Muammar Gaddafi loyalists attacked an oil refinery on Monday, killing 15 guards, in an apparent attempt to disrupt a drive by Libya’s new rulers to seize the ousted leader’s last bastions and revive the oil-based economy. Witnesses said the assailants damaged the front gate of the refinery, 20 km (13 miles) from the coastal town of Ras Lanuf, but not the plant itself, which is not fully operational. About 60 staff were at the refinery at the time of the attack, according to one of two wounded survivors at a hospital where the dead were also taken. Blood stained the floor. Refinery worker Ramadan Abdel Qader, who had been shot in the foot, told Reuters gunmen in 14 or 15 trucks had come from the direction of the Gaddafi-held coastal city of Sirte. “We heard firing and shelling at around 9 in the morning from Gaddafi loyalists,” he said. Staff had been asleep. The assault occurred only hours after Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) announced that it had resumed some oil production, which had been all but halted since anti-Gaddafi protests turned into civil war in March.
