com and news services updated 1 hour 32 minutes ago
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41863391/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
No comments:
Post a Comment