Battle rages on for strategic Libyan town

05/04/2011| IslamWeb

Clashes have continued between pro-democracy troops and forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, at the key oil town of Brega, with the revolution fighters saying they have taken control of a portion of the town.

On Monday, columns of opposition fighters drove up the main coastal highway, regaining ground they had given up the day before, but the effective use of artillery and landmines by Gaddafi's troops kept them at bay.

Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from the road to the east of Brega, said opposition fighters had spotted trip wires in the sands on either side of the highway and were instructing fellow troops and journalists to stay on the pavement.

Human Rights Watch has reported that Gaddafi's troops laid anti-tank and anti-personnel mines around Ajdabiya when they controlled the city last week.

Doctors at the main hospital in Ajdabiya, the closest facility to the frontlines, told the Associated Press that one man was killed and three others wounded during Monday's fighting.

Al Jazeera's Turton reported that while no airstrikes were reported near Brega, aircraft were heard flying overhead throughout the day. Opposition forces were able to take the newer part of the town early in the day, and were using new weapons that had not previously been seen, she said.

"New Brega is under control of our forces and we are mopping up around the university," said Lt Muftah Omar Hamza, a former member of the Libyan air force who has joined the revolution.

New Brega is a largely residential area, and is separated from the town's oil facilities by a stretch of highway and a university campus.

Hundreds rescued from Misurata

Gaddafi's offensive continued in other areas on Monday, as his troops continued to hit the Western town of Misurata, where residents say they have come under mortar and artillery fire, as well as tank shelling.

Reuters, quoting a doctor in Misurata, reported that five people had been confirmed to have died on Monday, with a further five critically injured.

Earlier, hundreds of wounded people had been rescued from the city. On Sunday, a Turkish hospital ship carrying more than 250 people, many of them wounded, from the besieged western town of Misurata arrived at the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

The Ankara, a converted cruise ship, arrived under escort from two Turkish navy frigates and 10 air force F-16s. Doctors on board said that some of the injured need extensive treatment and will be flown to Turkey. They said they were forced to leave behind many more injured residents in Misurata.

Swathed in bandages, evacuees on board, the vast majority of them men, gave one of the most detailed accounts yet of conditions in the last major opposition-held city in western Libya.

"It is very, very bad. In my street, Gaddafi bombed us," 26-year-old Ibrahim al-Aradi told the Reuters news agency. "We have no water, no electricity. We don't have medicine. There are snipers everywhere."

Others spoke of Gaddafi's forces bombing mosques and houses.

Hamen, a Libyan doctor who was accompanying the men, told Reuters: "Misurata is terrible. I have seen terrible things. Thirty people killed in one day. These are my patients. I must stay with them but I want to go back."

Doctors say more than 240 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded in Misurata in the last month, as Gaddafi's forces have sought to retake the opposition bastion.

PHOTO CAPTION

Revolution fighters on a road outside Brega on April 4, 2011.

Al-Jazeera