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| Rebel forces celebrate upon returning to liberated territory following the Nato bombing of Gaddafi forces deep inside Ajdabiyah yesterday |
After heavy clashes, the rebels controlled a stretch of coastal road west of Misrata, Libya’s third city which Gaddafi’s forces have laid siege to for more than two months, forcing thousands to flee.
The Red Cross said meanwhile it delivered a shipment of humanitarian aid to the rebel-held western city amid concerns Gaddafi’s forces may have dropped mines into the harbour from helicopters bearing the Red Cross emblem.
And the International Organisation for Migration said it had growing accounts from refugees arriving in Italy indicating an overloaded boat carrying up to 600 people capsized off the Libyan coast on Friday.
On the battlefront, the rebels forced Gaddafi’s troops about 15km from Misrata yesterday, advancing to Dafnia and ready to move on Zliten, the next major town on the road to Tripoli.
Ahmed Hassan, a rebel spokesman in Misrata, said the insurgents had also “liberated” areas south and east of the city, killing many Gaddafi troops and seizing a large amount of weapons. Eighteen rebels and civilians were wounded.
The report could not be immediately verified.
Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said time was running out for Gaddafi, who would ultimately lose his decades-old grip on power given the “wind of change” sweeping the Arab world, the death of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and mounting pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“The game is over for Gaddafi” who “should realise sooner rather than later that there’s no future for him or his regime,” Rasmussen told CNN late Sunday.
“We have stopped Gaddafi in his tracks. His time is running out. He’s more and more isolated,” the Nato chief said.
Nato said yesterday that in latest sorties its warplanes hit five rocket launchers, one self-propelled artillery piece, one truck-mounted gun and three buildings “hosting active shooters” in the vicinity of Misrata.
It also hit 26 ammunition depots and 16 “vehicle storages” near Hun, eight military vehicles near Brega, two military operational facilities near Tripoli and four ammunition dumps near Zintan.
But the fighting has been heaviest in and around Misrata, a make-or-break city in the Libyan conflict about 200km east of the capital.
A thick plume of smoke spread on Sunday over the city, the main source of supplies to rebels in western Libya, from blazing fuel depots that Gaddafi’s forces bombed a day earlier.
As long queues formed at fuel stations amid fears of shortages, rebels warned Misrata’s residents could run out of food and water within a month if they are not provided with “game-changing” weapons to defeat Gaddafi’s forces.
Because of shelling of the city’s port over the past two weeks, only one aid ship a week is now reaching Misrata, said a spokesman in the eastern rebel bastion of Benghazi.
The latest shipment of aid to land in the port yesterday morning was carrying surgical kits, spare parts to repair water and electrical supply systems, and 8,000 jars of baby food, the Red Cross said in a statement.
The shipment was laid on by the IOM whose spokesman said meanwhile they were getting a growing number of reports that a ship carrying 600 passengers capsized off the coast Tripoli on Friday.