Assault on Gaddafi bastion ends in chaotic retreat (Reuters)

By Maria Golovnina and Alexander Dziadosz Maria Golovnina And Alexander Dziadosz – Sun?Sep?18, 12:13?pm?ET

BANI WALID/SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan interim government forces fled on Sunday in a chaotic retreat from the town of Bani Walid, after failing in yet another attempt to storm the final bastions of loyalists of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Since taking the capital Tripoli last month, motley forces of the ruling National Transitional Council have met stiff resistance in Bani Walid and Gaddafi's birthplace Sirte, which they must capture before they can declare Libya "liberated."

Anti-Gaddafi fighters have tried several times to storm Bani Walid, 150 km (95 miles) southeast of Tripoli, in recent days only to retreat in disorder under fire from defenders. Sunday's failed attempt appeared to be among the worst yet, setting off angry recriminations among the attackers.

NTC fighters said they had planned for tanks and pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers to lead Sunday's attack, but foot soldiers had piled in first.

"There is a lack of organization so far. Infantry men are running in all directions," said Zakaria Tuham, a senior fighter with a Tripoli-based unit. "Our commanders had been told that heavy artillery units had already gone ahead, but when we advanced into Bani Walid they were nowhere to be seen.

"Gaddafi forces were hitting us heavily with rockets and mortars, so we have pulled out."

A Reuters reporter saw fighters withdraw around two km (more than a mile) after they had stormed into the town.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters from Bani Walid blamed comrades from elsewhere in Libya for being unwilling to coordinate. Those from elsewhere accused some local fighters of being traitors and passing information to Gaddafi loyalists.

"Commanders who are from the Warfalla tribe, they tell us one thing and then commanders from the other cities say something else. We do not understand anything," said pro-NTC fighter Mohamed Saleh.

"So we are just going in and pulling back without a single purpose. It's impossible to take this city this way. It will continue like this until they send more experienced troops who know how to use their weapons."

Some fighters openly disobeyed orders. In one incident, an officer from Bani Walid was heckled by troops from Tripoli after he tried to order them to stop randomly shooting in the air as they celebrated seizing a mortar from Gaddafi forces.

"You are not my boss. Don't tell me what to do," one of the Tripoli fighters snapped back at him.

Shells whistled above anti-Gaddafi positions and exploded across the desert valley as invisible snipers sprayed bullets from Bani Walid's rooftops and smoke rose above the town.

NTC fighters helped some families evacuate from the town, driving them out in military pickup trucks.

"The past two weeks been awful but last night was particularly bad," said Zamzam al-Taher, a 38-year-old mother of four. "We have been trapped here without a car and with no food. Snipers are everywhere."

"The biggest mistake by the rebels is that they come in and leave without setting up checkpoints. When they leave, Gaddafi militiamen come in with their own checkpoints and flags and terrorise local people," she added.

BATTLE FOR SIRTE

NTC forces and NATO warplanes also attacked Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace. Fighters launched rockets from the city's southern entrance and traded fire with Gaddafi loyalists holed up in a conference center.

"The situation is very dangerous. There are so many snipers and all the types of weapons you can imagine," said fighter Mohamed Abdullah as rockets whooshed through the air and black smoke rose above the city.

Medics mopped the floor of a small field hospital on Sirte's western outskirts as they prepared for more casualties, following bloody but inconclusive clashes a day earlier. A doctor said 16 NTC fighters and an ambulance driver had died in Saturday's fighting. He had also received 62 wounded.

As in many episodes during Libya's conflict, the frontlines at Sirte and Bani Walid have ebbed back and forth, with shows of bravado colliding with the reality of battle.

An incoming shell landed within 200 metres of NTC-held lines only to be met with return fire from NTC fighters shouting "God is greatest!"

Speaking against the roar of NATO jets overhead, one anti-Gaddafi fighter at Sirte, Mahmoud Othman, said his men were helping families who had fled ahead of the next assault.

"We don't want any more bloodshed between us. But if the Gaddafa want more blood, we are ready," he said, referring to the deposed leader's tribe. "In the end we want Gaddafi."

Scores of civilian cars and pickup trucks poured out of the city, with residents describing water and electricity shortages amid street fighting. Gaddafi forces were patrolling the streets in the center, they said, making their lives a misery.

"People are living in terror," resident Taher al-Menseli, 33, said as NTC fighters searched his car at a checkpoint. "Gaddafi supporters are trying to convince people the revolutionaries are criminals and that you have to kill them. Even if you don't believe this, you have to appear convinced."

Nearby, three young men knelt in the sand beside the road, their hands tied behind their backs. NTC fighters said they had found two assault rifles and ammunition in their car.

Gaddafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said NATO air raids had killed 354 people in Sirte on Friday night, an accusation Reuters could not verify without access to the city. A NATO spokesman in Naples said previous such reports had been false.

"We will be able to continue this fight and we have enough arms for months and months to come," Ibrahim said in a call to Reuters via satellite telephone on Saturday.

British warplanes, operating under NATO's U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians, bombed a Gaddafi ammunition dump west of Sirte on Sunday, after destroying an armoured troop carrier and two armoured pickup trucks in the Sirte area the day before, a British military spokesman said.

More NTC fighters were advancing from the east to reinforce those assaulting Sirte. The slow and cautious advance met resistance from pro-Gaddafi fighters who fired Grad rockets and machine guns rounds, sending plumes of smoke into the air.

"We will not retreat. God willing we will reach Sirte either tonight or tomorrow," fighter Ali Hassan al-Jaber said.

Outside Bani Walid, NTC fighters captured a man hailing from neighbouring Chad, accusing him of being a Gaddafi gunman.

Shaking with fear, the man, who gave his name as Mohamed Ezzein, whispered that he had nothing to do with the war.

"I'm just a shepherd. What fighting? What fighting?" he repeated from the back of a pickup truck as anti-Gaddafi fighters pushed him around saying: "Don't lie, don't lie."

(Additional reporting by William MacLean and Joseph Logan in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Herawa, Emma Farge in Benghazi, Barry Malone and Sylvia Westall in Tunis and Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck in Brussels; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Peter Graff and Myra MacDonald)

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Gadhafi loyalists fire rockets from desert bastion (AP)

WADI DINAR, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's loyalists fired at least 10 rockets from inside one of his last strongholds Thursday, hours after the ousted Libyan leader urged his fighters to crush opponents he ridiculed as germs and rats.

Former rebels have massed outside the desert town of Bani Walid for days waiting for orders to take the town, but the rocket fire marked an escalation in the standoff, which could reach a climax when a deadline for surrender negotiations runs out this weekend.

The high cost of bringing down Gadhafi's nearly 42-year-rule over the oil-rich nation, meanwhile, came into sharper relief, as the country's interim health minister announced that at least 30,000 people were killed and 50,000 wounded during the six-month civil war.

Though they overran the capital last month, drove Gadhafi into hiding and run a leadership council that is the closest thing to a Libyan government, the fighters cannot claim victory until the remaining handful of loyalist strongholds are under their control and — most importantly — Gadhafi is captured.

Reporters with the forces chasing remaining Gadhafi loyalists heard at least 10 loud explosions along the desert front line at Bani Walid, a dusty town of 100,000 some 90 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli. The barrage followed a close-quarters gunfight in the same area between a patrol of fighters and several loyalist youths in a civilian car. One of the Gadhafi gunmen was killed.

Smoke billowed from where the rockets landed in Wadi Dinar, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) outside Bani Walid. The former rebels said the projectiles fired were Grad rockets.

Bani Walid has emerged as a focus in the fight against pro-Gadhafi holdouts since officials have said a number of prominent regime loyalists, including Gadhafi's son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, are believed to be inside.

From hiding hours earlier, Gadhafi denied rumors he had fled Libya, vowed never to leave the land of his ancestors and exhorted followers to keep fighting. The message was broadcast on a pro-Gadhafi satellite TV channel based in Syria.

Gadhafi hasn't been seen in public for months. Finding him would help seal the new rulers' hold on the country and likely trigger the collapse of the remaining regime loyalists.

In Thursday's five-minute audio message, aired on Al-Rai TV, a man who sounded like Gadhafi denounced reports that he had fled to neighboring Niger and claimed he was still in Libya. He called those who ousted him "a bunch of mercenaries, thugs and traitors."

"We are ready to start the fight in Tripoli and everywhere else, and rise up against them," he said. "All of these germs, rats ... they are not Libyans, ask anyone. They have cooperated with NATO."

Niger officials have said senior members of Gadhafi's regime led by his own security chief crossed from Libya on Tuesday. Niger said the group of 13 people did not include Gadhafi, and U.S. officials have said they have no reason to believe Gadhafi is not in Libya. But reports of the apparent defection of some of his top aides — and rumors that it involved a large number of senior soldiers who left with money and gold — were believed to have undermined morale among Gadhafi loyalists.

Gadhafi tried to counter what he called a propaganda war, telling followers in the message broadcast Thursday: "They are trying to demoralize you."

"Gadhafi won't leave the land of his ancestors," he said, referring to himself in the third person, a rhetorical habit.

The authenticity of the recording could not be verified but the voice and style strongly resembled those of Gadhafi, who has used the TV channel in the past.

The Iraqi owner of the station, Mishan al-Jabouri, told The Associated Press the Libyan leader called him at 3 a.m., saying he would either "die or win" but he will not leave Libya.

"We have our own means and methods to keep in contact with them," al-Jabouri said of Gadhafi and his sons.

Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and his intelligence chief are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of crimes against humanity for the crackdown on dissent that began in February.

The court has no police force, and its chief prosecutor asked Thursday for Interpol to help in arresting the men by issuing "red notices." The notices allow warrants to be circulated worldwide with a request that the wanted suspect be arrested.

Rebels have sent mixed signals about what they would do with Gadhafi if they caught him, saying they would cooperate with the ICC but holding open the prospect of trying him in a Libyan court.

Libya's interim health minister, Naji Barakat, said Wednesday that at least 30,000 people were killed and 50,000 wounded in the war. The figures, though incomplete, were based on body counts from some areas and estimates from others, Barakat said.

Libya has just over 6 million people, and if the figure provided by Barakat is confirmed, it would be a measure of the high price Libyans paid to oust Gadhafi. It may take several more weeks to get a complete count, Barakat told The Associated Press.

The economic costs have also been high for the oil-exporting nation.

In Tripoli Thursday, the new governor of Libya's central bank told reporters the former regime sold about 20 percent — or 29 tons — of the country's gold reserves to cover salaries during the uprising. Qassim Azzuz also said none of the bank's roughly $115 billion in assets "went missing or were stolen" during the uprising. He said the figures did not include still unknown sums of money accumulated by Gadhafi and his family, which were held outside the local banking sector.

Besides Bani Walid, the former rebels are still battling loyalists in two other Gadhafi strongholds, Gadhafi's Mediterranean hometown of Sirte and Sabha, deep in the southern desert.

___

Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Tripoli, Rami al-Shaheibi in Benghazi, Libya, and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

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Libyans hope to seize Gaddafi bastion (Reuters)

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Libyans say Gaddafi bastion may have given up (Reuters)

TRIPOLI/MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – Libya's provisional government said it was closing in on bastions of support for Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday and planned to resume oil production at key fields within days.

Offering Libyans some hope of an end to conflict and a more prosperous future after 42 years of Gaddafi's personal rule, Ali Tarhouni, the interim oil minister said, during a news conference in Tripoli that he had been told by commanders that the pro-Gaddafi bastion of Bani Walid may have changed sides.

A senior military source in the forces of the National Transitional Council had told Reuters earlier that NTC leaders were close to reaching agreement with tribal leaders in Bani Walid on their imminent peaceful surrender.

Tarhouni reaffirmed assurances by the former rebels that Gaddafi's capture was near -- "we know where he is," he said.

And he announced that oil production would start in about 10 days. "Production will begin in the Sarir and Misla fields on the 12th or 13th of this month," he said.

With only six million people scattered across vast tracts of desert on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, Libyans hope Africa's biggest oil reserves can make them rich.

NTC leaders, many of whom remain in the eastern city of Benghazi where the uprising began in February, say the conflict will only be over when Gaddafi is found, dead or alive.

Last week, a senior NTC commander said he believed the 69-year-old fugitive was around Bani Walid, a tribal stronghold some 150 km (100 miles) southeast of the capital, along with his son Saif al-Islam, long seen as the heir apparent. Both men have made broadcasts this week declaring plans to fight back.

Their spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, speaking from hiding, told Reuters on Friday that Saif al-Islam was in suburbs south of Tripoli. A source with links to Bani Walid said tribal leaders in the town were hoping to negotiate a peaceful entry to the area by NTC forces -- they were seeking assurances that former pro-Gaddafi fighters would not face reprisals.

BANI WALID "UNDER CONTROL"

Tarhouni said on Saturday: "The military council in Tripoli has just informed me a few minutes ago that there's a possibility that Bani Walid will join the revolutionaries and it's under the control of the revolutionaries."

He gave no details. NTC military commanders have said that they have thousands of fighters on hand around Bani Walid in the desert and Gaddafi's home town of Sirte on the coast. But NTC leaders have extended a deadline for surrender by a week to next Saturday, saying they want to avoid further bloodshed.

NTC chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil told a news conference in Benghazi: "We have given one week's notice to Sirte, Bani Walid,

Jufrah and Sabha. This notice does not mean that we are not aware of what Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists are doing.

"We are tracking everything."

Ahmed al-Amal, a unit commander on the front line between Misrata and Sirte, told Reuters: "We are preparing to advance on Sirte ... We're watching the situation in Sirte and Bani Walid closely. There are pockets of resistance everywhere in these areas and also to the south near Sabha.

"Refugees coming out of Sirte have told us there's no food, fuel, water or electricity in the city. Gaddafi families in Sirte are forcing civilians to obey. They are mistreating them. A lot of people are angry and fed up."

Independent accounts from Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha, deep in the Sahara desert, have not been available as communications appear to be largely cut off. On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on all sides to protect civilians and allow the agency to provide aid to Sirte.

NO REVENGE

The new leadership says it is anxious to foster national reconciliation in a country where Gaddafi long exploited tribal, ethnic and regional differences to maintain his grip.

Speaking of the siege of Sirte, Tarhouni said: "My call and that of all my brothers in the committee, is that we have no desire for revenge. And as you have seen from revolutionaries up till now, this revolutionary power is a good power, and does not practice any form of revenge. On the contrary, they have treated groups they know are killers with respect."

"This is my call ... to our brothers in Sirte: take part in this revolution. You will have safety, except for those who have blood on their hands, or those who have stolen public funds or those who have terrorised the Libyan people. Even those people will be treated in a legal way."

In Britain, one of the NTC's Western allies, Foreign Secretary William Hague said the leaders in Tripoli "want to avoid an unnecessary battle and that is why they have been negotiating with the tribes around Sirte."

"We should give the NTC the credit for how they have performed ... over the five months of this conflict, because we have had no widespread or substantiated reporting of them causing serious civilian casualties," he told Sky News.

In Tripoli, life on the streets was getting back to normal after the fighting last month and the past week's Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Traffic was heavy as supplies of fuel improved. Cafes were busy and offices opened for business.

(Reporting by Christian Lowe and Mohammed Abbas in Tripoli, Maria Golovnina and Alex Dziadosz in Misrata, Sherine El Madany in Umm Qundil, Emma Farge in Benghazi, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Barry Malone and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Olesya Dmitracova in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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