Sixteen rebel fighters have been killed and another 126 wounded in two days of fierce fighting for control of Zliten, the last coastal city between insurgent-held Misrata and the capital, rebels said on Friday. The news came amid reports that rebels had infiltrated Tripoli and as strongman Moamer Gaddafi again ruled out talks with them — even as they boast gains in the east and in the west — saying theirs is a “lost cause.” And in Madrid, Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero urged the rebel National Transitional Council to start preparing for a “new political era,” in a meeting with senior NTC figure Mahmud Jibril.
“Sixteen of our fighters have fallen as martyrs and 126 more have been wounded in fighting with loyalist troops in Zliten,” said a rebel statement, with clashes said to be particularly heavy in the suburb of Souk al-Thulatha.
The insurgents have been trying for several weeks to take Zliten, 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the capital. An AFP correspondent who was among a group of foreign journalists taken on an escorted tour of Zliten, reported loud explosions on Thursday on the front line just to the east. Columns of smoke were clearly visible from the town, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of rebel-held Misrata. In Zliten’s hospital, journalists were shown around four wards in which a dozen people were receiving treatment for injuries they said they sustained in NATO-led air strikes targeting loyalist positions.
One member of the medical staff, Fraj Jamal, claimed 80 civilians had been wounded in NATO-led strikes on Thursday. The rebels say they have chased the bulk of Gaddafi’s forces from Brega in the east and are poised for advances towards the capital from Misrata and their other western enclave in the Nafusa Mountains, southwest of Tripoli.
The Nafusa campaign is focused on taking Asabah, gateway to the garrison town of Gharyan on the highway north into Tripoli. An AFP correspondent embedded with rebels in Bir Ayad, in the plains below the mountains, said heavy winds on Thursday night and Friday brought exchanges of rocket fire to a halt.
