TRIPOLI—Rebels and forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi reportedly were battling in a strategic port and refinery city in western Libya on Saturday, apparently forcing the closure of a crucial highway linking Tripoli with the Tunisian border. The battles reported in Zawiya, just 30 miles west of Tripoli, represent the most sustained fighting close to the capital in several months.
The renewed unrest marks the latest blow for a regime already holding off rebel forces on several fronts and suffering daily bombing raids from a Nato-led
alliance that includes the United States. New explosions rocked the capital on Saturday, the latest in an intensified series of raids on Tripoli.
Rebels had gained control of swaths of Zawiya and were engaged in a fierce battle with government troops, said Shamsiddin Abdulmolah, a rebel spokesman in Benghazi, the opposition stronghold in eastern Libya.
The government downplayed the fighting. Spokesman Musa Ibrahim said the rebel fighters consisted of perhaps 25 guerrillas who never entered Zawiya proper, only reaching its outskirts. Some were killed and the rest were now trapped, he said late on Saturday.
But the guerrillas’ ability to cut off the coastal highway would appear to pose a new strategic challenge for Qaddafi’s government.
Zawiya is one of a number of cities, including Tripoli, where protests against Qaddafi’s long-time rule turned violent almost four months ago.
In March regime forces crushed the rebellion in Zawiya in some of the fiercest fighting seen during the Libyan unrest. In recent weeks, officials have been declaring Zawiya firmly under regime control.
However, a government bus carrying a group of departing Western journalists to the Tunisian border on Saturday was diverted from the main coastal road away from Zawiya, apparently because of the fighting.
The coastal highway through Zawiya is a key artery, and it has assumed even greater importance since Nato maritime patrols have discouraged many container ships from delivering cargo to Libya.
Elsewhere in Libya, government forces were holding off rebel fighters in the city of Misrata, about 120 miles east of Tripoli. Rebels there have been trying to push west toward the capital but have met fierce government resistance in the rural enclave of Dafniya. According to Abdulmolah, the rebel spokesman, 35 rebels have been killed and 120 injured in recent days during fierce battles near Dafniya.
A Nato spokesman, Wing Commander Mike Bracken, confirmed on Friday that rebels had secured control of much of the Berber highland zone southwest of Tripoli, including the cities of Zintan and Yafran, the latter less than 50 miles from the capital.
Rebels already control much of eastern Libya, while Qaddafi holds sway in much of the west. Rebels and their Western allies have called on Qaddafi to relinquish power after more than four decades in office. He has refused and vowed to fight to the death.
(Los Angeles Times)
