Libya crisis: Brega falls to Gaddafi's forces
13Mar - Updated Map
Forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi continued their march towards the opposition stronghold of Benghazi in eastern Libya on Sunday, seizing another key oil town along the Mediterranean coast.
Witnesses said a ragtag army of rebel fighters withdrew in disarray from Brega under heavy aerial bombardment.
The past week has seen a string of rebel towns recaptured by government forces equipped with tanks and supported by warplanes.
The loss of Brega is a major setback for the opposition, who last week held a swath of eastern Libya but now fear a rapid assault on Benghazi,Libya’s second city, and the prospect of a long, drawn-out guerrilla war.
“There’s no uprising any more,” said Nabeel Tijouri, whose heavy-machinegun had been destroyed in the fighting. “The other day we were in Ras Lanuf, then Brega, the day after tomorrow they will be in Benghazi.”
Retreating fighters, mostly young volunteers, leapt into pickups mounted with anti-aircraft guns before racing along the coastal road towards Ajdabiya, a little more than 50 miles away, the gateway to the main rebel cities of Benghazi and Tobruk. Others travelled in saloon cars or even taxis.
Libyan state television later declared Brega “purged of the armed gangs”.
The flat empty terrain has left the rebels desperately exposed to the Libyan regime’s superior firepower as they try to defend a series of checkpoints on a straight desert road.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the provisional rebel government in Benghazi, said military units had been kept back from the front line to defend the city.
However, he said the opposition was outgunned and would remain vulnerable without a no-fly zone and air strikes targeting Colonel Gaddafi’s network of palace and command centres.
“We must recognise that it’s not fighting between two official armies: it’s fighting between Gaddafi’s armies who are well-equipped and the revolutionaries who got some of Gaddafi’s forces after they withdrew from some cities ... and there’s no balance in power or equipment,” he said.
The government advance comes as Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, prepared to meet Libyan opposition leaders in Paris on Monday.
On Sunday morning, mobile phone networks in Benghazi went down spreading panic that an attack was imminent.
“If they come then we will all be slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands will die,” said one resident of the city, who asked not to be named.
Residents are buying weapons to defend their homes and families, sending the black-market price of an AK-47 rifle spiralling from a couple of hundred dollars to as much as $2000.
The killing of an Al Jazeera cameraman on Saturday night has raised fears that Gaddafi supporters in Benghazi are capable of attacking people they believe to be in league with the rebels.
The result is a city living in fear. Restaurants and many shops are shuttered. Families are staying up all night to protect their homes.
And the sound of anti-aircraft guns being tested echoes through the streets.
For now though, the fighters and their leaders insist they will not give up.
“We don’t care how long it takes, five years or 10 years. The gate has been opened,” said Bashir Warshfani, 30, a rebel in Brega before it fell.
“If I die, my brother takes my place, if he dies, my neighbour.
“Gaddafi will only get this country when he kills us all.”
