- Rebels pictured firing missiles at Gaddafi forces near Bin Jawad
- Opposition forces 60 miles from dictator's home town Sirte
- Western forces bomb 'civilian and military areas' in Tripoli, says Libyan TV
- NATO agrees to take full command of military operations in Libya
Dramatic images today showed the rebel advance up the coast of Libya, as opposition forces closed in on Colonel Gaddafi's hometown.
The rebels have fought their way to within 60 miles of Sirte, where the dictator was born, and were locked in a battle with government forces near the town of Bin Jawad.
Opposition forces firing missiles at government troops as smoke billowed across the battlefield.
They have made a lightning advance west from their stronghold in Benghazi over the past few days, aided by international airstrikes, and have now recovered all the territory lost in a pre-no-fly-zone retreat earlier this month.
Opening fire: rebels fire missiles at pro-Gaddafi forces near the town of Bin Jawad, which was seized in the advance last night
Moving up the coast: More missiles are fired at government forces as the rebels close in on Sirte
Fog of war: A plume of smoke rises across the battlefield as rebels watch the fighting
'Sirte will not be easy to take,' said Gen. Hamdi Hassi, a rebel commander at Bin Jawwad,. 'Now because of NATO strikes on (the government's) heavy weapons, we're almost fighting with the same weapons, only we have Grad rockets now and they don't.'
Libya's rebels have recovered hundreds of miles (kilometers) of flat, uninhabited territory at record speeds after Gadhafi's forces were forced to pull back by international air strikes.
Hassi said there was fighting now just outside the small hamlet of Nafouliya, 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Sirte and scouting parties had found the road ahead to be heavily mined.
He added that the current rebel strategy was to combine military assault with an attempt to win over some of the local tribes loyal to Gadhafi over to their side.
'There's Gadhafi and then there's circles around him of supporters, each circle is slowly peeling off and disappearing,' Hassi said. 'If they rise up it would make our job easier.'
March west: rebels walk past a burning multi-rocket launcher at sunset outside the oil rich town of Ras Lanuf
Success: A Libyan rebel greets a man on a checkpoint leading into Ras Lanouf
Moving on: Rebel fighters fix their mounted anti-aircraft gun near the oil refinery at Ras Lanuf
Witnesses in Sirte reported Monday there had been air strikes the night before and again early in the morning, but the town was quiet, and dozens of fighters loyal to Gadhafi could be seen roaming the streets.
Moving quickly westward, the advance retraced their steps in the first rebel march toward the capital.
But this time, the world's most powerful air forces have eased the way by pounding Gadhafi's military assets for the past week.
Sirte is strategically located about halfway between the rebel-held east and the Gadhafi-controlled west along the Mediterranean coast. It is a center of support for Gadhafi and is expected to be difficult for rebels to take.
West of Sirte is the embattled city of Misrata, the sole place in rebel hands in the country's west. Residents reported fighting between rebels and Gadhafi loyalists who fired from tanks on residential areas.
Advancing: Libyan rebels celebrate on a destroyed tank as they enter the strategic oil town of Ajdabiya after defensive positions previously held by loyalists stood deserted following Western-led air strikes
Topping up: A French Rafale jet takes in fuel in mid-flight while enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya
Rida al-Montasser, of the media committee of Misrata, said that nine young men were killed and 23 others wounded when Gadhafi brigades shelled their position in the northwestern part of the city on Sunday night. He also said that the port was bombed.
The Libyan state news agency also reported that there had been air strikes against the southern town of Sabha, which remains strongly loyal to Gadhafi and is a major transit point for ethnic Tuareg fighters from Mali and Niger fighting for the government.
JANA said the strikes destroyed a number of houses, though past strikes on Sabha, 385 miles (620 kilometers) south of Tripoli, targeted the airport and the flow of foreign fighters reinforcing the regime.
The rebels took back two key oil complexes along the coastal highway and promised to quickly restart Libya's stalled oil exports, prompting a slight drop in the soaring price of crude oil to around $105 a barrel.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he could not offer a timetable for how long the Libya operation could last, as the Obama administration tried to bolster its case for bringing the United States into another war in the Muslim world.
Decimated: A Libyan rebel stands near a wrecked Gaddafi tank near the East gate of Ajdabiya
Celebrations: rebels celebrate in Ajdabiya, left and a rebel walks past the corpse of a soldier from Gaddafi's forces
The U.N. Security Council authorized the operation to protect Libyan civilians after Gadhafi launched attacks against anti-government protesters who demanded that he step down after nearly 42 years in power. The airstrikes have crippled Gadhafi's forces, allowing rebels to advance less than two weeks after they had seemed at the brink of defeat.
The assault on Sirte, where most civilians are believed to support Gadhafi, however, potentially represents an expansion of the international mission to being more directly involved with regime change.
'This is the objective of the coalition now, it is not to protect civilians because now they are directly fighting against the armed forces,' Khaled Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, said in the capital, Tripoli. 'They are trying to push the country to the brink of a civil war.'
Turkey, meanwhile, has confirmed that even as rebel forces advance on Sirte it has been working with the government and the opposition to set up a cease-fire.
'We are one of the very few countries that are speaking to both sides,' Foreign Ministry Spokesman Selcuk Unal said, without confirming whether Turkey had offered to act as mediator.
Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also told reporters his country will take over the running of the airport in Benghazi to facilitate the transport of humanitarian aid to Libya. He did not say when, however.
Tripoli was also hit with air strikes again last night , with at least four explosions and heavy anti-aircraft gunfire reverberating through the capital.
Libyan state TV claimed in a news flash that both 'civilian and military areas' in Tripoli had been hit by the 'crusader, colonialist aggressors'.
Some suspect Gaddafi is withdrawing his forces from the east of the country to stage a last stand in the west. It was reported that government military vehicles were fleeing Sirte as the pro-democracy army threatened to bear down.
Touchdown: A Rafale fighter jet returns from a mission on the flight deck of France's flagship Charles de Gaulle today
The Gaddafi regime on Saturday acknowledged the airstrikes had forced its troops to retreat and accused international forces of choosing sides.
'This is the objective of the coalition now, it is not to protect civilians because now they are directly fighting against the armed forces,' Khaled Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, said in the capital, Tripoli.
'They are trying to push the country to the brink of a civil war.'
Gaddafi himself remained elusive at the weekend, with a government spokesman suggesting he is moving around Libya to keep his location secret. However a video shown on state TV claimed to show a car carrying Gaddafi surrounded by adoring crowds.
A spokesman said: 'He is leading the battle. He is leading the nation forward from anywhere in the country.
'He has many offices, many places around Libya. I assure you he is leading the nation at this very moment and he is in continuous communication with everyone around the country.'
One resident in Misrata said 115 people had been killed in the city in a week and that snipers were still shooting people from rooftops.
Victorious: A Libyan rebel holds a rocket at the east gate of Ajdabiya
On the march: Rebels are seen inside an oil terminal compound after it was retaken by rebels from Muammar Gaddafi's forces in Zueitina, 528 miles east of Tripoli
On their heels like a whippet snapping at a wounded bear
By RICHARD PENDLEBURY
In the end, we simply did not have the petrol to keep up.
Our fuel gave out somewhere near Agheila, with the rebel spearhead still several score miles further west.
By sundown the leading units were reported to have advanced beyond Bin Jawad and within striking distance of Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte.
War casualty: Rebel fighters cover the body of a Libyan found dead in a car on a site bombed by coalition air forces in the town of Ras Lanuf
Even by the standards of this seesaw conflict, the movement of the battlefront this weekend is a remarkable reversal of fortune.
Last week Gaddafi’s armoured forces were in the suburbs of Benghazi. Now the remnants appear to have fled some 250 miles. The rebels are on their heels like a whippet snapping at a badly – possibly fatally – wounded bear.
What a difference Nato airpower has made.
Friday afternoon had seen me standing a few miles east of Ajdabiya, with Gaddafi artillery fire falling a little too close for absolute peace of mind. But over the weekend, after days of attack by coalition air forces, Gaddafi positions in and around the town cracked and broke.
Two weeks ago, we had left Ajdabiya in a hurry as the town was enveloped by Gaddafi’s advance eastwards. A razor, a pair of jeans, a shirt, socks and towel were among my possessions left behind.
So this weekend, with a front-door key still in my pocket and an anxiety to know the fate of the faces and places I had come to know in Ajdabiya, we returned.
The road was busy with trucks carrying food, water and medical supplies, streaming towards the town.
We sped past the shell-battered water tower which on Friday we had been warned not to go beyond because regime artillery spotters were using it as an aiming point.
A roadside café, where we had paused to buy drinks on our way out ahead of the Gaddafi advance, was wrecked. Warehouse buildings behind it bore the impact scars from various calibre munitions. A mosque had several gaping holes in its front wall.
Re-taken: Rebels celebrate in the town of Ras Lanuf. They said they would push on soon towards Gaddafi's stronghold of Sirte
Our first stop was the hospital. At the gate, my hand was grasped by two men who repeated: ‘England, England, Cameron, Cameron, we love you.’ Most of the patients and staff had been evacuated during the fighting.
Corridors which had echoed with the clamour of staff and families when I was last there, were silent. The morgue was full, of course.
Musbah, a trainee doctor from Ajdabiya, told me that more than 80 civilians had been killed while the town was under siege. More than 200 had been wounded, he said.
‘Sometimes the electricity would go off in the middle of an operation because the generator had run out of fuel and the patient would die,’ he said.
‘Another patient died because we ran out of oxygen.’
Three Ukrainian nurses, trapped at the hospital during the battle for the town, begged to use our phone to tell their families they were alive.
An Egyptian gynaecologist asked the same favour. In the past week of siege, battle and deprivation, Dr Khaled Gamal had delivered ten babies, two by caesarean section.
We sat on the hospital lawn as he made his call to Cairo. ‘Yes, I am alive,’ he told his wife, as she wept down the line.
We drove on towards the oil town of Brega. A munitions convoy had been caught in the open; lorries were shattered and burned out, thousands of unfired machinegun rounds were scattered in the desert.
‘Zenger! Zenger!’ was the constant, jeering cry of the rebel fighters who moved among the wreckage of a tyrant’s power.
The word means alleyway or passage. It was used by Gaddafi in a televised rant about how carefully – alleyway by alleyway – he was going to scour Benghazi of its rebels.
Now it was thrown back in his face.
Yesterday we reached the battle-scarred outskirts of Brega. Last time I had been here – March 10 – I was bombed by a Gaddafi jet.
On we drove from Brega into the desert marshlands around Agheila.
Up ahead Ras Lanuf had been retaken, we were told – and Bin Jawad, where more than two weeks ago the rebels suffered their first defeat and from which they were pushed all the way back to Benghazi.
But our fuel was gone. We had not expected to get so far in one day. Who had?
And my flat in Ajdabiya? An inner front door, previously left open, had been locked by the last person to leave. The landlord had fled abroad, I was told.
My socks will have to be liberated some other day.
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