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Rebels in captured town plan push towards Tripoli

09 August 2011 01:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Libyan rebels who seized this town 80 km (50 miles) south of Tripoli said on Monday they would now push on toward Muammar Gaddafi’s stronghold in the capital but expected a tough fight, APA reports quoting Reuters.

This small settlement in the desert is now the closest rebel position to Tripoli and its capture at the weekend is likely to inject some new momentum into a six-month campaign to oust Gaddafi which has been faltering over the past few weeks.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters had been camped since late June on the outskirts of Bir al-Ghanam, unable to advance. According to rebels in the town Monday, they moved in Saturday under cover from NATO warplanes.

They said their next target was Zawiyah, a town on the Mediterranean coast 50 km west of Tripoli.

Zawiyah was the scene of two failed uprisings against Gaddafi’s rule since February. Many of the fighters in Bir al-Ghanam are from there, although many of those who took part in uprisings are now in the Gaddafi government’s prisons or dead.

"Our aim is to get to Zawiyah. Once we do that Gaddafi is finished," said rebel fighter Murad Bada, who was sitting under the shade of a tree and humming a song about Zawiyah.

Rebel progress on the battlefield has nonetheless been slower than Western countries expected when they began air strikes against Gaddafi in March. The rebels have been hampered by divisions, revealed starkly 12 days ago when their military chief was assassinated in circumstances that remain unexplained.

Rebel leaders said Monday they had dissolved their executive committee over its handling of the assassination. A spokesman for the rebels’ governing National Transitional Council (NTC) told Al Jazeera television committee head Mahmoud Jibril had been asked to form a new executive body of ministers.

"Given the shortcomings in the performance of some members of the executive committee with regard to this crisis and this incident, the Council has decided to form a new committee," rebel spokesman Abdel-Hafiz Ghoga told the TV channel.

Rebel army head Abdel Fattah Younes was shot dead on July 28 after being recalled from the front to testify to a judicial committee investigating the military campaign. Rebels said Younes was killed by an allied militia.