@grafixelguess what
Pro-Gaddafi forces thwart eastern advance on Sirte | Reutersreut.rs/oYw9D8 #Libya
(Reuters) - Libyan fighters closing in on Muammar Gaddafi's birthplace from the east captured a nearby town on Saturday only to have their advance stopped by resistance from loyalist forces.
Fighters backing Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) seized Herawa, a small town 60 km from the ousted leader's coastal hometown of Sirte.
They danced in the streets singing "Gaddafi, we will burn you" and ripped down posters of the fugitive former leader, stamping on his face in the dirt.
The anti-Gaddafi fighters, who had hurtled into Herawa on scores of machine gun-mounted pickup trucks and tanks, said they had taken power easily in the morning.
"We advanced into Herawa after about five days of heavy fighting and NATO bombing," fighter Nouri al-Fanoussi said.
"We managed to save the town very smoothly this morning without any resistance."
But difficulties came as troops started setting up base in a mosque on the edge of the town. Pro-Gaddafi forces in Sirte fired rockets at the domed white building and heavy shelling scattered the fighters.
"Answer me! Answer me!" one pro-NTC fighter sobbed as he cradled the body of his friend, killed by shrapnel wounds to his head.
Ambulances sped between the front line and field hospital where doctors said another pro-NTC soldier had died and around 10 were being treated for gunshot and shrapnel wounds.
The fighters scrapped a plan to advance further into Sirte, to reinforce other interim government forces who had entered the city from the opposite direction. Pro-Gaddafi fighters continued to shower the outskirts of Herawa with rockets and shell fire.
Herawa's civilian population, in the low thousands, was nowhere to be seen as NATO jets roared overhead. It is the last major town to the east of Sirte and pro-NTC fighters have spent weeks inching toward it.
Sirte is one of the last pro-Gaddafi bastions in Libya along with the desert town of Bani Walid and the remote southern outpost of Sabha.
Anti-Gaddafi forces entered Sirte from the west on Friday but also encountered fierce fighting as snipers took aim from rooftops and loyalist forces fired rockets at their advancing convoys.
