[ 2011-10-16 ]

Kadhafi fighters mount fierce fightback in Sirte
SIRTE, Libya (AFP) - Moamer Kadhafi loyalists
mounted a fierce counter-attack in the city of
Sirte on Saturday, forcing back new regime
fighters under a barrage of rockets and shelling,
an AFP reporter said.

Fighters of the National Transitional Council
(NTC) fled helter-skelter two kilometres (just
over a mile) to the captured police headquarters
in the Mediterranean city, one of Kadhafi's last
holdouts.

"Run, run, run!" rang out from the retreating
forces.

After absorbing rocket fire and shells from NTC
fighters in the morning and early afternoon,
Kadhafi diehards now concentrated in two
neighbourhoods -- the Dollar and Number Two --
unleashed their own barrage late afternoon.

As Grad and other rockets, shells and machinegun
fire rained down on them, NTC combatants, taken by
surprise, quickly fled the positions on the edge
of the two neighbourhoods that they had held since
Friday night.

Thick black smoke covered the two districts.

In a provisional casualty toll issued before the
breakout, medics at a field hospital on the
western outskirts of Sirte said one person was
killed and around a dozen injured on Saturday.

"Kadhafi fighters are now concentrated in a small
place but we can't enter all at the same time. We
need a plan to defeat them," Omran Allahoyb,
commander of a Misrata brigade, said before the
pro-Kadhafi advance.

"We can take this place in one day but I will lose
100 men," he said, adding that the best strategy
would be to bomb the area of around 1.5 square
kilometres (about half a square mile) into
defeat.

NTC commanders had earlier said they decided at a
meeting to hold off on an all-out assault on the
Dollar and Number Two districts in a bid to
capture alive the top regime figures they believe
are holed up there.

"The resistance from the two neighbourhoods is
high because we believe there are four to five
important people inside," eastern front operations
chief Wesam bin Hamaibi said after the meeting.

"We are sure that (Kadhafi's son and his national
security chief) Mutassim and (ousted defence
minister) Abu Bakr Yunis are inside," he said.

"We also believe that Seif al-Islam (another of
Kadhafi's sons) and Kadhafi (himself) are possibly
inside.

"We want to capture them alive to hand them over
to the judiciary rather than killing them, which
is why we are still not going to have a massive
attack."

Sirte is a key goal for the NTC, which has said it
will not proclaim Libya's liberation and begin
preparing for the transition to an elected
government until the city has fallen.

On another front, Libya's new leadership pressed a
campaign to clear Tripoli of armed Kadhafi
loyalists after gunbattles killed three people on
Friday in the first fighting to rock the capital
since its capture in August.

The head of Tripoli's supreme military council,
Abdelhakim Belhaj, pledged tough action against
the pro-Kadhafi fighters and "sleeper cells" of
the former regime, which he said would be targeted
in the clean-up operation.

Pro-Kadhafi gunmen clashed with NTC fighters in
Abu Salim, a district around 10 kilometres (six
miles) south of the city centre known to harbour
supporters of the fugitive strongman.

"The fighters are in the process of clearing the
buildings in the area of Kadhafi loyalists," said
Hamad, 40, an NTC soldier manning one of the
checkpoints in the neighbourhood.

Abdelrazaq al-Aradi, vice president of the
security committee in Tripoli, said three people
were killed in the clashes there -- two Kadhafi
loyalists and one NTC fighter -- and another 30
people wounded.

Source - AFP

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