Reuters/Zawiyah, Libya
Libyan rebels said yesterday they had seized a second strategic town near Tripoli within 24 hours, completing the encirclement of the capital in the boldest advances of their six-month uprising against Muammar Gaddafi.
Libyan rebel fighters celebrate as they drive into the coastal city of Zawiyah yesterday
In a barely audible telephone call to state television overnight, a defiant and apparently isolated Gaddafi called on his followers to fight rebels he referred to as “rats”.
Gaddafi’s forces fired mortars and rockets at the coastal town of Zawiyah a day after rebels captured its centre in a thrust that severed the vital coastal highway from Tripoli to the Tunisian border, a potential turning point in the war.
Rebels said they captured the town of Garyan south of Tripoli yesterday. That could not be immediately verified, but if true it would cut off the other main route to the capital.
“Garyan is fully in the hands of the revolutionaries,” a rebel spokesman, Abdulrahman, said by telephone.
“Gaddafi has been isolated. He has been cut off from the outside world.”
A UN envoy arrived in neighbouring Tunisia, where sources say rebels and representatives of the government have been holed up in an island resort hotel for negotiations.
Talks could signal the endgame of a conflict that has drawn in the Nato alliance and emerged as one of the bloodiest confrontations in the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.
Rebels may still lack the manpower for an all-out assault on Tripoli, but are hoping their encirclement of the capital will bring down Gaddafi’s government or inspire an uprising. In the past, however, they have frequently failed to hold gains, and a fightback by Gaddafi troops could yet break the siege.
Gaddafi’s government denies talks with rebels are taking place. His spokesman dismissed reports of negotiations about the Libyan leader’s future as part of a “media war” against him.
“The leader is here in Libya, fighting for the freedom of our nation. He will not leave Libya,” Moussa Ibrahim said.
A senior Gaddafi security official arrived in Cairo with his family, in what could be a sign of more defections if the government crumbles.
After months of only incremental gains in their struggle against Gaddafi, rebel advances in the last two days have transformed the situation, beginning with the capture of the town of Zawiyah which cut Tripoli’s main lifeline road west.
Reuters reporters in the town say Gaddafi’s forces still hold an oil refinery and have sniper positions on rooftops, but the highway linking Tripoli to the Tunisian border is shut.
Nevertheless, a US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the advance in Zawiyah could not yet be seen as a “game changer”, stressing that the rebels did not have complete control of the town.
At a hospital, medics said six rebels had died and 26 were wounded. They also said firing by Gaddafi forces killed three civilians. One man was shot in the head and a 15-year-old girl died of shrapnel wounds.
Zawiyah has risen up twice in the past only for its revolts to be crushed by Gaddafi loyalists. But this is the first time rebels have linked the town with fighters advancing from the mountains in the south, preventing Gaddafi’s forces from bypassing it to keep the strategically vital coastal road open.
Gaddafi’s green flag still flew at the coastal highway’s border crossing with Tunisia yesterday, but the steady traffic that once supplied Gaddafi-held areas had slowed to a trickle. Passengers said the road was only open for about 70km, a third of the way to Tripoli.
The rebels’ claimed capture of Garyan would close the capital’s other main supply line, a highway south over the mountains and into the desert. That route links Tripoli with Algeria and also can be used to reach the east.
Reuters reporters saw Nato warplanes bombing Garyan on Sunday. Abdulrahman, the rebel spokesman, said fighters at Garyan had crushed a brigade that formed Gaddafi’s main fighting force in the Western mountains and seized its weapons.
Gaddafi’s officials in Tripoli did not respond to a request for an update on the military situation yesterday.
Sources in Tunisia say Gaddafi’s officials have been meeting rebels on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba for talks. Previous attempts at negotiations have been fruitless.
