Gaddafi forces retreat but fend off rebels

Libyan government forces pulled back 100 kilometres from rebel-held Benghazi but showed they still had plenty of fight yesterday as they easily beat off a rebel advance.

The forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi had retreated overnight to the key town of Ajdabiya, south of the city of Benghazi, after Western-led air strikes destroyed much of their armour, leaving dozens of wrecked tanks along the road.

But as rebels who massed in their hundreds outside Ajdabiya advanced towards their position, the government troops opened fire with artillery and remaining tanks, scattering the insurgent forces.

The rebels began advancing south from their position about five to 10 kilometres from Ajdabiya after hearing the sound of aircraft overhead.

“These are Sarkozy’s planes,” they shouted, referring to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who led an effort to convince the inter­national community to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.

The rebels then pushed forward with Katyusha rockets and 12.7 mm machine guns mounted on trucks, racing south on the desert road towards Ajdabiya,

But they quickly came under fire, with dozens of artillery rounds forcing the convoy of vehicles to screech to a halt, before swiftly retreating north.

As the cars sped away, shells slammed into dunes along the right side of the road, sending plumes of sand into the air and clouding the view of drivers desperately trying to navigate their way out of the battle.

An AFP photographer saw at least two people who appeared to be dead, and another three with serious injuries who were being loaded into trucks by rebel fighters. Several vehicles, including an ambulance, were damaged by the attack.

Col Gaddafi’s forces captured Ajdabiya last week on their drive eastward against the month-old uprising and launched a fierce attack on Benghazi.

But they were halted when French aircraft launched air strikes soon after UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorised all necessary measures to prevent harm to civilians.

“He’s putting heavy tanks inside Ajdabiya,” said one fighter, Salman Maghrabi. “It’s full of civilians so we can’t attack them.”

The rebels have welcomed the foreign air strikes, pledging they would be able to push Col Gaddafi’s forces back if a no-fly zone were imposed.

But the lightly armed insurgent force arrayed near Ajdabiya yesterday displayed no apparent offensive or defensive capacity.

Captured government tanks and other heavy weaponry which the rebels had paraded in Benghazi on Sunday were nowhere in sight, and the fighters themselves seemed poorly equipped for battle.

One man was wearing plastic slippers over his socks, another resting in the sand dunes before the advance had a crutch, and a third was wearing a broad sand-coloured helmet of the type most often associated with World War I.

Naim Ibrahim Abdul Qader, a philosophy student at Benghazi’s Qar Yunis university, was among the fighters attempting to advance on Ajdabiya.

He wept as he described his reluctance to fight.

“He’s worn us out, this dog,” he said of Col Gaddafi. “We don’t want a war, he brought it on us... I’ve never used a weapon before, not even a knife.”

In Al-Wayfiya, 35 kilometres south of Benghazi, the aftermath of coalition air strikes on Sunday and Saturday – burned out trucks, scorched tanks and craters in the ground – became an attraction for curious residents.

They clambered on top of the metal skeletons of the vehicles, taking pictures and expressing delight at international intervention.

“This is what we need... these were going to kill people,” said Ali Mohammed, a Benghazi resident, gesturing towards the field full of destroyed tanks.