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fought their way into the centre of Zawiyah on the western front while rebels stabilised their front lines in the Gulf of Sirte and may have started moving forward again.
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi regained control of the centre of Zawiyah yesterday, after using tanks and snipers to drive rebels out of their stronghold in the western city’s main squa-re, residents said.
Libyan state television also showed footage of Gaddafi supporters waving flags who it said were moving towards the centre of Zawiyah, which had been the closest rebel-held city to the capital Tripoli.
A fighter told Reuters pro-Gaddafi forces had entered the main square as rebels pulled back.
A local doctor confirmed the report and said the death toll in the day’s fighting was at least 40 and probably many more.
“We have pulled back and they are inside the square but we will attack them again and have it back,” the fighter said by telephone. “We will do that tonight (yesterday). This is not the end.”
The doctor said there were many dead in the streets, including old people, women and children.
But in the east, fighting continued between the towns of Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad at the bottom of the Gulf of Sirte.
Rebels said they had advanced back into the hard fought over town of Bin Jawad in east Libya, but faced air strikes and heavy bombardment from Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.
Earlier in the day there had been a retreat back to Ras Lanuf as professional soldiers take command of the rebel troops and enforce greater tactical discipline and flexibility.
The rebel movement in its Benghazi headquarters had earlier announced via loudspeakers to a cheering crowd that rebel fighters had retaken Bin Jawad, a town near the front line that lies about 525 km east of Tripoli.
But a rebel official in Benghazi and fighters suggested the fate of the town was not yet clear.
“The revolutionary forces have entered Bin Jawad and are now being subjected to heavy artillery and air attack,” the spokesman for the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council, Hafiz Ghoga, told a news conference.
Near the frontline, rebel fighter Alamin Mashesh told Reuters: “I was just in Bin Jawad. We took it and now we are in control . . . We just burned five tanks with missiles and rocket propelled grenades.”
Earlier Libyan rebels broken by government shelling and air strikes fled back to the oil town of Ras Lanuf yesterday, just as a huge pipeline blast sent fireballs leaping into the sky.
A series of powerful explosions went off near an oil facility while loyalists of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi were raining artillery shells on rebel positions 5km west of the town, AFP reporters said.
A constant inferno of fierce flames could be seen at the foot of the cloud of black smoke near the As Sidra facility and every few minutes another ball of flames shot up into the sky.
“I know for sure that what they blew up was an oil pipe.
“I know the whole line by heart,” said Ali al-Aguri, an oil company mechanic who works at another plant further away.
AFP reporters earlier saw warplanes carrying out air strikes and at least 20 shells falling near a rebel checkpoint west of Ras Lanuf.
Rebels retaliated by firing some 40 Katyusha rockets from launchers mounted on two trucks as well as two anti-aircraft missiles.
One missile struck a telephone relay antenna some two kilometres away, while huge clouds of black smoke could be seen about 10 kilometres further west, suggesting they had hit a more distant target.
Both sides had started yesterday dug into defensive positions between Ras Lanuf and government-held Bin Jawad.
Rebel colonel Masud Mohammed told reporters that government warplanes carried out four air strikes near Bin Jawad and conceded “heavy shelling” had already pushed back the rebels on Tuesday.
At the rebels’ last checkpoint a letter from Muslim scholars was read aloud through a megaphone, urging the fighters to be disciplined. – Reuters-Xinhua-AFP.