Aided by air strikes, Libya's rebels push west Rebel advance westwards quickly reverses recent losses
Sunfay 9:44pm
* Rebels seize oil terminals in east, eye Gaddafi hometown
* Rebels seize oil terminals in east, eye Gaddafi hometown
* Witnesses hear explosions in Sirte, Tripoli
* NATO agrees to implement all aspects of U.N. resolution
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BIN JAWAD, Libya, March 28 (Reuters) - Libya's ramshackle rebel army has pushed west to retake a series of towns from the forces of Muammar Gaddafi who are being pounded by Western air strikes.
Emboldened by the help of the air strikes, the rebels have rapidly reversed military losses in their five-week insurgency and regained control of all the main oil terminals in eastern Libya, as far as the town of Bin Jawad.
Rebels said on Sunday they now had their sights on the coastal town of Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown and an important military base about 150 km (90 miles) further along the coast. A Reuters reporter in Sirte heard four blasts on Sunday night. It was unclear if they were in the town or its outskirts.
The reporter also saw a convoy of 20 military vehicles including truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns leaving Sirte and moving westwards towards Tripoli, along with dozens of civilian cars carrying families and stuffed with personal belongings.
"We want to go to Sirte today. I don't know if it will happen," said 25-year-old rebel fighter Marjai Agouri as he waited with 100 others outside Bin Jawad with three multiple rocket launchers, six anti-aircraft guns and around a dozen pickup trucks mounted with machineguns.
The advance along Libya's Mediterranean coast by a poorly armed and uncoordinated force of volunteer rebels suggested that Western strikes under a U.N. no-fly zone were shifting the battlefield dynamics dramatically, in the east at least.
The rebels are now back in control of the main oil terminals in the east -- Es Sider, Ras Lanuf, Brega, Zueitina and Tobruk -- while Gaddafi appears to be retrenching in the west.
