By Michael Georgy
(Reuters) - Rebels to the west and east of Libya's
increasingly isolated capital fought forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi Wednesday
for control of oil facilities vital to winning the six-month-old civil war.
In Zawiyah, 50 km (30 miles)
west of Tripoli, they assaulted a coastal oil refinery to try to drive the last
Gaddafi forces out and tighten their noose around the capital.
A rebel spokesman said a
pipeline to Tripoli was cut. There was no word on the outcome of their assault
after nightfall.
In Brega, on the eastern
front, rebel forces said they had suffered 18 killed and 33 wounded Tuesday and
Wednesday in their battle to dislodge Gaddafi forces from the oil port and
refinery, where they have been fighting for many days.
Fifteen of the rebels were
killed Tuesday and three on Wednesday, said spokesman Mohammad Zawawi.
Libyan state television showed
video of Gaddafi supporters at the Brega terminal Wednesday chanting the
leader's name.
After 41 years of supreme
power, 69-year-old Gaddafi seems isolated. Rebel forces are closing in from the
west, south and east, cutting off his Tripoli stronghold on the Mediterranean
shore. Gaddafi's whereabouts are not known.
Aided by NATO's
fighter-bombers, assault helicopters and naval blockade, the rebels have
transformed the battle in the last few days after many weeks of stalemate.
Zawiyah controls the western
highway linking Tripoli to Tunisia.
Gaddafi forces were holding the refinery there and harassing rebels in the city
with shelling and sniper fire.
"There are some snipers
inside the refinery facility. We control the gates of the refinery. We will be
launching an operation to try to take control of it shortly," a rebel
fighter, Abdulkarim Kashaba, said earlier Wednesday.
MASS GRAVE
A rebel spokesman from the
opposition-held city of Misrata to the east of Tripoli said rebels had found
the buried bodies of civilians they said had been slaughtered by Gaddafi
forces.
"We discovered a mass
grave containing 150 bodies in Tawargha. These are the corpses of civilians
kidnapped from Misrata by Gaddafi's loyalists," he said. Rebels found a
video "showing kidnappers cutting the throats of people," he said.
The spokesman said rebel
forces were now outside a place called Hisha about 100 km (60 miles) west of
Misrata on the road to Tripoli. "They are now on the coastal road,"
he said.
Zawiyah's refinery is one of
the few sources of fuel for Gaddafi's troops and the people of Tripoli. A rebel
commander said the pipeline linking it to Tripoli was severed Tuesday.
Gaddafi's green flags were
still flying from a refinery building and an electrical pylon in Zawiyah. The
rest of the city now flies the red, black and green flag of the rebels.
Streets were largely deserted
apart from clusters of fighters. Shops were shuttered. Medical workers said
three people were killed and 35 wounded Tuesday, mostly civilians.
If the pipeline to Tripoli is
indeed cut, "that would imply dire consequences for the population in
Tripoli in terms of fuel supplies needed for the city to keep operating,"
said Fernando Calado of the International Organization for Migration.
Calado said there had been a
sharp increase in the past week in the number of foreign nationals asking to be
evacuated. He estimated that more than 300,000 foreigners remain in Tripoli,
including many from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as Libya's neighbors
Chad, Egypt and Tunisia.
"We have received 2,000
requests at this point. The potential caseload is huge. We're exploring the
possibility of land, sea and air evacuations," he told Reuters.
Libya's rebel National
Transitional Council (NTC) denies holding secret talks with Gaddafi to end the
war. But suspicions persist that some form of end-game negotiation may be going
on.
The NTC, however, insists
Gaddafi step down and leave Libya, saying talks ignoring this basic demand
would be "unthinkable."
(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Missy Ryan in Tripoli, Hamid Ould Ahmed in
Algiers; Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Writing by Douglas
Hamilton; editing byAlistair Lyon)
Source : Reuters
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