Brega, Libya:
Forces loyal to Col. Moammar el-Gaddafi advanced rapidly on Wednesday, seizing towns they ceded just days ago after intense allied airstrikes and hounding rebel fighters into a chaotic retreat.
Having abandoned Bin Jawwad on Tuesday and the oil town of Ras Lanuf on Wednesday, the rebels continued their eastward retreat, fleeing before the loyalists' shelling and missile attacks from another oil town, Brega, and falling back toward the strategically located city of Ajdabiya. On Wednesday afternoon, residents of Ajdabiya were seen fleeing along the road north to Benghazi, the rebel capital and stronghold that Colonel Gaddafi's forces reached before the allied air campaign got underway nearly two weeks ago.
There were few signs of the punishing airstrikes that reversed the loyalists' first push eastward into rebel-held territory. But military experts said they expected the counterattack to expose Colonel Gaddafi's forces to renewed attacks, and an American military spokesman said that coalition warplanes resumed bombing the pro-Gaddafi units on Wednesday, without specifying either the timing or locations.
"The operation is continuing and will continue throughout the transition" to NATO command, said Capt. Clint Gebke. There were 102 airstrikes over a 24-hour period ending at 12 a.m. Eastern time, according to the United States Africa Command.
But the airstrikes, such as they were, did little to reverse the momentum of the battle. On the approaches to Brega, hundreds of cars and small trucks heading east clogged the highway as rebel forces pulled back toward Ajdabiya, recaptured from loyalist troops only days ago. Some rebels said Colonel Gaddafi's forces, pushing eastward from Ras Lanuf, were within 10 miles of Brega.
The retreating force seemed rudderless, a sea of vehicles and fighters armed with rudimentary weapons that have proved no match for Colonel Gaddafi's better trained and better armed forces, which have intimidated the rebels with long-range shelling.
As rebels clustered at a gas station and small mosque between Brega and Ajdabiya, a single artillery shell or rocket exploded several hundred yards away, causing the rebels, who were chanting "God is great" and waving assault rifles, to jump into their vehicles and speed eastward.
A rebel military spokesman, speaking of the losses of the last two days, conceded that at Bin Jawwad and Ras Lanuf, rebel fighters had "dissolved like snow in the sand," though he framed the retreat as a "tactical withdrawal."
The spokesman, Col. Ahmad Omar Bani, said that the rebels were still fighting government loyalists on the east and west side of Brega, and vowed that "Ajdabiya will not fall."
The colonel also said that as many as 3,600 Chadian soldiers -- members of Chad's Republican Guard -- were now fighting with the Gaddafi loyalists. He did not provide any evidence for that claim, except to say that it came from three sources.
He acknowledged that the rebels had no answer to the heavy artillery beating his fighters back, unless foreign governments provided some parity in arms. "The truth is the truth," Colonel Bani said. "Even if leaves a bad taste in your mouth."
Colonel Bani dismissed concerns voiced recently in Washington that members of Al Qaeda were fighting with the Libyan rebels. Even if the group's members were present, he said, "They are Libyans fighting for the liberation of their country. Their associations are non-existent here."
The question of an Al Qaeda or extremist presence among the rebel forces has become entangled with the issue of whether the West should arm the rebels. On Tuesday, the military commander of NATO, Adm. James G. Stavridis, created a stir when he told a Senate hearing in Washington that intelligence reports contained "flickers" of evidence of fighters from Al Qaeda and the radical Shiite group Hezbollah among the rebel ranks.
The loyalist forces' offensive is the second major shift in battlefield fortunes in recent days. Last week along the same highway, allied airstrikes pounded loyalist forces, enabling the rebels to undertake a lightning advance that carried them toward the Libyan leader's hometown of Surt -- a symbolic and strategically important objective on the long, coastal highway leading to Tripoli. But the advance stalled when pro-Gaddafi forces counterattacked, apparently, seemingly in response to President Obama's speech Monday night.
The allies began the air campaign after the United Nations Security Council authorized military intervention on March 16 to protect civilians -- a decision that Western leaders say spared the rebels looming defeat as pro-Gaddafi forces closed on Benghazi. Military analysts said that even after days of airstrikes, loyalist forces have enough resources to defend Colonel Gaddafi's urban strongholds, like the coastal city of Surt where the dense civilian population precludes air attacks.
Henry Boyd, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said that the Gaddafi forces consist of only two trusted militias led by two of his sons, and numbering about 10,000 men, many of them drawn from the Warfalla, Margaha and Qaddafa tribes that form the backbone of Colonel Gaddafi's support.
Mr. Boyd said that while Colonel Qaddafi's equipment advantage had been "significantly degraded" by the allied airstrikes, his troops still had hundreds of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well as scores of heavy weapons like mortars, long-range artillery and missile launchers.
That compares with a rebel force variously estimated at 1,000 and armed with rifles and some antiaircraft guns and light missile launchers mounted in the beds of pickup trucks.
But as they extend their lines east along the coast toward the rebel redoubts, Colonel Qaddafi's forces risk opening themselves to renewed allied strikes from above. Indeed, military experts said, Western planners may be hoping that loyalist forces will find themselves caught in a vice, with Colonel Qaddafi pushing them forward and the airstrikes forcing them back, until they abandon him.
In Beijing, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, criticized France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was in China for a meeting of finance officials, saying the Western air campaign he championed risked killing even more civilians than the attacks it was meant to stop.
"If the military action brings disaster to innocent civilians, resulting in an even greater humanitarian crisis, then that is contrary to the original intention of the Security Council resolution," Mr. Hu is said to have told Mr. Sarkozy, state news media reported.
A new element also entered the military campaign on Wednesday when a prominent human rights watchdog urged Colonel Qaddafi's forces to abandon the alleged use of landmines, outlawed in many parts of the world.
In a statement from Benghazi on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch, based in New York, said Colonel Qaddafi's forces have laid both antipersonnel and anti-vehicle mines.
"Libya should immediately stop using antipersonnel mines, which most of the world banned years ago," said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.
"Qaddafi's forces should ensure that mines of every type that already have been laid are cleared as soon as possible to avoid civilian casualties."
The statement said two dozen anti-vehicle mines and three dozen antipersonnel mines had been found in the coastal town of Ajdabiya, now in rebel hands, after government forces held it from March 17 to March 27. Authorities in Tripoli had no immediate comment on the statement.
Having abandoned Bin Jawwad on Tuesday and the oil town of Ras Lanuf on Wednesday, the rebels continued their eastward retreat, fleeing before the loyalists' shelling and missile attacks from another oil town, Brega, and falling back toward the strategically located city of Ajdabiya. On Wednesday afternoon, residents of Ajdabiya were seen fleeing along the road north to Benghazi, the rebel capital and stronghold that Colonel Gaddafi's forces reached before the allied air campaign got underway nearly two weeks ago.
There were few signs of the punishing airstrikes that reversed the loyalists' first push eastward into rebel-held territory. But military experts said they expected the counterattack to expose Colonel Gaddafi's forces to renewed attacks, and an American military spokesman said that coalition warplanes resumed bombing the pro-Gaddafi units on Wednesday, without specifying either the timing or locations.
"The operation is continuing and will continue throughout the transition" to NATO command, said Capt. Clint Gebke. There were 102 airstrikes over a 24-hour period ending at 12 a.m. Eastern time, according to the United States Africa Command.
But the airstrikes, such as they were, did little to reverse the momentum of the battle. On the approaches to Brega, hundreds of cars and small trucks heading east clogged the highway as rebel forces pulled back toward Ajdabiya, recaptured from loyalist troops only days ago. Some rebels said Colonel Gaddafi's forces, pushing eastward from Ras Lanuf, were within 10 miles of Brega.
The retreating force seemed rudderless, a sea of vehicles and fighters armed with rudimentary weapons that have proved no match for Colonel Gaddafi's better trained and better armed forces, which have intimidated the rebels with long-range shelling.
As rebels clustered at a gas station and small mosque between Brega and Ajdabiya, a single artillery shell or rocket exploded several hundred yards away, causing the rebels, who were chanting "God is great" and waving assault rifles, to jump into their vehicles and speed eastward.
A rebel military spokesman, speaking of the losses of the last two days, conceded that at Bin Jawwad and Ras Lanuf, rebel fighters had "dissolved like snow in the sand," though he framed the retreat as a "tactical withdrawal."
The spokesman, Col. Ahmad Omar Bani, said that the rebels were still fighting government loyalists on the east and west side of Brega, and vowed that "Ajdabiya will not fall."
The colonel also said that as many as 3,600 Chadian soldiers -- members of Chad's Republican Guard -- were now fighting with the Gaddafi loyalists. He did not provide any evidence for that claim, except to say that it came from three sources.
He acknowledged that the rebels had no answer to the heavy artillery beating his fighters back, unless foreign governments provided some parity in arms. "The truth is the truth," Colonel Bani said. "Even if leaves a bad taste in your mouth."
Colonel Bani dismissed concerns voiced recently in Washington that members of Al Qaeda were fighting with the Libyan rebels. Even if the group's members were present, he said, "They are Libyans fighting for the liberation of their country. Their associations are non-existent here."
The question of an Al Qaeda or extremist presence among the rebel forces has become entangled with the issue of whether the West should arm the rebels. On Tuesday, the military commander of NATO, Adm. James G. Stavridis, created a stir when he told a Senate hearing in Washington that intelligence reports contained "flickers" of evidence of fighters from Al Qaeda and the radical Shiite group Hezbollah among the rebel ranks.
The loyalist forces' offensive is the second major shift in battlefield fortunes in recent days. Last week along the same highway, allied airstrikes pounded loyalist forces, enabling the rebels to undertake a lightning advance that carried them toward the Libyan leader's hometown of Surt -- a symbolic and strategically important objective on the long, coastal highway leading to Tripoli. But the advance stalled when pro-Gaddafi forces counterattacked, apparently, seemingly in response to President Obama's speech Monday night.
The allies began the air campaign after the United Nations Security Council authorized military intervention on March 16 to protect civilians -- a decision that Western leaders say spared the rebels looming defeat as pro-Gaddafi forces closed on Benghazi. Military analysts said that even after days of airstrikes, loyalist forces have enough resources to defend Colonel Gaddafi's urban strongholds, like the coastal city of Surt where the dense civilian population precludes air attacks.
Henry Boyd, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said that the Gaddafi forces consist of only two trusted militias led by two of his sons, and numbering about 10,000 men, many of them drawn from the Warfalla, Margaha and Qaddafa tribes that form the backbone of Colonel Gaddafi's support.
Mr. Boyd said that while Colonel Qaddafi's equipment advantage had been "significantly degraded" by the allied airstrikes, his troops still had hundreds of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well as scores of heavy weapons like mortars, long-range artillery and missile launchers.
That compares with a rebel force variously estimated at 1,000 and armed with rifles and some antiaircraft guns and light missile launchers mounted in the beds of pickup trucks.
But as they extend their lines east along the coast toward the rebel redoubts, Colonel Qaddafi's forces risk opening themselves to renewed allied strikes from above. Indeed, military experts said, Western planners may be hoping that loyalist forces will find themselves caught in a vice, with Colonel Qaddafi pushing them forward and the airstrikes forcing them back, until they abandon him.
In Beijing, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, criticized France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was in China for a meeting of finance officials, saying the Western air campaign he championed risked killing even more civilians than the attacks it was meant to stop.
"If the military action brings disaster to innocent civilians, resulting in an even greater humanitarian crisis, then that is contrary to the original intention of the Security Council resolution," Mr. Hu is said to have told Mr. Sarkozy, state news media reported.
A new element also entered the military campaign on Wednesday when a prominent human rights watchdog urged Colonel Qaddafi's forces to abandon the alleged use of landmines, outlawed in many parts of the world.
In a statement from Benghazi on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch, based in New York, said Colonel Qaddafi's forces have laid both antipersonnel and anti-vehicle mines.
"Libya should immediately stop using antipersonnel mines, which most of the world banned years ago," said Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.
"Qaddafi's forces should ensure that mines of every type that already have been laid are cleared as soon as possible to avoid civilian casualties."
The statement said two dozen anti-vehicle mines and three dozen antipersonnel mines had been found in the coastal town of Ajdabiya, now in rebel hands, after government forces held it from March 17 to March 27. Authorities in Tripoli had no immediate comment on the statement.
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