Libya rebels battle Gaddafi forces in Brega

Dubai: Warplanes flew over Brega overnight as rebels fought troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi for control of the east Libyan oil town, rebel fighters said.

A Reuters correspondent waiting near the eastern gate of Brega, a sparsely populated settlement spread over more than 25km, heard the thud of explosions and machinegun fire on Sunday morning.

Black smoke rose further west and hundreds of cars carrying volunteer rebel fighters streamed away from the town. Later, half a dozen rockets struck near the gate. Rebels waiting there held their ground.

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"Those planes that circled last night didn't hit anything," said rebel fighter Osama Abdullah, suggesting the absence of air strikes was the result of Nato taking command of the coalition forces from France, the United States and Britain. "[French President Nicolas] Sarkozy is great but Nato is not," said Abdullah.

A Western coalition air strike killed 13 rebels late on Friday near Brega's eastern gate. The rebel leadership called the bombing an unfortunate mistake and said air strikes were still needed against Gaddafi's better-armed units.

A friend of Abdullah who gave his name as Yousuf said: "We need weapons that can fight against the tanks and Grads [rockets] that Gaddafi has".

Comments from volunteer rebel fighters suggested that better trained anti-Gaddafi army units continue to battle government forces towards the centre of Brega, without any clear outcome.

The fighting in Brega has gone on for four days, with the rebels holding ground after beating a chaotic retreat from near Gaddafi's home town of Sirte more than 300 km to the west.

The rebel leadership has sought to break the stalemate by deploying heavier weapons and a firmer line of command. They have also sought to keep the less disciplined and lightly armed volunteers, and journalists, several kilometres east of the front line.

Rebel fighter Khaled Ahmed Mahdi said he heard bombardment overnight from his position some 20 km east of the town centre. "We heard the sound of bombardment and then mortars and bullets," he said. "Some clashes are continuing, but not a lot."

At least one person was killed and several wounded early on Sunday when forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi shelled a building in the rebel-held city of Misrata, a resident told Reuters.

"We have one confirmed dead and we don't know how many wounded. The ambulances are arriving now bringing the wounded," said the resident, who was speaking by telephone from the building now being used as a makeshift hospital.

The shelling hit a building which was previously being used to treat the wounded from the fighting in Misrata, the resident said. Patients and medical staff had been transferred to another location a few days ago.

Misrata, Libya's third-biggest city, is the last big rebel stronghold left in the west of the country. It has been encircled and under attack for weeks.

A doctor in the city told Reuters on Saturday that 160 people, most of them civilians, had been killed in the fighting there in the past seven days. Accounts from Misrata cannot be independently verified because Libyan authorities are not allowing journalists to report freely from the city, which is about 200 km east of Tripoli.

Crisis team

The National Transitional Council of Libya’s revolutionaries formed a crisis team on Saturday to administer parts of the country controlled by them, reports said.

The crisis team headed by Mahmoud Jibril will take its orders from the council, spokesman Hafiz Ghoga told reporters.

Omar Hariri is in charge of the military, with General Abdel Fattah Younes Al Abidi as his chief of staff. Younes will be in charge of staff matters and field operations, Ghoga said.

The rebels’ move to retain control of areas under them comes amid heavy fighting for Brega as Muammar Gaddafi’s forces continued to pound Misrata.

Although there was no immediate confirmation of the claim that Brega had fallen to the rebels, a correspondent saw seven bodies of Gaddafi fighters and pick-up trucks.

A coalition air raid late on Friday killed 13 people, four of them civilians, 15km east of Brega, a rebel official told AFP.

The four civilians included an ambulance driver and three medical students from Benghazi, who were part of a rebel convoy of six vehicles, said Eisa Khamis, liaison officer for the rebels in Ajdabiya.

The strike came as rebel fighters were firing tracer bullets to celebrate their entry into Brega.“It was a mistake [by the rebel fighters],” Khamis added. “The aircraft thought they were coming under attack and fired on the convoy.”

A Nato spokeswoman said the alliance was concerned about civilian deaths. “We are looking into these reports,” said Oana Lungescu. “We are always concerned by reports of civilian casualties.”

Meanwhile, speaking to reporters in Dubai, UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox defended the West’s role in arming Libya, saying it was a “pity” that Gaddafi did not take the opportunity to play a “constructive role”.

“There’s one person standing in the way of peace and reconciliation and that’s Gaddafi. I don’t know why he doesn’t understand. It is merely his own vanity and isolation from reality that are keeping him where he is,” he said.