JOIN USA Reuters team in Dafniya, the outskirts of the rebels’ western bastion of Misrata, described rebels firing artillery and rocket launchers with a range of about 20 km. Rebels said they were aiming for tanks and munitions in Naimah near Zlitan.
“We had a strategy to finish everything today but some of the fighters think it’s a game,” a rebel unit commander called Mohammed Ali said. “They shot when they weren’t supposed to shoot and they have ruined it,” he said after rebels took cover at the main Dafniya front from heavy mortar barrage. Warplanes could also be heard in the skies above.
Zlitan, just 160 km from Tripoli, is the next major town on the Mediterranean coast road to the capital. Capturing it would be a major victory.
The exchanges were the heaviest in the area since last week when 31 rebels were killed.
At the field hospital in Dafniyah ambulances arrived with at least 5 seriously wounded rebel fighters, most with shrapnel wounds.