Libyan rebel fighters pushed further west Friday, driving in haphazard armed convoys as they sought to advance their struggle against loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi.
Libyan rebel fighters pushed further west Friday, driving in haphazard
armed convoys as they sought to advance their struggle against loyalists of
Moammar Gadhafi.
Dozens of armed opposition forces could be seen heading along the main coastal
road out of Uqayla, a desert hamlet about 280 kilometers from the main rebel
headquarters in
Benghazi
,
Libya
's second
city.
An AFP reporter 20 kilometers west of Uqayla saw 60 to 70 well-armed rebels
speeding along the highway after praying on the roadside, shouting that they
were going to Raslanuf, where pro-Gadhafi forces are entrenched on high ground.
"The plan is to edge slowly, slowly towards them to pressure them to back
off. We don't want to fight, we want to pressure them psychologically,"
Colonel Bashir Abdulkadir said.
"But if we have to kill them to win this battle, we will," he said.
The rebel commander acknowledged his fighters weren't organized. "We are a
popular revolt," he said by way of explanation. Asked how he could hope to
win without being organized, he replied: "God will give us victory."
A doctor who led about 30 rebels in prayer Friday, the Muslim day of rest, said
in his sermon: "We must be organized. You're very disorganized, like in
prayer when we stand row by row."
"We didn't come here for killing. We came here to say no to tyranny,"
he said.
Further east, Captain Shoaib al-Akaki, another defector from the military,
expressed concern about internecine fighting.
"We're trying to minimise losses on both sides. You know in
Libya
,
we're all relatives. We're a country of tribes. We all have relatives in
Sirte," he said, referring to the coastal town between
Benghazi
and
Tripoli
where
Gadhafi was born.
He said that about 20 cars and trucks filled with relief supplies had been sent
back from Uqayla east to Brega, where rebels were killed and wounded in a
counter-offensive by Gadhafi's forces Wednesday.
A patchwork coalition of rebels controls eastern
Libya
and
some towns in the west following a revolt that started Feb. 15, but Gadhafi
retains control in the capital
Tripoli
.
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