Rebels yesterday continued to close in on Muammar Gaddafi’s last bastion, his hometown of Sirte, as the fugitive dictator floated an offer for “talks”.
Fighters on their way back from the frontline told The Times that the town of Bin Jawad was firmly in their hands and that they had managed to go further, now consolidating their position some 100 kilometres east of Sirte.
These latest gains come after rebels managed to secure the strategic oil town of Brega which homes a strategic refinery and represents an important outpost in the east from which rebels can coordinate their westward march.
The commander of the company which secured the oil facility, Mustafa Rubaa, told The Times rebels had reached the Red Valley or Wadi-Al-Ahmar to the east of Sirte. “We are trying to have a good position here before we start... continue the fight if the enemy tries to defend or attack,” he said.
The plan, according to a rebel officer, is to consolidate the gains made in the past week or so and then prepare to launch a final assault.
However, Libya’s transitional government, the National Transitional Council (NTC) is hoping to avoid this showdown and has been approaching Sirte’s tribal leaders trying to convince them to lay down their arms.
Asked about the prospects of the diplomacy, rebel commander Rubaa said: “I cannot really comment about this but I hope it’s the diplomacy not the battle (that ends the war). We don’t need more blood, you know.”
The diplomatic response by the military man betrays the lack of success that appears of have characterised these attempts, although the situation might change in the wake of an offer made yesterday by Col Gaddafi for talks on the setting up of a transitional government.
His spokesman Moussa Ibrahim reportedly said the toppled leader’s son Saadi would lead the talks. The rebels say they will not negotiate until he surrenders, while Britain denounced the offer as another example of the dictator’s delusions.
The move, in fact, is likely to be seen as a sign of weakness and possibly push the tribes still loyal to Col Gaddafi to give in.
In the meantime, however, the rebels are in celebratory mood. The ones on the frontline return to hugs and celebratory firing of machine guns from their comrades manning the checkpoints that dot the coastal highway leading to Ras Lanuf and Bin Gawad.
“Oh Malta, Malta,” three young teenage fighters exult as we tell them where we are from. “Malta kwajsa (Malta good).”
They appear confident, buoyed by the gains of the past days and the fall of Col Gaddafi in Tripoli. “Gaddafi finished,” one of them insists, stressing that they will hunt him until he and his sons are either in custody or dead.
Many of these fighters are volunteers who have never held a gun in their life before. A sizeable proportion of them are little more than boys.
The younger ones seem fuelled by adrenaline and the adventure of their quest as well as unprecedented access to weapons, which they fire away uselessly at any excuse for a celebration – even the fact that they have been reached by a team of journalists from Malta. But other volunteers, who have left behind careers or their studies to join the resistance, were motivated by far less exciting reasons.
Salah Al-Jazwy, a 30-something linguistics graduate at Seattle University, said he returned from the US to fight after his older brother Hasan got shot in the first days of the revolution in March 19.
“The first reason to return was to support my country and the second reason was for my family, to support them emotionally. It was a hard experience to lose my brother... so for this reason I came back and started training.”
He hopes to return to his Masters degree and a PHD he had been eyeing after the war is over, and then return to help rebuild Libya. But not before Col Gaddafi is gone, he insists.
Brega has been disputed throughout these months, having been captured and lost by rebels several times before they re-captured it again on Monday, in the wake of the fighters’ spectacular march on Tripoli two Sundays ago.
The council now hopes to convince oil workers to return and help tackle widespread fuel shortages in the country. It is not going to be easy.
The Times’ team in Brega toured the town to find that the residential area has been completely deserted. Hundreds of homes in a neighbourhood built specifically for oil workers in New Brega lie empty. Some of them have been rendered completely unsafe, having suffered direct hits by tanks and heavy artillery during fighting in the past months but also in last week’s battles. A few kilometres away a similar residential complex with hundreds of apartments is in the same state.
The residential areas, in fact, were the scene of the fiercest fighting last week. “We are sorry for the destruction but he (Col Gaddafi) pushed us to have this end,” rebel commander Rubaa said.
Ahmed Tisti, an oil worker who has a house in New Brega, said he was forced to leave by the fighting six months ago and only returned to clear out the house of any belongings.
“No I won’t come back with my family,” he said. “I may come back when the oil company is working again but not with my family.”
It’s hard to blame him. His house was completely ransacked when some 12,000 loyalist troops who invaded Brega at the beginning of the conflict vandalised the homes.
“How can I bring my family here?” he said.