By Richard Hartley-parkinson
Last updated at 6:32 PM on 1st March 2011
- Protesters in Zawiya foil two Gaddafi attempts to reclaim city
- Gaddafi is 'delusional, disconnected from reality', claims US ambassador
- Opposition set up leadership council in Benghazi as alternative to regime
Rebels in Libya have been celebrating victory after they managed to block an overnight attack by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
Fighters were handed sweets and cold drinks as they celebrated their triumph at Zawiya, the closest city to the capital, Tripoli.
Pro-Gaddafi forces were also repelled as they tried to retake Misrata, the country's third largest city, and Zintan.
Battleground Zawiya: An armed member of the opposition stands guard on a street in the town on Sunday which Gaddafi forces tried to win back
The fighting comes amid international pressure on Gaddafi to stand down and the threat of a no-fly zone being introdcued over the country.
The battle for Zawiya lasted six hours but the rebels maintained control of the city, 30 miles west of Tripoli, with the final one at 3am, local time.
Residents of the town shouted 'Allahu Akbar (God is Great) for our victory,' and carried an air force colonel who had just defected to the rebels' side.
The Zawiya rebels are well armed with tanks, machine guns and anti-aircraft guns in their aresnal.
The pro-Gaddafi fighters hit the city from six directions, but there are no details of casualties yet.
Greens: Pro-Gadhafi security forces stand near a checkpoint on a street in Qasr Banashir, southeast of the capital Tripoli, in Libya, today
Support: A convoy of 18 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid bound for Benghazi, travels past a Libyan army tank and a mural lauding Gaddafi in the Tripoli suburb of Gaser Ben Ghisher today
One witness said: 'We will not give up Zawiya at any price. We know it is significant strategically.
'They will fight to get it, but we will not give up. We managed to defeat them because our spririts are high and their spirits are zero.'
Scouts were put on the rooftops of high-rise buildings across the city in a bid to monitor the movement of the pro-Gaddafi forces and warn of any oncoming attacks.
The regime was also reported to have offered cash to regain control of the city.
Defiant Colonel Gaddafi has been branded 'delusional' after appearing on TV claiming that 'all my people love me'.
Hopes of victory : Cheering protesters celebrate after capturing the city of al-Zawiya, west of Tripoli as Western countries consider military action
Arsenal: The New Libyan Army showed off a frightening array of weapons yesterday, including anti-aircraft guns
Power: Libyan rebels from forces that defected against Gaddafi inspect an anti-aircraft battery outside a military base in Benghazi, eastern Libya, yesterday
The wild-eyed dictator gave interviews to the world's media yesterday in a desperate bid to gain support for his doomed regime.
Shockingly, he laughed off the feared massacres of thousands of protesters who have demanded the under-fire leader step down.
The bizarre view was greeted with condemnation by the international community with a senior US figure branding Gaddafi 'delusional'.
US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said: 'It sounds just frankly delusional, when he can talk and laugh to an American and (an) international journalist while he is slaughtering his own people.
Delusional: Colonel Gaddafi told the BBC's Jeremy Bowen that 'all my people love me' while insisting that there had been no protests in Libya's capital Tripoli
Dictator: Gaddafi hoped that television interviews to foreign journalists would ease the pressure on his regime but he was branded 'delusional'
'It only underscores how unfit he is to lead and how disconnected he is from reality.'
The uprising that began on February 15 has posed the most serious challenge to Gaddafi in his more than four decades in power. His bloody crackdown has left hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead.
But clashes appear to have eased considerably in the past few days after plane loads of foreign journalists arrived in the capital at the government's invitation.
'They love me. All my people are with me, they love me all. They will die to protect me, my people,' he told the BBC's Jeremy Bowen.
He went on to deny that there had been any protests in Tripoli and insisted that other people 'don't understand' the system in Libya.
The two sides are entrenched and the direction the uprising takes next could depend on which can hold out longest.
Gaddafi is dug in in Tripoli and nearby cities, backed by his elite security forces and militiamen who are generally better armed than the military.
His opponents, holding the east and much of the country's oil infrastructure, also control pockets in western Libya near Tripoli. They are backed by mutinous army units, but those forces appear to have limited supplies of ammunition and weapons.
Gaddafi opponents have moved to consolidate their hold in the east, centred on Benghazi - Libya's second largest city, where the uprising began.
Politicians there set up their first leadership council to manage day-to-day affairs, taking a step towards forming what could be an alternative to Gaddafi's regime.
The opposition is backed by numerous units of the military in the east that joined the uprising, and they hold several bases and Benghazi's airport. But so far, the units do not appear to have merged into a unified fighting force.
The developments came as HMS York made its way to Benghazi to rescue stranded British nationals.
More than 150 oil workers were retrieved earlier this week in a daring SAS swoop that was widely hailed as 'magical'.
International pressure to end the crackdown has escalated dramatically in the past few days.
The U.S. moved naval and air forces closer to Libya today and said all options were open, including patrols of the North African nation's skies to protect its citizens from their ruler.
The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which had been had been on pirate-hunting duty off the coast of Somalia, is now steaming to the mouth of the Suez Canal in the Red Sea.
The deadly strike force aboard the nuclear-powered carrier is already within flying distance of Libya but the Enterprise is said to be heading closer to country and its rogue dictator.
Poised: U.S. Navy ships of the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group and the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group sail in formation earlier this month
Mission: The USS Enterprise sails through the Suez Canal in Egypt today as the U.S. was said to be moving warships and aircraft in response to Gaddafi
France said it would fly aid to the opposition-controlled eastern half of the country. The European Union imposed an arms embargo and other sanctions, following the lead of the U.S. and the U.N. The EU was also considering the creation of a no-fly zone over Libya. And the U.S. and Europe were freezing billions in Libya's foreign assets.
'Gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to govern, and it is time for him to go without further violence or delay,' U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday.
'No option is off the table. That of course includes a no-fly zone,' she added.
Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'We do not in any way rule out the use of military assets' to deal with Gaddafi's regime.'
Britain also stepped up its efforts to help to remove the embattled leader with Mr Cameron threatening Colonel Gaddafi with military action last night, promising a no-fly zone and arms shipments to his enemies.
Exhausted: Refugees rest in Ras El Jdir, the Tunisian border crosspoint with Libya, as they look to flee their troubled countries
In a dramatic move that could define his premiership, the Prime Minister even suggested he could send British troops into Libya as a peacekeeping force to stop Gaddafi's henchmen massacring democracy campaigners.
At a National Security Council meeting yesterday morning, he ordered military chiefs to draw up plans for the no-fly zone. If Gaddafi turned his air force on the rebels, RAF war planes would be able to intervene.
Mr Cameron vowed that world leaders need to look again at their relationship with Arab dictators and trade agreements with them.
Mr Cameron's intervention was designed to pile the pressure on Gaddafi to quit – an outcome many had expected already.
Meanwhile, the UN refugee agency said today that the situation on Libya's border with Tunisia is reaching a crisis point after 70,000 to 75,000 people fled from the violence in Libya since February 20.
'Our staff on the Libya-Tunisia border have told us this morning that the situation there is reaching crisis point,' said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
She said 14,000 people fled across the border to Tunisia yesterday, the highest number in a single day so far, and that 10,000 to 15,000 people are expected.
Escape: A Filipino refugee from Libya looks on at a military field hospital run by the Tunisian army at the Ras Jdir border post, near the Tunisian city of Ben Guerdane, today
Desperate: Evacuees who fled the unrest in Libya line up for food at a refugee camp near the Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Ras Jdir today
A Few SAS commandos could deal with the Lunatic very easily - Let them do it.
- Roger, England, 01/3/2011 18:14
Report abuse