#Libya News channels silent but unconfirmed reports say "#Brega has been liberated". Heavy cost in casualties. http://bit.ly/PCOLibya
Fierce fighting occurred around Dafniyah yesterday with 11 Opposition fighters reported killed and 57 injured. However, the end result was that the Opposition have now linked 2 fronts together in the South and West to create a protective arc around Misrata. There was also continued fighting around Brega and below the Nafusa mountain range. But it is becoming increasingly hard for both sides to keep up the momentum in the hot summer sun. As John Simpson reports for the BBC, where temperatures out in the desert below Nafusa reach the upper 40′s C and an AK 47 left out in the sun is too hot to pick up by its metal casing by 10.00am, fighting is often over by midday for both sides by mutual consent.
#LIBYA - Libya rebels report street-to-street fighting in Brega - The battle for the Libyan oil town of Brega... http://fb.me/W8ya3R46
BENGHAZI, Libya: The battle for the Libyan oil town of Brega switched from the desert to intense street-to-street fighting on Sunday, as rebel forces said they punched into a residential area in the town's northeast. Rebel forces said they had re-entered Brega but had not yet managed to wrest control of the town from Gaddafi's troops, who have held it since April. "Some small groups have made it inside, but we do not control the whole (town) yet," said Mohammed Zawi, a spokesman for the rebel forces. Zawi dismissed rumours that Gaddafi troops had abandoned the town altogether. "It is now close fighting," he said, indicating a new phase in the four-day rebel campaign. Until now heavy artillery had set the tenor of the battle, but mortars and rockets now appear to have given way to heavy machine guns -- a more useful weapon for fighting at close quarters. But that did little to stem the bloodshed. Some 13 rebel fighters have now been killed and almost 200 wounded since the battle for Brega began on Thursday.
RT @perfectsliders Maps #libya #tripoli #feb17 Gaddafi's forces are bunkered down inside Brega and have...http://www.gaddaf.com/ouPjvq
But first it seems, the rebels will have to deal with a devil's array of booby traps and dug in loyalists. According to reports, the offensive started when rebel forces approached Brega late Friday, only to find landmines and trenches filled with flammable liquid. Two hundred and fifty mines have been found so far, the AP reported. Gaddafi's troops are most likely shelling from hilltop positions. The fact that you can't tell where the whistling explosions are coming from induces mind-numbing terror especially in the ill-trained. So retreats and then cautious advances along the 50 or so miles of road between Brega and Ajdabiya, a no-man's-land reportedly off limits to journalists, will go on for days and weeks. "We are advancing and we are very close to Brega," said Mustafa al-Sagezli, a member of the rebel's revolutionary military council, adding that Gaddafi's troops had fallen back to positions inside the town, according to the AFP.
