BENGHAZI – Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi were retreating on Saturday after rebels recaptured the key eastern town of Ajdabiya in their first significant victory since the launch of the Western-led airstrikes a week ago. US President Barack Obama said the international mission had saved countless innocents from a “bloodbath” threatened by Gaddafi, and the rebels thanked France for its role in the military blitz but said “outside forces” could now leave the country. However, Russia’s top general called the airstrikes unsuccessful, and said a ground operation would probably be needed to topple the Libyan strongman.
Ajdabiya was “100 percent in the hands of our forces, and we are pursuing Gaddafi’s forces on the road to Brega”, 80 kilometres farther west, a rebel spokesman, Shamsiddin Abdulmollah, told reporters in the stronghold of Benghazi. “Who is on the back foot are Gaddafi’s forces because they no longer have air power and heavy weaponry available” after a week of bombing by coalition warplanes, he said. Another spokesman, Ahmed Khalifa, said the rebels had taken at least 13 Gaddafi fighters who were being treated as prisoners of war.
A rebel fighter later told AFP insurgents retaken Brega also. “We are in the centre of Brega,” Abdelsalam al-Maadani told AFP by telephone. “Gaddafi’s forces are on the retreat and should now be at Al-Bisher west of Brega.” A journalist travelling with them confirmed seeing rebels in control of the centre of the oil town, and told AFP government forces had completely withdrawn. The rebels, backed by the Western barrage, earlier poured into Ajdabiya, where destroyed tanks and military vehicles littered the road, AFP correspondents at the scene reported.
The bodies of at least two pro-Gaddafi fighters were surrounded by onlookers taking photos, while a mosque and many houses bore the scars of heavy shelling as the rebels celebrated, firing into the air and shouting “God is greater.” Outside the town, the bodies of 21 loyalist soldiers had been collected, a medic told AFP. In Libya’s west, where the capital Tripoli and most of Gaddafi’s support is located, the port city of Misrata was in dire need of outside help from coalition jets and humanitarian groups because of attacks by Gaddafi forces, the rebels said.
“Please, do something about Misrata,” one member of the rebellion, Mustafa Gheriani, pleaded. “People there are willing to take casualties. They need intervention,” he said. “Please, they need a floating hospital.” Abdulmollah said he believed a hospital ship organised by non-governmental organisations was en route to Misrata under NATO escort from Malta.
Rebels seize key Libyan towns
