Gaddafi forces fight back

A defiant Muammar Gaddafi vowed to fight until victory as his forces launched surprise fightbacks on three fronts yesterday, and as Libya’s interim government won recognition from China.

The ferocious counterattacks on a Ras Lanuf oil refinery, near Col Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, and at Bani Walid near Tripoli came as a US official said Niger was ready to detain one of the elusive leader’s sons, Saadi, after he fled over the border.

“It is not possible to give Libya to the colonists again,” and “all that remains for us is the struggle until victory and the defeat of the coup,” Col Gaddafi said in a statement read out on Syria-based Arrai Oruba television.

Nato yesterday vowed no let-up in its bombing campaign against Col Gaddafi’s remaining strongholds, which also include the southern oases of Waddan and Sabha, as long as they pose a threat.

China, which opposed the Nato air strikes which began in late March, became the latest country to recognise the National Transitional Council (NTC) as Libya’s government.

However, forces loyal to the fugitive Gaddafi sprang a surprise deep behind enemy lines yesterday, killing at least 12 NTC soldiers in a raid on the refinery near Ras Lanuf on the central coast.

“So far, we have a figure of 12 dead in the ranks of the revolutionaries” guarding the key plant, military spokesman Mohammed Zawawi said.

“A group (of loyalists) travelling in five vehicles tried to enter the refinery but were unable to,” he said.

The oil infrastructure along the Mediterranean coast between Sidra and Brega was a key battleground of the seven-month uprising against Col Gaddafi, and the front line between the mainly rebel-held east and mainly government-held west went back and forth several times.

But since Tripoli’s fall, NTC forces have advanced dozens of kilometres west towards Sirte, which remains in Col Gaddafi’s hands, and have moved to secure the vital oil infrastructure on which its post-war reconstruction plans depend.

Southeast of Tripoli, civilians poured out of the desert town of Bani Walid after intense fighting on Sunday between Col Gaddafi loyalists in the oasis and encircling new regime troops.

Many more remained trapped inside the town, 180 kilometres from the capital, for want of fuel for their vehicles, those fleeing said.

“Families are scared to death by this war,” said Mohammed Suleiman as he passed through a checkpoint with 10 relatives crammed into the back of his white BMW. West of Sirte, an NTC commander said his forces had met strong resistance as they advanced towards the city on Sunday.

“We advanced yesterday to a place called Checkpoint 50,” 50 kilometres from Sirte, said field commander Umran al-Awaib.

“There was strong resistance – we came under fire from a lot of Grads (rockets).”

Libya’s military said people in central Sirte staged an uprising yesterday in which four people were killed.

Revolutionaries “were rising up today inside Sirte city... there are four martyrs,” the Misurata Military Council said, although the report could not be verified.