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| Africa North |
| Gaddafi forces shell rebel positions |
| 2011-06-16 |
| Forces loyal to Muammar Qadaffy, the Libyan leader, have shelled rebel positions in the western mountains, after opposition fighters edged closer to the capital on three fronts. A rebel front man in the town of Nalut said there were no casualties from the shelling on Wednesday. "Qadaffy's forces bombarded Nalut ... Over 20 Grad rockets ...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km.... landed in the town. They bombarded from their positions ... around 20km east of Nalut," he said, adding that they had also shelled the Wazin-Dehiba Tunisia border crossing. The rebels have made advances in key areas in recent days but still have to overcome heavy odds if they are to successfully march on Qadaffy's well-defended territory. The rebels said NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... leaflets warning of helicopter strikes had prevented them from pushing towards Zlitan, and had prompted some rebels to retreat from their newly-captured positions about 10km outside the city, towards their base in Misrata, east of Tripoli. A NATO official said the alliance dropped the leaflets west of Misrata, and closer to Zlitan. A Rooters news agency correspondent in Misrata said there were no further advances towards Zlitan on Wednesday. NATO war planes bombed Tripoli, the capital, on Tuesday night, causing loud kabooms that filled the sky with plumes of smoke, but there were no further reports of bombing on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the rebels tried to advance in the east, setting their sights on the oil town of Brega to extend their control over the region, epicentre of the four-month rebellion against Qadaffy's four-decade rule. In a sign that Qadaffy's forces may be getting stretched, the rebels seized the town of Kikla, 150km southwest of Tripoli. ... which means Fran and Ollie have to fall soon... |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 They bombarded from their positions ... around 20km east of Nalut," he said, adding that they had also shelled the Wazin-Dehiba Tunisia border crossing. Nalut is like 40km from the border crossing, so I'm guessing that these wondrous rocketeers were *not* bombarding both locations from the same position. Which probably means, if these are even the same units, that they've been zooming back and forth along that beautiful Wazin-Tripoli superhighway without any significant opposition, which makes this: In a sign that Qadaffy's forces may be getting stretched, the rebels seized the town of Kikla, 150km southwest of Tripoli. incredibly pointless, as Kikla is a valley town way the hell away from anything even remotely strategic. And by strategic, I mean "blocking positions which keeps the other side from rampaging at will through your back country". The Berbers seem to show no interest whatsoever in securing their rear. In fact, the more I look at the map of the Berber areas in west-central Libya, the more I realize that Gaddafi built the whole damn roadnet as a trap for the Berbers. There's a set of parallel military highways running through the open desert to the north and south of the little villages and towns between Nalut and Kikla, so that it's simple as pie for mechanized forces to roam at will, raiding or shelling rebellious towns like Zintan and Nalut and Kikla, and scooting off on beautiful concrete highways to get supplies and rest at some garrison town somewhere, far from the clouds of smoke and the screaming. The rebels can take every town along that corridor and never stop the regime from blowing shit up as they please, because none of the artery roads go *through* the towns. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2011-06-16 15:05 |