Gadhafi forces put up fight as son flees to Niger

Southeast of Tripoli, civilians poured out of the desert town of Bani Walid after intense fighting on Sunday between Gadhafi loyalists holed up in the sprawling oasis and encircling new regime troops.

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen vowed there would be no let-up in the alliance’s bombing campaign against Gadhafi’s remaining strongholds, which also include his hometown of Sirte and the southern oases of Waddan and Sabha, as long as his forces pose a threat.

The Gadhafi force killed 12 soldiers loyal to the new government in its attack on the oil refinery near Ras Lanuf on Libya’s central coast, National Transitional Council military spokesman Mohammed Zawawi said.

“So far, we have a figure of 12 dead in the ranks of the revolutionaries” guarding the key plant, Zawawi said after the attack deep behind NTC lines.

“A group (of loyalists) travelling in five vehicles tried to enter the refinery but were unable to,” he said.

The oil infrastructure along the Mediterranean coast between Sidra and Brega was a key battleground of the seven-month uprising against Gadhafi and the front line between the mainly rebel-held east and mainly government-held west went back and forth several times. But since the fall of Tripoli, NTC forces have advanced dozens of kilometres west towards Sirte, which remains in the hands of Gadhafi loyalists, and have moved to secure the vital oil infrastructure on which its post-war reconstruction plans depend.

More trapped

As civilians poured out of Bani Walid, many more residents remained trapped inside the town, 180 kilometres from the capital, for want of fuel for their vehicles, those fleeing said.

NTC fighters made little effort to check the identities of those passing through the checkpoints.

“Families are scared to death by this war,” said Mohammed Suleiman as he passed through with 10 relatives crammed into the back of his white BMW.

Ezzedine Ramadan said the ferocity of Sunday’s exchanges had prompted him to leave.
“Gadhafi’s men were firing indiscriminately from the hills and rebels responded,” he said as he  drove through with his family.