Reply #39: Libya rebels flee eastward by the hundreds

[pinboy3niner]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Libya rebels flee eastward by the hundreds


Kadafi's forces appear poised to take Port Brega after pushing the opposition fighters out of Ras Lanuf, another oil refinery city.


By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times

March 31, 2011



Reporting from Port Brega, Libya— Dispirited rebel fighters continued their headlong retreat across eastern Libya on Wednesday, surrendering a strategic oil city they captured just three days earlier and fleeing eastward by the hundreds.

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi appeared poised late in the day to seize a second oil refinery city, Port Brega, as rebels in gun trucks near the city turned and fled at the sound of exploding rockets and artillery. Kadafi's men had pushed rebels out of Ras Lanuf, site of a petrochemical complex and port, on Wednesday morning.

Escaping rebels poured through the western gate of the crucial crossroads city of Ajdabiya, where allied airstrikes Saturday ended a 10-day government siege. Some rebels vowed to make a bloody stand in the nearly deserted city, but others fled in panic.

...


The rebel effort is plagued by confusion and dissension. Clusters of volunteer fighters bickered over tactics and weapons Wednesday, with many refusing to take orders from defecting army regulars nominally in command. Others demanded to know why allied warplanes were not attacking their enemy, and why tanks and rocket batteries captured from Kadafi's men were not being used.

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It was unclear how far Kadafi would push his forces and expose his men and weapons to allied warplanes in the flat, open desert between Port Brega and Ajdabiya.