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Rebels drive back Gaddafi forces west of Misrata
MISRATA, Libya — Rebels fighting to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi drove his forces westwards from the besieged port city of Misrata on Monday and were poised to make another thrust, an AFP correspondent reported as NATO said the strongman’s time was running out.

After heavy clashes, the insurgents were in control of a long stretch of road hugging the coastline west of Misrata, Libya’s third city which Gaddafi’s forces have laid siege to for more than two months, forcing thousands to flee.

The Red Thingy Cross said meanwhile it delivered a shipment of humanitarian aid to the rebel-held western city amid concerns that Gaddafi’s forces may have dropped mines into the harbour from helicopters bearing the Red Thingy Cross emblem.
That'll get them a sternly-worded reprimand from Geneva...
On the battlefront, the rebels managed to force Gaddafi’s troops about 15 kilometres (10 miles) from Misrata on Monday, advancing to Dafnia and ready to move on Zliten, the next major town on the road to Tripoli, an AFP correspondent said.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said time was running out for Gaddafi, who would ultimately lose his decades-old grip on power given the “wind of change” sweeping the Arab world, the death of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and mounting pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“The game is over for Gaddafi” who “should realise sooner rather than later that there’s no future for him or his regime,” Rasmussen told CNN late Sunday.

“We have stopped Gaddafi in his tracks. His time is running out. He’s more and more isolated,” the NATO chief said.
We? Who is this 'we' to which he refers?
NATO said Monday that in latest sorties its warplanes hit five rocket launchers, one self-propelled artillery piece, one truck-mounted gun and three buildings “hosting active shooters” in the vicinity of Misrata. It also hit 26 ammunition depots and 16 “vehicle storages” near Hun, eight military vehicles near Brega, two military operational facilities near Tripoli and four ammunition dumps near Zintan.

The fighting has been heaviest in and around Misrata, a make-or-break city in the Libyan conflict about 200 kilometres (125 miles) east of the capital. A thick plume of smoke spread on Sunday over the city, the main source of supplies to rebels in western Libya, from blazing fuel depots that Gaddafi’s forces bombed a day earlier.

As long queues formed at fuel stations amid fears of shortages, rebels warned Misrata’s residents could run out of food and water within a month if they are not provided with “game-changing” weapons to defeat Gaddafi’s forces.

Because of shelling of the city’s port over the past two weeks, only one aid ship a week is now reaching Misrata, said a spokesman in the eastern rebel bastion of Benghazi. The latest shipment of aid to land in the port on Monday morning was carrying surgical kits, spare parts to repair water and electrical supply systems, and 8,000 jars of baby food, the Red Thingy Cross said in a statement.
Posted by: Steve White 2011-05-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=322267