TRIPOLI: Rebels have repulsed a counter-offensive by forces loyal to Libyan leader Moamer Qaddafi southwest of Tripoli, after NATO warplanes blitzed his war machine in the capital.
Qaddafi’s forces attacked the western desert hamlet of Gualish on Sunday and shelled the region before pulling back under rebel rocket fire as NATO warplanes flew overhead, an AFP correspondent reported.
Three hours of intense fighting ensued and at least two people were wounded.
Rebels in Gualish said they had prevented regime forces from getting within at least a kilometer (less than a mile) of the hamlet, and that they had been reinforced from Zintan, their main base in western Libya.
The insurgents, who have been fighting to oust Qaddafi since mid-February, recaptured Gualish earlier this month and are planning to use it as a launch pad for a western assault on the regime’s Tripoli stronghold.
They said their campaign to attack Tripoli from the east has been slowed by efforts to remove an estimated 45,000 land mines from around Brega, a process hampered by a lack of specialized kit.
"We have no choice. We have to clear the sand of mines," Mohammed Zawawy, a spokesman for the Union of Revolutionary Forces in Ajdabiya, told AFP.
The mine problem had sapped some momentum from the campaign to clear Brega of loyalists, although the rebels said Sunday they captured one soldier and sent scores more fleeing west to Bishir village on the road to Ras Lanuf.
Rebels have captured between 10 and 20 regime troops since they seized Brega on July 18, he said, adding one prisoner claimed loyalist fighters had sown "over 45,000 mines" around the Mediterranean town.
In the capital itself, Qaddafi’s compound came under NATO air attack on Sunday, a NATO official said.
"In Tripoli there were two command and control nodes, two surface-to-air missile launchers and one anti-aircraft gun (hit)," the official said from the mission’s headquarters in Naples, Italy.
An AFP reporter reported two blasts at 00:50 am (2250 GMT) in the area housing Qaddafi’s residence, followed by more explosions in the eastern and southeastern suburbs.
Qaddafi’s complex was also targeted by NATO warplanes on Saturday, when the alliance confirmed seven strikes and said they hit a military command node.
A NATO official in Brussels told AFP Saturday’s strikes targeted the walls of the complex, hitting "guard towers because they were securing the command and control centre."
NATO said in its latest operational update issued on Monday that it struck one tank in Zintan, and another tank and a multiple rocket launcher in nearby Gharyan.
It also took out another tank, a surface-to-air missile launcher and a military storage facility in Tripoli, and another such facility in the eastern oil town of Brega.
The strikes came after rebel forces said they had infiltrated the capital and attacked a regime command post where a son of the strongman was among officials targeted, seriously injuring a high-ranking member of Qaddafi’s security forces.
On Thursday, "there was an attack on an operations centre of top regime officials, including Seif al-Islam Qaddafi," National Transitional Council (NTC) vice president Ali Essawy said after meeting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Rome.
He said one high-ranking security official was "seriously injured."
Frattini said the "rocket attack against an operations centre" probably in a Tripoli hotel was aimed at "top officials… include Qaddafi’s son Seif, and the head of the secret service, Abdullah al-Senussi."
Libyan officials denied the attack had occurred and denounced as "criminal and unjustified" what they said were NATO raids that killed six guards at a pipeline factory south of an oil plant in Brega.
Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim told reporters rebel forces were losing in the east and to the southwest, and were trying "to boost their morale with lies and small victories."
Qaddafi said in an audio message broadcast on state television late Saturday that the unrest was a "colonial plot," without elaborating.
The strongman also denied accusations by international rights groups of a brutal suppression of dissent and allegations that his regime had killed thousands of protesters.
"They lie to you and say, ‘Libya kills its people with bullets, that is why we have come to protect civilians’," Qaddafi said of the UN-mandated NATO air campaign aimed at protecting civilians in Libya.
Meanwhile the foreign ministry in Sofia said Monday that Bulgaria has declared a Libyan diplomat, Ibrahim al-Furis, a "persona non grata" and will have to leave the country within 24 hours, without elaborating.
