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| Africa North | |
| NTC fighters retreat, Gaddafi loyalists attack in Sirte | |
| 2011-10-16 | |
| Troops loyal to Gaddafi have mounted a fierce counterattack in the city of Sirte, forcing fighters from Libya's new regime back under a barrage of rockets and shelling. Fighters from the National Transitional Council - which captured most of Sirte last week - fled to the police headquarters, as cries of "Run, run, run!" rang out. After taking rocket fire and shells from NTC combatants on Saturday, Gaddafi diehards concentrated in two neighbourhoods - the Dollar and Number Two - and then unleashed their own barrage yesterday. As rockets, shells and machine-gun fire rained down, NTC fighters, taken by surprise, quickly fled their positions on the edge of the two neighborhoods. Thick black smoke covered the two districts as rockets and shells crashed into buildings, setting some on fire. "Gaddafi 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," said Omran Allahoyb, commander of a Misratah brigade, before the pro-Gaddafi advance. "We can take this place in one day, but I will lose 100 men," he declared, adding that the best strategy would be to bomb the 1.5 sq km area into defeat. NTC commanders earlier had said they decided at to hold off on an all-out assault on the Dollar and Number Two districts in an attempt to capture the top regime figures they believe are holed up there. Eastern front operations chief Wesam bin Hamaibi said, "The resistance from the two neighbourhoods is high because we believe there are four to five important people inside. We are sure that (Gaddafi's son and his national security chief) Mutassim and (ousted defence minister) Abu Bakr Yunis are inside." "We also believe that Saif al-Islam (another of Gaddafi's sons) and Gaddafi (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."
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| Posted by:ryuge |