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Libya rebels: Brega oil installations boobytrapped

22 July 2011 03:32 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi’s troops have boobytrapped petroleum installations in the strategic oil port of Brega so they can be blown up if his regime loses the town, a top rebel official said Thursday, APA reports sitingnews.yahoo.com webpage.
The Libyan leader also delivered yet another defiant speech in which he didn’t foresee any talks with rebels between now and the end of time.
"I will not speak to them, there will be no words between us until the Day of Judgement," Gadhafi said in a speech addressing crowds in his hometown of Sirte in the center of the country. "It is the voice of the Libyan people, free and defiant, that will respond to them."
The address is the latest in a series of speeches accompanied by large rallies in different cities across the country over the past week to bolster support for the regime in the face of international backing for the rebels.
Mahmoud Jibril, the rebels’ diplomatic chief, said Gadhafi’s forces have boobytrapped oil fields. He did not state which fields. Although Brega is a key oil processing and shipment hub, the fields that feed it lie far to the south in the Libyan desert. It does, however, contain massive containers filled with oil and natural gas read to be offloaded onto ships.
"Unfortunately, Brega is a big minefield right now," Jibril told reporters after meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jimenez. "We discovered that they planted mines all over the place. Even some oil establishments, some oil fields, have been full of bombs, explosives."