Libya Rebels in Zawiyah Threaten Supply Line to Tripoli

The incursion late Saturday into Zawiyah, joined by fighters inside the city, promised to bolster the flagging morale of the rebel movement, which is still reeling from the assassination of a top military leader. A rebel military spokesman reported that the rebels had also taken control of Surman, farther west along the road to Tunisia; that claim could cheap gucci handbags for sale not immediately be confirmed. Clashes were reported near the Ras Ajdir border crossing with Tunisia, the spokesman said, as well as in Gheryan, a city in the Nafusah Mountains that straddles another important route connecting Tripoli with Sabha, a Qaddafi stronghold in the south. In the east, the rebels on Sunday continued their assault on Brega, an oil city where they are trying to force a contingent of Qaddafi fighters out of the city’s manufacturing district. Colonel Qaddafi’s soldiers were said to remain in control of important oil facilities in both eastern and western Libya; the rebels, who have said they are afraid to damage such installations, have had a difficult time dislodging opponents from them. It was not clear whether the rebel gains reported on Sunday resulted from a coordinated attack effort, from NATO bombing or simply from the mounting pressures weighing on Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists, who are increasingly short of fuel, food and ammunition as the international effort to end the conflict has gained momentum. It was also far from certain whether the rebels could hold the ground they gained, something they have often had trouble doing in the past. On Sunday evening, there were reports that Qaddafi snipers were still operating in Zawiyah, 20 miles west of Tripoli. Reuters, quoting cheap Chanel handbags for sale a rebel soldier, said that Qaddafi loyalists were still in control of the city’s oil refinery. NATO reported that on Saturday, its forces struck two tanks in the vicinity of Zawiyah. The rebels who then stormed the city said they faced little resistance, and by Sunday morning, the tricolored rebel flag was flying from a shop near the town’s central market, Reuters reported. Video images broadcast on Al Jazeera showed triumphant rebel fighters rallying in the city beneath a bridge, with artillery shelling audible in the distance. The roads through Zawiyah and Gheryan are the last overland supply routes into Tripoli that are still open. If the rebels gain control of both roads, they may find themselves in the difficult position of managing a siege of a city still filled with civilians. Rebel leaders worked over the weekend to quiet the squabbles that had flared up in their ranks after the killing of Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, who had defected from Colonel Qaddafi’s army in February and become the rebels’ senior military leader. At the front lines in Brega on Friday, there was little sign of the most troubling rift to emerge, the one between the officers in the army that General Younes commanded and the leaders of the volunteer fighters known as the Union of Revolutionary Forces. The rebel authorities have recently allowed reporters to visit the front lines, after months of restricting such visits. In interviews, fighters there spoke of coordinated advances involving special forces soldiers and the civilian volunteers, and they seemed untroubled by the lack of a central leadership figure. They said Miu Miu Handbags » Blog Archive » Modern Table Setting With Black ... they took orders from their brigade commanders and trusted that their leaders were speaking to one another. The rebels near Brega fired rockets from positions in a valley as their tanks, rarely seen in action, fired from the edge of a nearby hill. But at the sound of incoming rocket fire, the rebel fighters panicked, jumped in their trucks and drove away from the front lines.